The Old Kindle Gets a “Refresh”

At lunch today I commented to my wife that I was disappointed that when Amazon released the new Kindle they didn’t at least give us a firmware update for TOK (The Original Kindle.)  Well, it turns out I whined too soon!  I saw this today on the Amazon’s Kindle Forum site:

A new software update for Kindle has rolled out. This update (version 1.2) adds the following features:

– Zoom any image in Kindle books or periodicals by selecting the image using the scroll wheel.
– Individual items and groups of items can be deleted directly from the Home screen. Simply scroll to the item you wish to delete and push the backspace key.
– Improved character and font support including Greek characters and monospace fonts.

It turns out there are a few other hidden feature changes.

At this point the most obvious is the screen refresh.  Many of you know that TOK has a refresh cycle that some considered slow, and would flash a “reverse image” before showing the next page.  That was changed in TNK (The New Kindle) and the 2.0 Kindle reportedly has a 20% faster screen refresh rate.  Well, apparently this firmware update does the same.

I will continue using the update, and will report what else I find–so stay tuned!