I have owned the original Paperwhite since it came out, and I love it - can't recommend it highly enough. The frontlighting is wonderful.
However, I really wish that this newer one had physical buttons on the side for turning the pages, like some of the other Kindle models. I find the touchscreen rather irritating when reading. It's much easier to have buttons on the side that you can press without moving your hand/finger.
If they had included this, I would easily have laid down $120 for an upgrade immediately.
I checked for 1) buttons, 2) a lighter version. Found none of the above, so I'll stick to my Kindle 3.
I don't think Amazon appreciates how important buttons are for reading in non-perfect setups. Sure, if you're on your couch or by the swimming pool, you might not care. But try reading on a subway or a bus. Or with gloves on.
Did you own a previous Kindle before your Paperwhite?
I got a chance to try one earlier this month, and compare it to my 3rd gen Kindle Keyboard. The backlight was nice, but I had a few problems with it.
The lack of physical buttons for page changing and the menus drove me nuts. If I'm holding a Paperwhite in my left hand, then to change to a new page I have to move my thumb out far enough, tap, and them bring my thumb "back in" so it doesn't cover the page. I found this to be rather annoying, having the buttons on both sides was so much easier.
The other problem I had was font rendering. The Paperwhite was supposed to have a sharper screen than my 3G, but I couldn't notice a difference in text. I'm guessing it's only obvious on pictures. But I did notice that fonts looked noticeably worse. There were little blobs where it looked like things weren't being kerned correctly. I could compare it directly to the same page on my old Kindle and see the difference. I found it quite distracting.
Other than that they made some small changes I didn't like. The fact that you just have to 'know' where on the screen to touch for certain things was a little odd. I kept accidentally turning the page when I wanted to bring up the menu. I really liked that it could estimate I'd be done with the chapter I was reading in 15 minutes, but I missed having the progress bar available.
I could probably survive the lack of physical buttons, but the font rendering issues really annoyed me. I'll happily keep my Kindle.
To change pages with your left thumb you don't have to move it all the way to the right - you can make a little swipe motion on the left side of the screen and it will skip a page.
I used to have the Kindle Keyboard(Kindle 3) and my god, its resolution was driving me crazy, like it was never sharp. Paperwhite is a lot better in that regard. HOWEVER - fonts get really jaggy after a few page turns, and that's because the paperwhite only refreshes the entire page every 5 or so turns. You can go to settings and tell it to refresh the entire page every turn - then the fonts are always super sharp.
From my personal perspective - I would NEVER trade my paperwhite back for the Kindle 3. I don't mind the lack of physical buttons, and the backlight makes it fantastic.
That's true, you could do the swipe. Either way I just missed the buttons.
> HOWEVER - fonts get really jaggy after a few page turns, and that's because the paperwhite only refreshes the entire page every 5 or so turns. You can go to settings and tell it to refresh the entire page every turn - then the fonts are always super sharp.
I know there is an option for that, but I didn't think to give it a try. Maybe that was the problem. I was just amazed that out of the box the font rendering was noticeably worse than a model that was at least 2 years older.
I don't know what the non-paperwhite ones are like, but the paperwhite screen quickly looks like a real mess if you have it set to refresh irregularly.
The paperwhite screen is nice, but whoever signed off on the paperwhite's touch UI exhibited some poor judgement. The onscreen keyboard is fine; the page turning is merely adequate; the book list and web browser scrolling is terrible. (The scrolling uses touch-and-drag, but the software doesn't actually scroll the screen until you release your finger, which makes it very hard to judge what's going on. Touching and dragging requires low latency and a high refresh rate, making it a very bad choice for an e-ink screen.)
A few physical inputs would make this device twice as good. Two buttons and a dpad would do it...
I will say I was very impressed with the on-screen keyboard. I could just hammer the little keys as fast as I could type a word, and while the screen couldn't update fast enough it didn't lose keystrokes.
It's sad that that's impressive, but that's where embedded software is today.
I have owned a Paperwhite since release day, and a Kindle 2 for several years before that. My feelings are mixed. I do REALLY miss the next/prev page buttons, and would happily shell out the money for a Paperwhite with buttons. I don't really miss the keyboard at all though. I mostly read at night so the lit screen is a bigger deal than the buttons, honestly. Couldn't ever go back. But both would be killer.
I've got a first generation Kindle and a Paperwhite. I definitely miss the buttons on cold nights.
With the original Kindle, I could comfortably read with every part of me except my face ensconced in warm blankets. A lobster claw like grip through the blanket easily held it in the left hand, and a bonk on the right side either with the right hand, or against my chest, would turn the page.
With the Paperwhite, I have to expose a finger (or bring the Kindle under the blanket) to turn the page.
I find it annoying because there'll be little specs of dust, dirt, or hair, and removing them requires careful movement or I'll page turn.
Also, has anyone noticed that the rendering gets slightly messed up (bolder) if you bring up a prompt, like the built-in dictionary? After it disappears, the area it covers has different font weight from the rest of the page, making me turn back and forth to reset it. Rather annoying.
My only issue with not having buttons is with links. I don't like to 'watch' where I'm pressing to change the page, but I am often reading a technical book that will link to footnotes and I accidentaly hit a footnote link and the book jumps to god knows where. Now I can't get back to the page I was on (no back button) and spend a bunch of time finding my way back to where I was reading. I've even given up on a book because I couldn't find where I had left off.
Otherwise I find I prefer my paper white to my past kindles.
You know, I had a Kindle 2 and I loved the buttons, but after a book or two with the Paperwhite I'm pretty much completely used to using the touchscreen. It felt risky, but I'm kind of glad now that I took the plunge and got one without any buttons at all- the bezel around the screen is so incredibly small now compared to my old K2.
Few things disgust me more on sites like reddit or hn than people sneaking in affiliate programs for monetary benefit. Would much appreciate it if mods could clean the url from this.
I'm a little bit surprised the HN software doesn't have rules to automatically scrub the links. Also there's no evidence the OP meant to post the affiliate link. He could have just got it off Twitter (or wherever) and pasted it into HN.
How is this different from the last Paperwhite model? I see "improved screen" and "faster processor". It seems like there's also some new software features, but that's just software. Is that all that's new?
To me it reads kind of like the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S. Most everyone who had an iPhone 4 didn't upgrade, but it gave the people with the iPhone 3 an extra nudge to upgrade, and also sends the message "hey guys, we're continually improving the device, even if the updates aren't always huge".
I'm planning to upgrade my old Paperwhite just for the hardware update, Processor and battery basically, I feel my current kindle kinda slow, and the battery dies pretty soon if you're with airplane mode off.
I have the wi-fi on permanently and it lasts more than a week of reading books every single day(backlight set to 12). I don't think I would upgrade just to improve that, it's plenty for me.
The hardware upgrade specifically mentioned processor speed. I would be mildly surprised to learn that Kindles are CPU-bound. I have always assumed the device was limited by the screen's refresh rate.
I just got a paperwhite a month ago as a present, having owned the last pre-paperwhite model - it's fabulous. This "All New" model seems to be... almost exactly the same?
Anyone know how software updates tend to apply to older kindles? as a lot of the "Features" seem to be minor software tweaks....
Sadly Amazon is notorious for not updating older models. (Owner of a paperwhite and original kindle fire). I guess that is a motivating force to upgrade (new purchase). I'm indifferent on the new hardware, but the software tweaks are really compelling...
It took several months, but Amazon did a major update to the Kindle Touch to the Paperwhite-like interface. I think it's likely that the old Paperwhite get the new updates.
Seriously. It's 2013. Make something that feels and has the space of a full-sized book. It's not that hard. Hell, use it as a loss-leader if you can't make the numbers work.
It's pretty clear that the consumers have spoken, and they value lightweight and compact and cheap over a large-screen. And Amazon would rather sell a stupidly cheap 5" model than a reasonably priced 8" one, because they just want more in people's hands.
Are you interested in a DX-sized device for reading PDFs?
And how good is the DX for reading PDFs anyway? They are smaller than a A4/legal page, which I image will mean that things will look small, unless you want to zoom in an out, which makes it un-book-y for me.
True, though I had a Pocketbook (902) and it was quite a finicky beast; customer service tried their best to help though. Also, it didn't have a "Pearl" display in those days though that might have changed now. I recall discussions on Mobileread where people had issues with Onyx as well. I wish BN would make a large-form e-ink reader: I have the (rooted) Nook and it is the best e-reader that I have ever owned.
I would have wished for more details - or rather, more features. When they talk about a better light, this is hopefully a more even light across the surface. For the "old" Paperwhite, the LEDs at the screen's bottom had a visible "aura" (no pun intended). The first production series were notorious for their color-shaded light (rather than being pure white). There seems to be room for improvement.
A 25% faster CPU is probably fine, however: what this device needs is a tad bit more RAM.
Otherwise, this doesn't make a great improvement. What that "better contrast" means remains to be seen.
As a Kindle hacker, I'm interested in what they did with the bootloader part. The Paperwhite is the first device since the Kindle DX(G) that cannot be put into "USB downloader" mode where you can re-flash the software. Given that even the original software is buggy and prone to get corrupted, that seems to be quite bad design - they can't easily refurbish units. Maybe today's pricing margins don't allow this anyway, though.
As for competing with the Kobo flagships, this is not an impressive new device.
With Amazon's cloud storage for books, not just ones purchased through them, the storage should really be considered ephemeral. I don't think that having enough space to store a large library of books should be considered a showstopper, when you can download books you've sent to your kindle via email at any time.
I do agree with the mechanical buttons. I love my PW, but miss the buttons.
I'll be testing this out tomorrow... but personally, I'm holding out for a larger device with higher resolution. The Kobo Aura HD is calling my name, actually.
Yeah I have similar sentiment. I think Aura HD would be ideal with bigger screen, in fact I thought this could distinguish Kindle, 6" is really OK, but something between 7 and 8 would be really what would make me get another one. I have non-glow Kindle. Maybe even something size of Kindle DX, but I would prefer slightly larger Kindle/Nook/Kobo.
BTW, Got Nook HD+ since they are so cheap, loving it!
Interesting indeed. Not that I would care if someone gets some money out of posting it on HN. Hell, that's the best kind of advertisement anybody could want.
For those that have the original, does it have a black background option? I find that in the dark the white screen hurts to read after a while (iPad Mini) so I switch between dark and light for night/dim and day outside.
Not AFAIK, but reading on a front-lit Paperwhite is a totally different experience from reading on an actively-lit tablet. I regularly read in the dark in bed, and I have no problem with it at all. When I read on my Nexus 7, I use the inverted scheme, but on the Paperwhite I just set the lighting to a comfortable level and off I go.
The hardware upgrade doesn't look that impressive - I'm happy with the current papewhite. The pageflip UI looks like it could be useful, as that's one of the few UI complaints I have with the kindle.
Personally I find the FreeTime feature to be the most interesting, or maybe amusing. They're gamifying reading, but I suppose parents were doing that already (read X books, get Y).
Now if only they'd fix hyphenation and justification, or make it easy to enable ragged right text I'd be happy. Currently I have to reformat everything in calibre before I read it.
Does anyone know how good the Kindle translation dictionaries are (e.g. Spanish-English, French-English, etc, dictionaries that you can bring up by selecting a word)?
Sony apparently has the reputation for having the best dictionaries, but the PRS-T1 I bought is so buggy it's nearly unusable - if I press a word, it has a one-in-three chance of freezing up for several minutes, and updating the firmware didn't help - so I'm thinking of switching to Kobo or Kindle, but I don't know if they're any better.
Send an e-mail to Jeff Bezos and ask if he'll honor that price :-)
It doesn't hurt to try. I've had great luck in the past when I e-mailed him. Just tell him that you're ready to buy it right now for $139.
I like my Kindle DX, but it the resolution is low and it makes it difficult to read magazine PDFs that I load on to it. It's great for reading regular books though.
The DX is not very good for reading pdfs. It does not render them very well and the pdf viewer is lacking in features. This is remedied a bit with jailbreaking and using other software. Personally, I am still disappointed at the lack of official updates for it, especially considering how much I paid for it (shortly after it came out).
Give me the last non-touch-screen model with the Paperwhite backlight and the page turn buttons on the sides, and I'll be in heaven.
Will be interesting to see if they've fixed the "uneven backlighting at the bottom" problem on this model. I was very disappointed when I first got my Paperwhite, after all the hyping they did about working to make the backlight even.
In artificial light situations and low light situations the problem you describe was fairly distracting.
I would assume the main point of this model is to silently remove that problem. If not, I can't for the life of me think as to what the benefit is. Sadly until someone gets their hands on one we shan't find out
Why don't they make the 'Papergold' or 'Paperpale?'
An e-ink reader is supposed to be easy on your eyes, yet a stark white background honestly creates just as much stress as reading against a screen. And High-Contrast mode is even worse for most people.
I imagine you have never seen one then? The backlight on the paperwhite is actually a frontlight, so it doesn't strain the eyes, I find it a lot better than any old Kindle, or frankly - than reading an actual book.
Why should it matter for eye strain whether it is a frontlight or a backlight? In both cases, it is some amount of light reaching your eyes. What should matter would be just the brightness/contrast and uniformity of it.
In my eyes, it's called the "paperwhite" because when the light is on, the page is much closer to white than the unlit Kindles, which have more of a grey background. Not because the background is #FFFFFF and the brightness of the sun.
kindles are extremely fragile devices. I broke my first one when it fell down from couple of inches. second time when I kept in car boot well packed inside padded laptop bag in its own cover.
I not buying another one. whole point of having light ereader is to use it lightly, without cover.
However, I really wish that this newer one had physical buttons on the side for turning the pages, like some of the other Kindle models. I find the touchscreen rather irritating when reading. It's much easier to have buttons on the side that you can press without moving your hand/finger.
If they had included this, I would easily have laid down $120 for an upgrade immediately.