The Kindle Touch is Amazon's answer to a new generation of touch-enabled monochrome E Ink e-readers. But while Amazon was almost last to enter the "touch-enabled" e-reader market (following Sony e-readers such as the Reader Wi-Fi PRS-T1, as well as Whitcoulls Kobo eReader), the Kindle Touch did arrive just in time for 2011's holidays.

Click here to buy your Amazon Kindle Touch now.

The Kindle Touch may be last to the party, but it's excellent overall. Although it doesn't have the page-turn buttons and variety of fonts some of it's competitors do, its sleek form factor, display contrast, and "experimental" audio and Web functions give it an edge, as we’ll detail later.

Priced at $99 USD, the cheapest version of the Kindle Touch (the one we are reviewing). But note that that's for Amazon's advertising-subsidized “Special Offers” version of the device. Location-targeted ads take over the screen saver when Wi-Fi is turned on, and small ads appear at the bottom of the Home page. To refuse the ads, you'll have to buy Amazon's $139 version of the Kindle Touch, which then puts this device into the same range as the Kobo eReader. Thankfully, you don’t have to make a firm decision at point of purchase. You can buy this $99 ad-supported Kindle and opt out of the ads later on by heading to your Manage Your Devices page on Amazon.com, and paying Amazon the extra $40.

Note that Amazon also offers the Kindle Touch in a pair of “free 3G” models (at $149 and $189, with and without "Special Offers," respectively), for those who need a roving Internet connection or don’t have easy access to Wi-Fi. We didn't look at those models, but apart from the cellular wireless access, they're functionally the same as the model we reviewed here.

If you're looking for a local New Zealand source for the Kindle Touch then unfortunately you are out of luck. There are no current stockists of the Kindle Fire in NZ. Our advice is to purchase one from Amazon.com direct and be wowed at the time it takes for a courier to knock on your door with your new Kindle Touch. It is amazing how quickly they are delivered (maybe they took a lesson from their recent Zappos.com purchase here).

Verdict: Though last to the touch-input e-reader party, Amazon delivered a winner with the Kindle Touch. It gets our nod for sleek design, as well as its MP3-playback, text-to-speech, and Web-browsing functions. (Not to mention Amazon's awesome content ecosystem.)