Kindle 3 technical specifications

Stonecold · 10-21-2010, 03:19 AM

Does anyone here know any of the technical specifications of the Kindle 3 (e.g. RAM size and type, CPU clock speed etc)?

wallcraft · 10-21-2010, 03:31 AM

See the E-book Reader Matrix. Some of the info comes from hardware teardowns, and some may be wrong. It does not include the amount of RAM, although a jail broken Kindle can probably find out this and confirm some of the other details via software.

lgx · 10-21-2010, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonecold

Does anyone here know any of the technical specifications of the Kindle 3 (e.g. RAM size and type, CPU clock speed etc)?

Kindle 3 wifi:

Processor : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 3 (v6l)
BogoMIPS : 511.18
Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp java

RAM size is 256M.

Stonecold · 10-21-2010, 03:58 AM

I assume the RAM is SRAM? If it is, then how many transistors per bit?

Tiersten · 10-21-2010, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonecold

I assume the RAM is SRAM?

DRAM. You're never going to find 256MB worth of SRAM in a consumer device.

badbob001 · 10-21-2010, 11:37 AM

It's interesting that the K3 has double the ram over the latest DX.

Tiersten · 10-21-2010, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by badbob001

It's interesting that the K3 has double the ram over the latest DX.

Yeah. The DXG is pretty much an old DX but with the newer eInk Pearl screen and a graphite casing.

Stonecold · 10-21-2010, 01:15 PM

What's the maximum amount of SRAM found in a consumer device?

curstpriest · 10-21-2010, 06:20 PM

Kind of curious why they bothered upgrading the K3 to 256, as 128 should be more than enough for what the thing should need.

Better web browsing experience?

Stonecold · 10-21-2010, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by curstpriest

Kind of curious why they bothered upgrading the K3 to 256, as 128 should be more than enough for what the thing should need.

Better web browsing experience?

Yes. Have you ever noticed that you can load a web page on a Kindle 2 but sometimes when you scroll down you have to wait an extra couple seconds while it loads (e.g. wait for page to load=> page 1=> page 2=> page 3=> page 4=> loading=> page 5=> page 6 etc)? I found out that it has to stop to load if the next page (or next section you scroll to) has an image. With Kindle 3, the entire page loads first along with every image. That way, you can view the entire page that you are on as if it were a complicated e-book in HTML. No further loading required.

Also, have you ever noticed that Kindle 2 sometimes says "Basic Web is running low on memory. Please restart your Kindle from Settings". This is because (obviously) Basic Web is taking up too much RAM and can't load much more. This almost never happens on a Kindle 3.

The doubling of memory allows Kindle 3 to do things like load an entire e-book into its RAM as soon as you you open it. When you open an e-book on a Kindle 2, only the first 7 or so pages are loaded into the device's RAM which means that every 7th or so page will take extra long to turn to.

Have you noticed that, if you listen to background music on Kindle 2 while navigating a complex (or even simple) webpage, the music often pauses or becomes choppy (or even stopes entirely)? This is not a problem for Kindle 3. This is because Kindle 3 has enough RAM to allocate a generous percentage to the audio buffers and still have plenty of it left over.

As RAM is getting cheaper, Amazon are able to put a very large amount of it into their devices.

Tiersten · 10-21-2010, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonecold

Yes. Have you ever noticed that you can load a web page on a Kindle 2 but sometimes when you scroll down you have to wait an extra couple seconds while it loads (e.g. wait for page to load=> page 1=> page 2=> page 3=> page 4=> loading=> page 5=> page 6 etc)? I found out that it has to stop to load if the next page (or next section you scroll to) has an image. With Kindle 3, the entire page loads first along with every image. That way, you can view the entire page that you are on as if it were a complicated e-book in HTML. No further loading required.

Completely different HTML rendering engine. It isn't because the Kindle 3 has more RAM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonecold

Also, have you ever noticed that Kindle 2 sometimes says "Basic Web is running low on memory. Please restart your Kindle from Settings". This is because (obviously) Basic Web is taking up too much RAM and can't load much more. This almost never happens on a Kindle 3.

See above.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonecold

Have you noticed that, if you listen to background music on Kindle 2 while navigating a complex (or even simple) webpage, the music often pauses or becomes choppy (or even stopes entirely)? This is not a problem for Kindle 3. This is because Kindle 3 has enough RAM to allocate a generous percentage to the audio buffers and still have plenty of it left over.

See above again.

The bigger buffer theory would be true if it had to load the MP3 files off a HDD of some kind but the Kindle uses flash so loading from the "drive" is quick so no. You don't need to cache the MP3 in memory.

Stonecold · 10-21-2010, 08:08 PM

Right. The "completely different HTML rendering engine" is actually called "Webkit-based Mozilla5.0 mobile browser".

And a large page is a large page regardless of the rendering software. Kindle 2 can't support large pages because it would take up too much of its RAM. The browser software is only responsible for displaying the web page.

The audio player doesn't need a buffer between the flash and the CPU: it needs a buffer between the CPU and the speakers. When the CPU is dealing with rendering a very large web page, it doesn't have the processing power to prepare audio for the speakers and continue to render the web page at maximum speed. It deals with this by processing the audio first, storing a second or two worth of audio in a buffer, and then playing it through the speakers. This way, when it's rendering a complicated web page, it can play the audio from its buffer and catch up on the audio processing that it had to put aside to deal with the web page when it's not as busy. It's like the Nintendo DS's dedicated VRAM: the Nintendo DS can obviously read from its ROM cartridge fast enough to create an image on its screens. It needs dedicated VRAM so that it has some backup video in case it has to deal with aspects of gameplay that require all of its "attention".

You might be right, though. It could be that Amazon didn't have any good reason to put in double the RAM and just acted foolishly. They should have asked you first.

Tiersten · 10-21-2010, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonecold

You might be right, though. It could be that Amazon didn't have any good reason to put in double the RAM and just acted foolishly. They should have asked you first.

Um okay. Not bothering to answer any of your questions again if thats that the attitude you take. You've given similar responses in other threads to others as well.

Stonecold · 10-21-2010, 08:45 PM

I never asked that question. I looked everything up before I replied. I asked for the technical specs of the Kindle 3, and someone already answered my question.

curstpriest · 10-21-2010, 08:56 PM

Dude, I used to surf the web on mozilla 1.0-3.0 on my mac that had 32 mb ram and it could display images and format pages about as good as the kindle. Now that thing was also multitasking with an OS in the background + extensions and other crap too, and no virtual memory. So let's be serious now.

I'm pretty sure that a web browser, programmed correctly, can browse and view web pages (images+text) with many many many many pages as long as there is no active content (flash/java applets/etc)

Now then, as far as ebooks go, you can easily load the entire thing + the index into memory (take a few mb for most novels) and then render many many many pages in in both directions and store those too (which it probably does). I have no idea how the thing works. I'm not a hacker, I don't pretend to be. I'm not a script kiddie either. I have moderate programming skills with a background in c/c++/java/x86 assembly however, so I sometimes have some idea of how things work (or atleast think I do, though am often wrong).

Anyways. The hardware is well beyond what the thing needs to do IMO. So my question simply remains. Why can't the thing do what it should be able to do?

Simple answer? Nobody has bothered to write the software to do it yet. For whatever reason it has not yet happened. Perhaps the coders don't want to take the time to do it, or the coding is poor and uses a lot of resources that it should not (if this is the case, they should revise their code and fall back to simpler/different rendering engines to make better use of the hardware they have).

10-21-2010, 03:19 AM	#1
Stonecold Connoisseur Posts: 95 Karma: 500 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Davis, CA Device: Kindle 3 (B006)	Kindle 3 technical specifications Does anyone here know any of the technical specifications of the Kindle 3 (e.g. RAM size and type, CPU clock speed etc)?

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10-21-2010, 03:31 AM	#2
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,975 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	See the E-book Reader Matrix. Some of the info comes from hardware teardowns, and some may be wrong. It does not include the amount of RAM, although a jail broken Kindle can probably find out this and confirm some of the other details via software.

10-21-2010, 03:58 AM	#4
Stonecold Connoisseur Posts: 95 Karma: 500 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Davis, CA Device: Kindle 3 (B006)	I assume the RAM is SRAM? If it is, then how many transistors per bit?

10-21-2010, 11:37 AM	#6
badbob001 Fanatic Posts: 556 Karma: 1102020 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: Kindle Keyboard (rip), Kindle Voyage, Fire Tablet 10 '17, iPad '19	It's interesting that the K3 has double the ram over the latest DX.

10-21-2010, 01:15 PM	#8
Stonecold Connoisseur Posts: 95 Karma: 500 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Davis, CA Device: Kindle 3 (B006)	What's the maximum amount of SRAM found in a consumer device?

10-21-2010, 06:20 PM	#9
curstpriest Confused Posts: 402 Karma: 5538 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Bay Area Device: Kindle DXG	Kind of curious why they bothered upgrading the K3 to 256, as 128 should be more than enough for what the thing should need. Better web browsing experience?

10-21-2010, 08:08 PM	#12
Stonecold Connoisseur Posts: 95 Karma: 500 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Davis, CA Device: Kindle 3 (B006)	Right. The "completely different HTML rendering engine" is actually called "Webkit-based Mozilla5.0 mobile browser". And a large page is a large page regardless of the rendering software. Kindle 2 can't support large pages because it would take up too much of its RAM. The browser software is only responsible for displaying the web page. The audio player doesn't need a buffer between the flash and the CPU: it needs a buffer between the CPU and the speakers. When the CPU is dealing with rendering a very large web page, it doesn't have the processing power to prepare audio for the speakers and continue to render the web page at maximum speed. It deals with this by processing the audio first, storing a second or two worth of audio in a buffer, and then playing it through the speakers. This way, when it's rendering a complicated web page, it can play the audio from its buffer and catch up on the audio processing that it had to put aside to deal with the web page when it's not as busy. It's like the Nintendo DS's dedicated VRAM: the Nintendo DS can obviously read from its ROM cartridge fast enough to create an image on its screens. It needs dedicated VRAM so that it has some backup video in case it has to deal with aspects of gameplay that require all of its "attention". You might be right, though. It could be that Amazon didn't have any good reason to put in double the RAM and just acted foolishly. They should have asked you first.

10-21-2010, 08:45 PM	#14
Stonecold Connoisseur Posts: 95 Karma: 500 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Davis, CA Device: Kindle 3 (B006)	I never asked that question. I looked everything up before I replied. I asked for the technical specs of the Kindle 3, and someone already answered my question.

10-21-2010, 08:56 PM	#15
curstpriest Confused Posts: 402 Karma: 5538 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Bay Area Device: Kindle DXG	Dude, I used to surf the web on mozilla 1.0-3.0 on my mac that had 32 mb ram and it could display images and format pages about as good as the kindle. Now that thing was also multitasking with an OS in the background + extensions and other crap too, and no virtual memory. So let's be serious now. I'm pretty sure that a web browser, programmed correctly, can browse and view web pages (images+text) with many many many many pages as long as there is no active content (flash/java applets/etc) Now then, as far as ebooks go, you can easily load the entire thing + the index into memory (take a few mb for most novels) and then render many many many pages in in both directions and store those too (which it probably does). I have no idea how the thing works. I'm not a hacker, I don't pretend to be. I'm not a script kiddie either. I have moderate programming skills with a background in c/c++/java/x86 assembly however, so I sometimes have some idea of how things work (or atleast think I do, though am often wrong). Anyways. The hardware is well beyond what the thing needs to do IMO. So my question simply remains. Why can't the thing do what it should be able to do? Simple answer? Nobody has bothered to write the software to do it yet. For whatever reason it has not yet happened. Perhaps the coders don't want to take the time to do it, or the coding is poor and uses a lot of resources that it should not (if this is the case, they should revise their code and fall back to simpler/different rendering engines to make better use of the hardware they have).

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