Amazon announced a new Kindle this week with dramatic improvements over its predecessors.

Amazon announced two new versions of the Kindle on July 28, 2010. One of these, the Kindle Wi-Fi, is initially priced at $139, and will connect to the internet exclusively via public or private Wi-Fi networks. The other version, considered a replacement to the Kindle 2, is priced at $189 and includes both 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity.

The Kindle 3 with 3G is available in two colors: classic white and graphite, the same colors in which the Kindle DX is offered. Like the DX, both models use the new e-ink display, which Amazon claims is 50% better in contrast.

The New Kindle

The Kindle 3 is 0.5 inches shorter and 0.5 inches narrower than the Kindle 2. It supports additional fonts and international Unicode characters. An experimental browser based on the popular WebKit platform is included, as well as text-to-speech menu navigation. Internal memory is expanded to 4 GB. The battery can allegedly last for up to one month of reading with the wireless radios turned off.

Pre-orders for the new Kindle began concurrent with the announcement of the device, and Amazon plans to begin shipping the devices on August 27, 2010 in the United States and United Kingdom.