Kindle Paperwhite, 6" High Resolution Display (212 ppi) with Built-in Light, Free 3G + Wi-Fi - Includes Special Offers (Previous Generation - 6th)

The media could not be loaded.  I have loved and used my Kindle Keyboard for years now but I missed not being able to read it in a room with low lighting or in the dark. I purchased a Kindle Fire and I also use an iPad 3 but for ease of reading on my eyes I prefer the Kindle Keyboard. I wanted to get a Kindle Paperwhite e-Reader but I held off until this new generation was released before I spent my money. I got this because I wanted to reduce my eyestrain from reading in the evening and I just love this new tablet. It offers the perfect balance of a lit screen with reduced eyestrain and high clarity and contrast of the text.I have added a video of the Kindle Paperwhite compared to a Kindle Keyboard and a Kindle Fire. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me and I will try to answer them.I love that the text on the screen is crisp and clear. I use the Kindle because my declining vision caused me to stop reading books. Reading was my number one hobby my entire life and I just loved it. The Kindle has brought back that reading experience and now with the crisper text and lit screen I can enjoy my reading in every type of environment. I laid my Kindle Keyboard and the New Kindle Paperwhite side by side and the comparison of the quality of text and clarity is amazingly in favor of the new Paperwhite. The new lighting system and screen clarity is where this Paperwhite design really is outstanding. With better contrast, lighting and custom designed fonts, the text just pops out of the screen like you have not seen in an e-Reader before. With 221 PPI (Pixels Per Inch) this screen provides a 768 by 1024 pixel screen that just makes the old Kindle Keyboard look old fashioned. Technology certainly does move quickly on.My favorite time to read is the last two hours of the evening before bedtime. Unfortunately that is the worst time to use a non-lit screen e-Reader. I went to using the Kindle Fire and the iPad 3. Unfortunately I noticed eyestrain that limited my reading time and I did not get the full enjoyment of spending my time reading. This new soft lit screen is unobtrusive and for me my eyes do not get tired of reading like they do on the Kindle Fire and on the iPad. After reading on the other backlit tablets I feel like I have that 1000 yard stare with dry and tired eyes. This lighting effect is softer and easier to read without the tired eyes and blurry vision. I am glad that I finally made the investment to get an updated Kindle Paperwhite.There are 8 font sizes and I recently learned from one of the brilliant people who added a comment to this review that you can pinch and zoom on the Kindle Paperwhite to expand the font size or decrease it like you do on a powerful tablet, this is a great feature. There are 6 different font styles and they are Baskerville, Futura, Caecilia, Helvetica, Caecilia Condensed and Palatino. The fonts have been fine tuned to offer additional sharpness and clarity which is great for reducing eyestrain and fatigue. I love the new dictionary feature that creates a Vocabulary Builder which is a list of the words that you looked up and you can review the list and use flashcards to enhance your vocabulary and reading skills.I thought that I would have trouble making the transition from the Kindle Keyboard to the New Kindle Paperwhite but it was a breeze. I think that using a touch screen and using finger swipes to turn pages and emulated keyboards like on the Kindle Fire and iPad made it a natural transition to this new Kindle. There is a minor learning curve of learning where to touch the screen but the changeover was fast and easy. The capacitive touch response of the screen is very nice. It makes the New Paperwhite respond quickly to finger touches, menu changes and page turns and the faster CPU helps there also.What I like about the Kindle Paperwhite is that it is a dedicated e-Reader and it combines the best features of the Kindle e-ink and the iPad/Kindle Fire.* Ultra lightweight at 7.3 ounces and easily held for hours with one hand. I love the size and weight as it is comfortable to hold for long periods of time and you don't find yourself laying down the Paperwhite like I would be doing with my iPad 3.* Lit screen for reading in poorly lighted areas like the iPad and Kindle Fire but without the eyestrain. The lighting level is adjustable.* High clarity of the text and contrast for easy reading* Fast charging time in 4 hours* Ability to be easily read in the sunlight with no screen glare.* WIFI connectability* Battery life of 28 hours (of reading time) depending on the WIFI usage and screen brightness used.* Touch screen control* Easy page turning and access to the onboard dictionary, access to Wikipedia and X-Ray.* Easy to access menu and setup was a breeze* 25% faster response for loading books and page turning thanks to a faster microprocessor.* Small, thin and highly portable* Able to carry 1,100 books* My favorite feature is the adjustable text size and font style!* Custom tuned fonts add clarity and crispness to the quality of the displayed text* Since I review a lot of books I love to highlight sections and text as well as take notes on the screen.* Translation of foreign language that is used in the book* Web surfing is possible but still slower than a good tablet. Who cares, this is my portable ebook reader with 1,100 books in it. I have other devices to browse the web and read my email.* I like the rubberized feel of the back and it is similar to my Kindle Fire. It makes the Kindle Paperwhite easy to grip and hold with one hand and just have it lay in the palm of my hand without a case.This tablet gives me the best reading conditions in the daytime and also in the night. It has a lot of great features but I wanted to post a review that provides a strong comparison between the new Kindle Paperwhite, the Kindle Keyboard and the Kindle Fire when used as purely a reading device.-------------------------------------Kindle Paperwhite---------Kindle Keyboard----------Kindle Fire originalScreen size: -------------------- 6 inch------------------------6 inch E Ink Pearl----------7 inch color LCDResolution: ---------------------768x1024-------------------600x800---------------------600x1024Weight: --------------------------7.3 ounces------------------8.7 ounces-------------------14.6 ouncesOverall Size: --------------------6.7"x4.6"x0.36"-----------7.5"x4.8"x0.34"-------------7.5"x4.7"x0.45"Battery life in hours of reading: 28 hours----------------28 hours----------------------8 hoursCharging Time: -----------------4 hours----------------------4 hours------------------------4 hoursEyestrain: ---none under all reading conditions---yes in poor light----------yes due to backlightingMemory: -------------------------2 GIG -------------------------4 GIG ---------------------------8 GIGNumber of books: -------------1,100--------------------------3,500----------------------------6,000Included charger: --------------No---------------------------Yes--------------------------------YesWIFI Connectability: ----------Fast and easy--------------Fast and easy-------------------Fast and easySpeakers: ------------------------No----------------------------Yes--------------------------------YesOther considerations:* No distraction from email* No distractions from text messages* No distractions from phone calls.Pros:* You can use a capacitive stylus on the screen to help keep the screen clean.* Great battery life and fast charging.* Perfect form factor for size and weight for a hand held portable e-reader.* I don't need to use the stupid book light that never worked well anyway!* Faster page tuning which for me really makes a difference.* Connection to the WIFI was fast and easy.* Downloading my book library was fast and easy.* Even though the screen has slight texture to it is does not show fingerprints as bad as a glossy screen like a Kindle Fire or an iPadCons:* It still costs extra money for an AC wall adapter. It comes with a USB to Micro USB cable that you can use for charging and connecting to any AC USB wall adapter or computer USB port. I don't need another USB power adapter but not getting one just makes Amazon look cheap in not supplying one with the product.* They charge extra money to remove push ads to your Kindle Paperwhite* No speakers and no ability to have the book read aloud to you using text to speech.* Dropping the memory to 2 GIG with only 1.25 GIG available. I know 1100 book storage is a lot but memory is getting cheaper and not more expensive. I already own 703 Kindle books and I continually purchase more. I would just have preferred more memory.Summary:Overall considering all the issues this is a great e-Reader. It is the best available at this time. I do feel that Amazon always gives some things and takes away others. Things like memory/book storage capacity, text to speech, speakers and AC wall chargers disappear from new products and sometimes return in others. I also don't care for the ads still being pushed in our faces. This is still a solid 5 star product and you can't go wrong with buying one. It is just that sometimes the things you lose seem to mean more to users than to Amazon. I don't mind them saving some money but raise the price $10 and put in all the features that users will need like a charger. This product with a few other features left in could have be a 10 star item with no regrets!

Background: I'm coming from a 3rd gen Kindle w/ keyboard, currently running firmware 3.3 (current version is 3.4). I also had the original Kindle at one point.The biggest draw for me before buying was the built-in light, and to a much lesser degree, direct tapping on links and X-ray/shelfari and goodreads integration. However, I was concerned about the typing experience (BUT when I tried it out I was definitely impressed and liked it better than the 3rd gen keyboard (or the 1st gen for that matter)). There were definitely a few unexpected areas where the Paperwhite took steps back (web browser and broken formatting in at least 1 book (#13-15)), and I'm still trying to get myself to accept them since I really wanted the backlight.=========================================================10/17 UPDATE:I bought a 2nd Paperwhite to try to find a better unit. The serial number suggests it is about 400 units after the first one.-The 2nd Paperwhite still has a bright spot, but it is nearly invisible unlike the 1st unit which was distracting past brightness level 15.-The 2nd also has more even lighting, but the 1st one was already good enough it wasn't noticeable.-I was surprised to see that the 2nd one has a more pleasing warm/less-blue tint. I'm not sure how brightness compares, but I definitely like the look of the 2nd one more. However, I hadn't really disliked the 1st one's tint when I didn't have another unit to compare it to.-The 2nd unit has the same problems loading some webpages (unfortunately these include news websites so I can't read news articles on the Kindle direct from the web).-The contrast seems better on the 2nd unit, but I think that has more to do w/ the tint than the actual e-ink since the characters' dark areas look the same. Sharpness is very similar.I don't think that some of the 2013 units got 2012 screen parts, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Anyway, if you don't perceive a problem w/ the unit you get, then I suppose it's not a problem, but if you can, try to compare two different 2013 units, preferably with at least about a 100-count difference in serial numbers (It looks like a base-36 system and I'm just assuming it is a sequential count by build order).I would still keep my review at 4/5 stars though, mainly for the reduced contrast compared to the 3rd gen, and the broken web browser, as well as the inconsistency in quality.=========================================================3/18/2014 note:-I thought I had an issue with the battery running down very quickly, but it turns out the Paperwhite was using more CPU to index the dozens of books I loaded into it one go (it indexes once for each new book). A good practice would probably be to put in just a couple books at a time, and if you have to put a bunch on at once, leave it plugged in whenever you can for a few days or a week (you can unplug it and read, but it'll still be using more battery than it usually will after it is done indexing).>By the way, the indexing will also make the Paperwhite lag a bit at times, possibly also lock it up, needing a reset. It'll recover on its own after you do the reset, just don't be alarmed by it, again, indexing only happens once per book, and probably only takes 30-60 minutes at most per book. Basically, I wouldn't worry about battery life or stability on the Paperwhite unless it's been two weeks since you last added a book and it's still throwing up issues.=================================(I might edit the list below for easier reading in the future, but if I don't, the top 15 items are my main observations).I'll focus only on the things that I haven't seen covered much in "pro" reviews (vs. customer reviews). I'll also just put down points as I think of them, some of them will be positive, some negative, some neutral or commentary. A few of them will be comparing to the 3rd gen w/ keyboard.1) I got mine at Staples since final price would have been the same and I wanted to be able to exchange/return quickly. TIP: the retail box on the back will say <copyright symbol>2013 for the Paperwhite 2013 version, UPC 848719013931. Some stores still stock the 2012 version, which has an identical box except for the 2013 on the bottom (I don't know the UPC on it). Basically though if it says 2013 in fine print on the back, it's probably the new version.2) I got one bright pixel on the unit I bought. It's visible at around light level 8. It's a few millimeters off the bottom of the screen, but I might still return and buy another just to get it right. From pro reviews, I understand that the quality control was supposed to have improved from the 2012 version, so I have to wonder how frequent bright pixels were last year. Possibility of bright pixels was one of the reasons I wanted to buy from a physical store (w/ no restocking fee on open items).3) I could make out some uneven lighting towards the bottom of the screen, but I really had to look for it and turn up the light all the way. I made sure to wait until a screen refresh too just to be sure. It appears like a faint 'X' with the bottom legs starting at the bottom corners and the shorter upper legs almost pointing at the upper corners. I can certainly live with it though, with text on the screen it's very hard to find even if you go look.4) The light is definitely what I was upgrading for, and it's terrific in darkness, and nice in daylight. I'm pretty sure I'll turn it way down unless it's dark though. But the brightness setting guide seems very odd to me: "in brightly lit rooms, use a high setting" (um, it's e-ink, it looks best and plenty good in bright rooms already. However, I guess it might help *a little* w/ glare, or to make the screen that much more like modern book paper vs. newsprint. "Use a low setting for dark rooms", well, in a completely dark room I actually needed it at about medium to be comfortable. The "advice" is just a nitpick headscratcher though. BTW, on brightest setting in a dark room it's about as uncomfortable as looking at a backlit LCD display turned up to about the same brightness.5) I'm really hoping the battery life is comparable to my 3rd gen with medium light setting. I almost always read in bed at night so that's a straightforward comparison.6) Typing on the Paperwhite is so much more satisfying than the hardware keyboard on the 3rd gen! For one, there's much less effort to use the touch keys vs. the stiff hardware keys on the 3rd gen, and for another the Paperwhite's faster CPU and refresh means there's more immediate feedback. Occasionally I might miss a key but again, much easier on the fingers to just retype.7) Related to (6): touchscreen is so much more satisfying for navigating vs. the directional pad on the 3rd gen (and anybody remember 1st gen's scroller system?). It also makes editing typed input so much easier.8) I compared identical text with very close font size, font, and spacing on the Paperwhite and 3rd gen (and that's 3rd gen on 3.3 firmware, apparently 3.4 increases contrast further). I found the text to look very similar. I know the specs put the Paperwhite at higher PPI/resolution, and the screen is supposed to be higher contrast, but I could not make out a difference in contrast and sharpness. (That's w/ PW light all the way down for fairest comparison).9) Using the touchscreen vs. hard buttons for moving back/forward in a book will take a little adjustment, but I can live with it. I know swiping left/right just works, but of course I'm used to just tapping to do it. I can still tap on the PW screen, but it takes a little learning to figure out where on the screen to tap. Also, unless you've got long fingers, you can't hold the PW on the right edge w/ your right hand and tap to go back (swiping works though).10) It also takes some learning to remember to tap the top of the screen to bring up the menu to do anything else besides change pages.11) The touch interface could be either more intuitive or provide more clues as to what controls are possible and what they do. I'm still exploring so I'm not too clear on this yet.12) The hope is that since the interface is basically just software, a future update might enable other options or better functionality. That's just a hope though.13) At least 1 book has formatting that breaks: Running 4 Beginners by Simon Adams (see "Choosing Running Shoes" vs. "Neutral pronation"). It was a freebie last year and works as expected on the 3rd gen, but opening it up on the Paperwhite, I found that parts of it would not respond to font settings, and later on in the same chapter's main text flow it would follow font settings. I tried deleting and redownloading, but it still wouldn't work. I haven't found any other books w/ the same problem, but just seeing it once when my 3rd gen has been rock-solid consistent, it worries me. What exactly did Paperwhite break that some of this book's text won't respond to font settings? Consolation: font size can be changed, but it's still distracting, especially since the broken text is much smaller than the other text, so I'd have to keep changing font sizes as well as put up w/ changes in font (I like my serifs, and the broken text only shows in sans serif).14) Web browser is broken. I know it's experimental, and yes I was only comparing the PW and 3rd gen on wifi, but the PW has a serious problem that the 3rd gen never had. PW's browser loads faster, sure(faster cpu and screen), but for some reason after it finishes loading, it will often try to reload the page on its own, but it will just get stuck and only have a blank page. Or if I try to click some links, it might do the same. AFAIK I have to exit the browser and fire it up again to continue for another few minutes. In short, the browser is *unreliable*. Compare to the 3rd gen, which is slow, but generally speaking, you can tell if it'll load a page or if it's just too much to wait for, and once it loads a page it stays put, darn it.15) The PW browser actually froze the device at one point, and this was with a page already apparently fully loaded. The 3rd gen might have locked up on occasion, but it was usually from a complex webpage that it really struggled to load, which was easier to avoid in the future. The problem w/ the PW is it seems harder to tell what webpages will screw it up. Even if the PW browser was reliable, webpage formatting is worse than 3rd gen, which actually manages to make a webpage look like it would on a regular desktop web browser. The PW even leaves whitespace where the 3rd gen just flowed a page nicely (check tvtropes.org homepage as example). Article mode is okay, but the 3rd gen could do that too.16) Couldn't Amazon just have kept the web browser engine from the 3rd gen so it'd work mostly the same?17) Fingerprint smudges will be visible on the screen if there's a dark background, but the anti-glare texture minimizes their visibility. On a regular dark text on blank screen background though, the smudges are almost invisible.18) I'm still getting used to the rougher texture of the screen, especially for touch and swipes. It feels rougher and grippier than anti-glare screen protectors.19) Practically speaking, the 3rd gen and the PW feel about the same weight in my hand. I miss the extra bottom border area from the 3rd gen when holding it from the bottom, but the PW still has a decent amount of space there, and a more compact size also has its benefits. Holding the left or right borders feels about the same as the 3rd gen.20) Going from 3rd gen's 4GB to PW's 2GB storage is a downgrade, but I never really used more than 2GB on the 3rd gen even w/ the couple hundred books on there, most of them still unread. I'm sure it'd be different if I had PDFs and more pictures in books, but the Kindle doesn't handle PDFs that well and I don't read comics or picture-heavy books on the Kindle anyway.21) (20) Does get near the weaknesses of the Kindle: PDF and library management. PDF problems aside though, better integration w/ the Amazon Cloud and easier search and navigation w/ the touch interface at least makes library management a bit better. Shrinking the storage size probably helps too even if it is not so good if you want your huge library always available. I've realized though that given the interface limits pre-touchscreen, I wouldn't have wanted to actually manage the Kindle from the Kindle, and I use Calibre or Amazon's web management from a regular computer instead. It'd be terrific to have a good library interface w/ categories/tags/folders for browsing PLUS the books already in the Kindle, but I'd rather use a full computer for actually managing the library. I imagine more casual users would be okay just doing everything through Amazon Cloud and storefront.22) I was tempted by the better PDF handling I saw in reviews of the Kobo Aura (even the recent non-HD version), but I admitted I rarely use the 6" screen for PDFs anyway, and a lot of my PDFs are image scans instead of text and would probably bog down the Kindle. It's a (relative) negative I could live with on the PW. I mean it'll read PDFs, it just won't be as well-designed as Kobo's PDF handling (minimap, drag-no-refresh, and maintained zoom from page-to-page, none of which PW does).23) PW's web browser seems to have lighter contrast vs. 3rd gen's browser, text and images look darker/sharper on the 3rd gen.24) Well, the PW almost froze again on Running 4 Beginners, Figure 7. I guess I clicked the image and it enlarged w/ an 'X' to presumably close, but it wouldn't respond for almost a minute. While typing this up it finally responded.25) The 3rd gen just updated to 3.4 while I was typing this up, and I compared text again. I was surprised to see the 3rd gen have slightly darker text. Sure the 3rd gen text might also be a tiny bit larger, but the actual e-ink seems darker on the 3rd gen. PW still looks good though, and I'm not sure if the bolder text on the 3rd gen migth be more tiring. Again, that's w/ the PW light all the way down.26) For additional comparison, I looked at "Charisma: 10 Leadership Lessons from Albert Einstein's Life" by Maxwell Leader, also a freebie a few months ago. Same, 3rd gen seems darker/bolder but PW still pretty good looking. Additionally PW formatting differs slightly, 3rd gen shows paragraph indentation, PW has no paragraph indentation, only full blocks. I couldn't find any settings on either Kindle to suggest anything but different interpretation of the book's formatting code.27) PW loses text-to-speech and mp3 player/audiobook player, but it was no loss (to me). Text-to-speech didn't work well enough compared to a proper audiobook, although I can understand if there are people out there who did use it or needed it for books w/ no audiobooks, or books they didn't want to spend extra to get audiobook versions of.28) Just occurred to me why the PW might still leave a little light on even at lowest setting. It doesn't use that much power, and it makes it possible to work the light setting in complete darkness. It's still pretty dim though if you left the setting on at the lowest setting like I plan to do.I'll stop there, that's way more than I had planned to go over. Thanks for following to the end!