Adam Shields

The new Amazon Paperwhite Kindle is a very nice ereader.  Arguable, it is the best ereader on the market today.  I have only spend five days with it so far, but I have read portions of five books and completed two before writing this paperwhite review. (Note: I have since purchased my own Paperwhite and updated the review.)

The Light

The biggest new feature of the Paperwhite is its light.  Part of the point of eink ebook readers is that they do not have a backlight (light coming from the back of the screen shining out toward the reader) like LCD screens on a computer or tablet.  The backlight is a major cause of eyestrain. And among a small group of people, it is a major cause of insomnia.

The Paperwhite uses a different technology.  It has a clear strips of fiber optic light that shine down (away from the reader) toward the screen.  This should mean far less eye strain when you read at night with the light on.

The picture on the right is the light turned all the way up, reflecting off my jeans at night.  You can see there is some light that leaks out, but it is pretty minimal.

The light is also very even.  I have used a number of book lights and briefly tried out a Nook Glo. You can see on the picture on the left that the light is very even (again this picture was taken at night with very low light).  It is only the bottom that seems to have any light variation.

This past weekend when I was reading, it was very grey and gloomy.  I kept the light on much of the time, and was continually adjusting it trying to find the right amount of light.  On the whole I found that keeping the light a few notches lower than maximum was the most comfortable lighting for most of the time.  But the light is always just one click away, so it is very easy to change.

Using the light even at very low levels gives the illusion of a much whiter screen and greater contrast.  So the letter look much crisper than previous kindles.  With the light off it is possible to see a small improvement in the screen from previous Kindle models, but it is only a small improvement.

UPDATE: I also have a longer review.

I opened up (my friend’s) new Kindle Paperwhite this morning.

These are my very quick initial impressions. Even though I have seen the statistics about the size and weight, it is smaller than what I thought.  Essentially it is the exact same size as the Kindle 4 (Kindle Basic).

But also as soon as I picked it up I noticed that it feels much more solid.  It is heavier by 2 oz than the Kindle 4 (and one oz less than the Kindle with Keyboard).  The Kindle 4, which is what I primarily use, feels almost hollow when I hold it.  The Paperwhite feels like it is a solid object.  My guess is that much of that is battery.  The Paperwhite battery, with the light on, is supposed to last twice as long as the Kindle 4 with no light.

Visually, the screens do not seem much different. I took a couple of pictures outside in sunlight with the Paperwhite’s light off to show the difference.

Click the picture to get the full size image. The blacks might be a little darker.  The fonts might be a bit clearer.  But there is not a lot of difference.

Read more