Amazon Kindle 4 review

While Amazon has recently announced its intention to compete in the all-singing all-dancing tablet market with the forthcoming launch of the Fire, it hasn't stopped tinkering with its simple but hugely popular Kindle e-book device.

Launched on Tuesday, the Kindle 4 represents the next stage in the development of the product and most notably sees Amazon replace the physical keyboard found on former versions of the device with a virtual keyboard and five-way control button.

This has enabled Amazon to make the device smaller, but in terms of usability the move is actually something of a step backwards.

Inputting is much slower and quite frustrating, with the user having to scroll from one letter to another on the virtual keypad. The keyboard on the current version is hardly swish, with the keys fiddly to use, but it is a lot quicker than the Kindle 4 system.

However, while the change in the keyboard is not much of an improvement, it does indeed help make the device a lot smaller and lighter, weighing in at just 170g and measuring 166x114x9mm.

Amazon claims this makes the new model 30 per cent lighter and almost 20 per cent smaller. It takes up less space than a small paperback, so for those wanting a very compact e-book that can fit easily into a jacket pocket, the Kindle 4 could prove tempting.