The Kindle's powerful CPU is for GSM (which takes much more processing power than cable), audio, creating detailed log files and especially indexing e-books, searching those e-books, AZW2 application programs, TTS etc. But I do agree that a Freescale 532 MHz ARM11 CPU is a bit overkill. Kindle should have a variable clock rate to save power when it's not in use. And here's an interesting fact: Kindle 2 had a graphics chip capable of high-speed screen updates (2048 x 1536 at 50+ Hz). The only limitation is the e-ink screen itself. Now that's overkill!
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