Yes, the $99 version has a touchscreen, the $79 version does not. The touchless one is there mostly for people that do NOT want a touchscreen on their e-reader. And, yes, those people exist in quantity.

The lack of keyboard and touch screen of the low-end model will only likely affect those people playing games (and other active content) on their Kindle. Most folks won't notice if all they do is read books.

Pay no attention to the OP. Their lowest end version of the Kindle ($79) has no touch screen, nor does it have a physical keyboard. Every other version has either a touchscreen or a physical keyboard.

Amazon's margins don't come from the devices, they aren't Apple. They make their money from the stuff you buy from them, regardless of what device you use. If owning a Kindle or Kindle Fire helps you buy more stuff, they want you to have one. It's that simple.

The "cloud" portion of Silk is supposedly optional and can be shut off by the user. I'd imagine this is true mostly so people can still browse when a portion of their Silk tech goes apeshit (which it will at some point). They wouldn't want to stop people from shopping, now would they?

This. I've never received junk email from Amazon and I've been a customer since 1997.

So... what? It's an advanced form of out-of-order execution. Big deal, it's been around a LONG time. Revolutionary my ass.

It does if you're running 8 on ARM. Not to mention the inability of the 32-bit variants to run 64-bit stuff. There is plenty of room for confusion if people don't know the basics of their OS. There is also plenty of software that has to use a slightly different method of installation on Windows 7 versus XP (running the setup as administrator, for instance).

Should also spawn random acts of violence toward PC sales people and fits of expletives from all.

Wait. Many (most?) people don't know the difference between Windows XP and Windows 7, let alone the differences between the 32-bit and 64-bit variants. You ask them what operating system they have and they'll say "Windows" without any qualifiers. Now you add into that mix a Windows 8 that also supports ARM but has no compatibility with x86 and what do you get? A whole lot of confusion stemming from people not even knowing what to ask for when they go to buy a piece of software for their computers.

Not the fault of Microsoft? What are you smoking?

With Apple you get high prices AND pollution in China. :p

Let's not forget the Commodore 64! :p

I helped bring the Windows average up a little by giving them $25. Damn cheapskates giving them $1 ought to feel ashamed.

I am all three of those people and I find your post offensive. :p

I was wondering why you got marked flame bait. I agree with you, for the most part.

The Linux community, especially the people working on driver technology, need to come to some common ground so the hardware folks don't have such a hard time supporting Linux. I'm rooting for Linux in the long run, but I don't see how they will hit any significant desktop numbers without some serious standardization on the driver front (like an ABI).