Amazon has breathed new life into the Kindle Touch with an update to their firmware. With this latest version (5.3.2) some are calling the new Touch a “Kindle Paperwhite without the high resolution and frontlight”. I just installed the update to my personal Kindle Touch a few minutes ago and after a quick look, that appears to be an accurate assessment. This is a pretty exciting  update that was unexpected in light of of the fact that the Kindle Touch is a discontinued device.

To learn how to install this update on your Kindle Touch please visit this page.

New features in this update include:

Updated User Interface: We have an updated and streamlined interface for your Kindle. Archived Items has been renamed to Cloud and appears in the top left of your screen under the toolbar. All your archived items can be found there.

Book Covers on the Home screen: View the covers of your books by selecting Cover View in the menu from the Home screen.

Time to Read: Kindle Touch calculates your reading speed to let you know when you’ll finish your chapter or book.

Recommended Content: We’ve made it easy to discover new titles with recommended content. The Kindle Store uses the same personalised customer experience you’re used to across Amazon.co.uk; matching our best recommendations to your personal reading habits.

Enhanced Sample-to-Book Experience: When you buy a book after reading a sample, we will now automatically start the book at your last reading location in the sample and remove the sample from your Kindle.

Parental Controls: With the latest software update, parents can restrict access to the Experimental Web Browser, Kindle Store, and Cloud. When the Kindle Store and Cloud are locked with Parental Controls, you can continue to buy books from a computer and send them to your Kindle wirelessly.

Children’s Books and Comics: Children’s books come to life with Kindle Text Pop-Up, enabling you to easily read text over images. Comic books can now be read with Kindle Panel View, which allows you to read a comic book panel by panel.