Yeah yeah I know,
I've been bad. I haven't been writing here and you're all heartbroken. By now,
I'm sure you've gotten over it with minimal tears. This blog pops up in my mind
but has just fallen lower in my priority list. I'm writing this post in hopes
that it will energize me into writing posts with some regularity again!
Kindle Paperwhite Review
(Disclaimer: I do
work for Amazon but I do not work for the part of the company that produces
hardware or software for the Kindle. I'm sure in some indirect way your
purchase of a Kindle does benefit me, but I only buy into Amazon products that
I like. I'm certainly not being paid to write this review - quite the contrary,
I paid out of pocket for the full price of this device.)
I bought my first
Kindle a couple of years ago now. It was the Kindle Keyboard (i.e. the third
Kindle release) and I had gotten it because I felt like the Kindle folks had
finally hit their stride (see that review). The color was immediately attractive to me, the form
factor and weight overall was ideal for one handed reading, and the speed was
reasonable enough to where the black flashes on the screen didn't bug me. That
being said, I almost never used the keyboard, navigating the screen on the
directional pad was a chore, and I needed a $60 case in order to read in dim
lighting in an elegant way (the first party lighted leather case). Last winter
I jumped on the Kindle Touch bandwagon (see that review) for one primary reason: the infared touch screen.
The idea of not having to use that stupid d-pad was very enticing.
Additionally, there was X-ray (which sideloads Wikipedia content for
characters, places, and terms in books and tells you where in the book they're
mentioned), a greatly improved case (the old case had a serious issue with the
connection to the spine), and a page refresh that didn't require blacking out
the screen each time. Of course, the case was still $60 in order to read in dim
lighting and the smooth leather case attracted scratches like a magnet.
All-in-all, this was an evolutionary step forward that I only took because of
how much more I loved the Kindle than practically any other device I owned.
Flash forward to two
and a half weeks ago when I got my Kindle Paperwhite: there's no doubt that
this is superior in nearly every way to every single Kindle ever made and now
is the time to jump on the e-Reader bandwagon if you've been holding out. I'm very
confident that if you enjoy reading or if you're like me and enjoy reading
except when it means squinting for tiny text or lugging around heavy books, you
will not regret getting a Paperwhite. I'll start out talking about the new
features and what I like about it before I get to some of the areas for
improvement.
With each Kindle,
the team has gotten better at making the onboarding experience as pain-free as
possible. The Paperwhite was no exception. While I do slightly miss the fact
that in the past my Kindle already had my account information on it (could be
that for some unknown reason mine didn't while others did), the onscreen
tutorial as soon as you switch it on is awesome. You're ready to start using
it within a couple of minutes as long as you have connectivity (WiFi or 3G if
you got the 3G model). One key difference on the onboarding experience this
time is that they no longer make you suffer as an existing customer - getting
your content on there is much easier. They've changed the UI to be more like
the Amazon MP3 Player UI (and I think even the Kindle UI on non-Kindles) where
you have "Cloud" section and a
"Device" section with the major improvement of a drop down for type
of content (Periodical, Book, etc). So now, you just scroll through your cloud
content and tap the stuff you want to transfer over to your device. Since the
Kindle Touch, any personal documents you've transferred to your device through
Amazon is backed up in the cloud up to a reasonably high limit (books you buy
through Amazon are backed up without limit). So I had over 100 items to
transfer over, but because the Paperwhite is a bit zippier than past Kindles I
was able to tap all the items I cared about (probably 3/4 of my library) in
under 5 minutes, and over WiFi it was short work to get them all on there
(notes, bookmarks, and all). What's even better though is that you can now sync
your collections, as well! Once you've downloaded the content, you can sync
that metadata and it'll organize all your content within seconds into their old
collections. Cool, huh?
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| New Way of Indexing Your Content |
Getting down to the
screen itself, there are some real revolutionary changes here. First of all,
it's capacitive touch. I thought this would never be possible and I could be
totally wrong but I haven't heard of another e-reader pulling this off. The
Kindle Touch IR touch screen was fine but took some getting used to and meant
that objects other than your hands like maybe a piece of cloth from your
blanket falling on the screen would turn pages. Now, much like your smartphone
it requires your finger specifically to turn pages (or a sausage, but if you're
reading with raw meats in your hand then you're an odd duck). Secondly, the
lighting technology is phenomenal. While it's true that you can't see the light
coming out of one side of the device like you can on the latest generation
Nook, you can see around all the edges the slightest hint of the layer of light
under the screen if you turn it at the exact right angle. Plus, at the bottom
you see the tiniest bit of fading under dark conditions. Other than that, it's
stunning. Everyone that I've shown it to has been equally impressed. Even
better: even at its lowest brightness (which you control very easily via the
top menu from any context on the device you're in), it's a good bit whiter than
the Kindle Touch was. You'll notice this in the below photos with my old case
light on versus Paperwhite max lighting and no light on either. For the first
time ever, I really at times felt like I was reading a paper back book in high
definition. In the past the e-ink has always impressed and been super easy on
my eyes, but the grayish brown background always made it feel like an e-reader,
which wasn't a big deal to me. However, it's a very nice touch that you'll
almost immediately appreciate. I like how under well-lit situations, keeping
the light somewhere in the middle just improves the contrast and feels nice on
my eyes, and turning it up to the max it doesn't even seem like it's backlit at
all, just even prettier than before. In darker situations, I can turn it down
to the lower half of the lighting spectrum and read without issue or eye
irritation versus a bright white screen. I've only done this for 20 minute
bouts because reading in the dark a ton isn't great for you, but if your lamp
just isn't that bright, the Paperwhite has got your back. One other thing you
may notice in my photos is the contrast improvement. It's subtle, but it's
there. I couldn't really tell between the Kindle Keyboard and the Kindle Touch,
but I totally can now. Don't get me wrong, it's not a life-changing
improvement, but within an hour or so of reading on my Paperwhite I could feel
in my eyes that something was just different other than the whiter background,
and on super close inspection realized it was the addition of more pixels.
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| Paperwhite Max Brightness vs. Kindle Touch with Lighted Case |
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| Up Close with Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Touch (no light added) |
A recurring issue
for me in the past was the case - so how does this one stack up? This is the first
Kindle case where I'd give a five star rating. It's outstanding and a great
value at $40. I loved that they brought back the textured leather - it doesn't
scratch up and it grips so much better in my hands. The magnetic clasp is an
inspired touch. It may have been inspired by Apple, but I'll take it. It's the
perfect balance between the Kindle Keyboard strap and the Kindle Touch
free-balling look. When held in funky positions or dropped it doesn't fly open,
but it takes very little exertion to get it open. The best part for dorks out
there like me is the auto on/off thing. I thought it was just a gimmick when I
heard about it, but having used it for a couple of weeks now I'm just blown
away by how much it enhances my experience. I can literally read a little bit
while waiting on an elevator for a second because it turns on so quickly and I
love that I can shut it without being worried about hitting the physical home
button the Kindle Touch had or even the IR screen itself because I know there
is no physical button and that it'll turn off immediately. I like that the
inside of the front cover has a nice texture to it that looks really polished
and that the side, top, and bottom are a little rubbery to absorb shock better.
Just as before, the Paperwhite fits so snug that you'll never have to worry
about it falling out of the case or getting damaged because of how solid the
shell is.
So as I alluded to
earlier, I do have a couple of minor gripes. I'm bummed that they did away with
the swipe up and swipe down gestures. Formerly, these gestures let you skip
chapters and I loved it. I'm probably going to write in to the Kindle folks and
beg them to bring back this feature. I don't know why it went away. Speaking of
cut features, why can't I toggle WiFi
on/off from the top menu? I have to go to settings now to switch airplane mode
on/off. That makes it harder to conserve battery life because of the added work
so I'll probably sync less often. One other lost feature: text-to-speech. They
cut the speakers and headphone jack out very quietly (coincidentally), so
you'll have to opt for the cheap Kindle model if you're visually impaired,
which probably makes more sense. I'm not a fan of the black color. My favorite
Kindle color is still the graphite from the Kindle Keyboard. It's nice that the
back is more rubbery than the smooth Kindle Touch back, but the bezel being
black means that it retains your hand grease more easily (the screen itself
doesn't seem to, mainly just the bezel). The fact that the home screen has a
bottom row dedicated to recommendations and hot titles is kind of cool, but I
wish it was opt-out. I'd prefer to use the screen real estate for more
collections. Plus, it doesn’t even exclude books I've already bought, which is
disappointing; hopefully that'll get fixed later. Speaking of ads, the
ad-supported device only saves you $20 and requires a swipe-to-unlock (because
of the new case, I'm guessing). I think going ad-supported is silly now because
of this - it was a lot more sensible in past Kindles. One last gripe: the Paperwhite still isn't
lighter. I'm guessing they compromised here in favor of the battery life. With
the case on, it actually does feel a little easier to hold in one hand than the
Kindle Touch, but still not quite as nice as the Kindle Keyboard.
A couple of last
notes: the jury is still out for me on battery life. It's doing pretty well
overall, but after decent usage for a week and some change the battery is at
maybe 70%. So I don't think it'll hold up to the two months I was promised
(even with WiFi off), but I think it'll easily meet at least the month that my
old Kindle had even with the lighted screen, and I'm perfectly satisfied with
that. It's slightly zippier overall than the Kindle Touch. Page turns are a
little faster and the black screen flashes are so quick that you really barely
even notice them. Web browsing is a little better, too, but still nothing to
write home about.
Ok, I think I've
said enough here - as a whole, I hope I've given you a pretty good idea of what
the Kindle Paperwhite is like. If you own a Kindle 1 or 2, you need to upgrade
to this. Even if you have the Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Touch, I'd say this is
a nice upgrade but probably more valuable for the Kindle Keyboard users.
Personally, I don't at all regret my upgrade from the Kindle Touch. I really
feel like it was much more sensible than my upgrade from the Kindle Keyboard.
Book lovers unite - you finally have a device truly worthy of your affection.
