After a whopping ten years of blissful happiness, my trusty old third generation Kindle Keyboard was finally starting to show its age and so I decided it was time for an upgrade. New decade, new Kindle and all that, and so I asked Santa Karen and she very kindly obliged by leaving a shiny new Kindle Paperwhite under my tree.
So, I hear you cry, what has it got that the old Kindle Keyboard hasn’t got?
Well the hardware itself is certainly easier on the eye. As well as being smaller, the Kindle Paperwhite has no physical keyboard, page turn buttons or any buttons of any kind save a titchy little power button and despite being smaller and thinner, it also feels a lot sturdier than the Kindle Keyboard. It is, apparently, waterproof and although I have no interest in personally testing that claim, I could certainly believe it to be so. There are no obvious cracks in the hardware for water to seep into when compared with its 3rd Gen progenitor. According to Amazon, ‘Paperwhite is IPX8 rated to protect against accidental immersion in up to two metres of fresh water for up to 60 minutes.’ How you could accidentally leave your Kindle under two meters of water for as long as 60 minutes is a mystery to me, but it’s reassuring to know if that does happen, I still won’t have to fork out for a new one.
So, let’s turn it on. At first glance, the home screen appears a lot busier than the Kindle Keyboard, which essentially just gave us a list of all the books we owned. The home screen on the Paperwhite, on the other hand, displays both your own library and reading lists as well as key lists from the Kindle Store, such as book recommendations. The menu bar along the top of the screen provides links to everything you’ll need to start reading right away, while everything else is tucked away neatly in the side menu. You can link into your GoodReads account, listen to your Audible books and even browse the internet on the ‘experimental browser.’ Book covers and other images are also beautifully rendered in crystal clear high-resolution.
The front-lighting is very nice indeed. One of the things I liked about my old Kindle Keyboard was how easy it was to read the screen for hours on end without hurting your eyes, even in brilliant sunshine, thanks to its unlit anti-glare screen. I was a little bit concerned that by introducing illumination, it might become a little less kind to my eyes (as someone who wears glasses and suffers from frequent headaches, this was not something I wanted). I needn’t have worried. I don’t know exactly what sorcery they’ve used to illuminate the screen, but the illumination is soft, milky and even, giving it just enough of a glow to make it visible in the dark without any harsh glare. When reading in a well lit room, the screen appears just slightly more luminescent than would be natural if you were reading on white paper (hence the name, I guess) and when reading in the dark, it does not flood the rest of the room with light, meaning I can read in bed even while the wife is trying to sleep. Of course, if you find the front-lighting a little too brilliant, you can adjust it to just the right level for your own needs (though it took me ages to figure out how to do).
The complete lack of any physical buttons means everything is controlled by touch screen. If you are familiar with using touch screen on your phone, you’ll already know the basic principles: tapping, swiping, long pressing and so forth. It all works the same as on your phone and I personally find it a lot smoother to use than physical buttons, especially when it comes to typing notes. The majority of books that I read on Kindle are books that authors have gifted me for author interviews or book reviews, and so I often want to add notes to what I’m reading. You could do this with the Kindle Keyboard, but the tiny little buttons were just so fiddly and awkward that I often resorted to a crude form of short hand and wilfully ignored all my typos because it just wasn’t worth the fuss. Not so with the Kindle Paperwhite! The on screen keyboard is a breeze to use and I can write long winded notes to myself until the cows come home.
If I was being hypercritical, I would say the touch screen takes a little bit of getting used to while reading. It’s not overly fiddly, just takes a bit more practice than its predecessors. For instance, you need to tap just the right point on the screen to bring up the menu bar and if you tap anywhere else by mistake, it turns to the next page. In a similar way, you turn the page back by swiping left but if your swipe isn’t quite swipey enough, you’ll find yourself turning forwards instead of back. It is possible to temporarily display touch screen while reading so all controls are locked save the ability to turn to the next page, however this is probably more trouble than its worth since you have to lock the Kindle and then unlock it again to turn this feature off. You can’t even turn the power off without first turning touch screen back on, so it’s not really worth the trouble. Hardly a deal breaker though.
All in all, a fantastic piece of kit. I fully expect it to provide me with another decade or so of reading pleasure (and audio-book listening pleasure, if that’s your bag) and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a snazzy new e-book reader that won’t burn your eyes out.
My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
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ATTENTION AUTHORS:
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Please be advised that due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.
You can check out our previous interviews here: