Question about the Kindle Paperwhite
3So… I don’t use Amazon hardware. As such, I know little about their products.
I looked at the comparison chart on Amazon between the different Kindle models available.
Is the biggest advantage it (the Paperwhite) has over the regular Kindle the fact that it has a built-in backlight?
I notice it has a better resolution also, but I’m assuming that more would care more about the built-in light than the resolution.
I looked at a comparison guide from TechRadar which seems to confirm my suspicions, but I’m curious about feedback from mehmbers.
- 11 comments, 18 replies
- Comment
Unless you are really particular they all have pretty good resolution. I have a new and old paperwhite and they don’t look that much different. The light is a huge difference. It isn’t a backlight, it shines from the top onto the print. I like it waaaay better than a tablet.
@sammydog01
(I already have a tablet (Nexus 7 2013) anyways.)
So the main difference is the light?
@PlacidPenguin It is for me. I think they all have touchscreens, which I hate. The light is adjustable and it helps even if it is bright out- in fact the brighter the ambient light the higher you turn the Kindle light.
@sammydog01
What are the biggest differences between the two Paperwhite models?
@PlacidPenguin The new paperwhite supposedly has twice as many pixels- it looks a bit more defined to me. It also has a new font, although both have a selection. I can tell the difference side by side but if you handed one to me I would have no idea if it was old or new.
/giphy too many pixels
@PlacidPenguin tablet backlight and paperwhite blacklight are night and day different. The amount of eye stain with backlit eink display versus an lcd is massively lower.
@jbartus if you use the white-on-black text and crank down the brightness on the Fire-type tablets the eyestrain is reduced to tolerable levels (I read in the dark a lot).
@daddy099999 yeah but it’s still measurably worse than an illuminated e-ink display.
@daddy099999 I read on my phone and tablet. Google Books has updated the app so now if you select the Aa will allow you to make the back ground black and sliding the brightness down to 0 makes reading in the dark a dream. Because it is google books the progress is shared on all Google devices.
Don’t get me wrong e-ink would be ideal for brightly lit areas. I have never seen e-ink in the dark.
@jbartus I can’t use a tablet or my phone outdoors: I literally can’t see a damned thing on the screen even when I’m not in direct sunlight. How do people do that? The read-anywhere function was a major decision to stay with a Kindle for reading.
I’ve had a first gen Nook, a Nook Glowlight (destroyed by a student), and a Glowlight plus. The lights are a Godsend! The hubby has an old Kindle (the one with a keypad), a Kindle Fire, and an old Kobo reader. He also has a couple of the old the Entourage Edge ereaders but they just collect dust in a drawer anymore.
I’ve used them all but I prefer my Glowlight Plus for the feel and the light.
@JanaS I had the Sony reader which predated the Nook and the Kindle. I loved that thing. But it died after a year or so and Sony got muscled out of the e-reader business. Then I bought a first gen Nook which I still use from time to time but that thing has terrible battery life (even though I replaced the battery last year). For both of those readers I bought leather covers and used a AAA battery-operated clip light attached to the covers to read at night. Worked fine. I reluctantly switched to a Kindle about a year ago and it’s been Okay. I prefer physical buttons to turn pages vs. the touch screen, but then again I’m old and cranky. Now get off my lawn or I’ll call the police. I mean it.
I like having the light, and think it’s probably worth the $40 adder. I haven’t used the Kindle without the light, but I had an older Nook (until the battery started expanding to an alarming size) that did not have the light, and I definitely prefer the Kindle’s look. No, it’s not strictly necessary because E-ink relies on reflected light, just like paper, but it definitely improves the experience. I’d really like to upgrade to a model with the physical buttons, but haven’t yet felt like spending that kind of price jump.
I have about six Kindles, from the 2nd-gen (my favorite, with left-hand buttons, too, can pick them up for a song) to Paperwhite 6th-gen. The backlit screen on the Paperwhites (and newer Voyager and Oasis) are nice, but look at it this way: the new backlit ones are all touch-screen. So are the Kindle Fire and Fire HDX, which are also color and touchscreen, and have a built-in “Books” (really just the Kindle app) selection on the carousel. Refurbed Fire HDs and HDXs are all over the place now, from about $70. I use an HDX 7 as my main reader now that it’s cheaper than the Paperwhites. Have also had an early Sony reader and the Kobo waterproof job, and they are dead slow compared to any Kindle, regarding response and page-turning time. IMHO, save your money and get a refurbed Fire of some sort.
@daddy099999 The Oasis also has buttons for page turning. Another cool feature: if you prefer to hold the Oasis in your left hand, you can simply flip it over. While the text adjusts itself to the half a second of upsidedown-ness, the Kindle also reverses the polarity [1] of its buttons, so that the lower button becomes forward and the upper button will be for going to the previous page.
[1] That means absolutely nothing; I’ve just always wanted to use the phrase somewhere.
@Barney - Thoughts? (Only tagging you since I’ve seen you make posts on this subject.)
@PlacidPenguin I don’t know anything about Paperwhites, I’ve never seen one, but the lighting might help with eyestrain. Yes, I’m getting old.
I have had a few kindles and think the paperwhite is the best size, weight, speed and legibility. When I’m on a reading jag (usually bingeing on a new2me author) i can read ten hours a day, and have a guaranteed headache on anything but my paperwhite. While they are all pretty rugged, the earlier screens might have been a bit less.
I have a Voyager, and before that I had the 2nd generation Kindle (with the bubbly keyboard). Hard comparison since the display itself is so much better on the current crop of Kindles, but I don’t think I’d go back to a non-frontlit model. It’s nice having the option to read in the dark. That said, if you’ll really only be reading in decent lighting conditions, there’s no need for the frontlight. And unless something has changed, you can’t turn the frontlight off while the device is on, you can only dim it very, very dim.
I’ll second what’s been said about frontlit e-ink vs. backlit LCD or (ick) OLED - the Kindle is going to be so much easier on the eyes. It’s a very different experience.
The light is really a game changer for me. Not only is it easier on the eyes to read (due to increased contrast), it also allows reading in all sorts of lighting scenarios and works much better than a clip on light.
I’m a Nook user. (well had old Sony e-ink with light) and always the color. But my son-in-law has trouble with the brightness on a color screen and he wanted a e-ink to prevent eye strain, so that is what he got a couple years ago for Yule.
So if you question is do you want black and white or color, it depends on if you have issues with eye strain and or use it to read papers. If the question is do you want a backlight/light, the answer is
/giphy hell yes
I have an Oasis now because I have issues with spending way too much on things I don’t necessarily need, but I previously had both Paperwhite and Voyager and will say getting one of the lit versions is totally worth it unless you want to clip a booklight on or something which is annoying and clunky. It isn’t technically a backlight as it shines down onto the eInk and not up so it doesn’t cause eyestrain. It also just has nicer contrast even in daylight so you can get a more “papery” look which I’ve found just lets me get absorbed in the book - the uneven lighting from a booklight was bothering me a ton on older Kindles.
@hyjinx So jealous.
/giphy jelly
@hyjinx
What do you like, specifically, about the Oasis, compared to the Voyage or the Paperwhite?
@f00l The main things are the case, form factor, and the physical buttons. I loved the physical buttons on the Voyage for much the same reason but the haptic style was always weird. I really don’t like doing the touchscreen regions thing but that’s just be being overly picky. The case is amazing. When I have to fly down to Dallas, I’ve stopped needing to make sure it is charged the night before because it has always had enough charge to get me through the flight and such even if I hadn’t used it recently. Is it worth the extra cash for all that though? Not sure. Like I said, I have a problem.
@hyjinx
Thx
@hyjinx I have an Oasis also, and as steep as the price is, it’s well worth it to me. I started with the Gen 2 (about as basic as you could get from Amazon) and loved it, later bought the Gen 5 but had some personal difficulties getting used to it, and then splurged on the Oasis. I agree completely on the case+battery. I figured I’d use the buttons a lot, but it took only a few minutes to figure out how to use a one-handed swipe motion. When I read in bed I often take it out of its case, and it’s so close to weightless that I occasionally drop it on my belly. (All ereaders should have such problems, hmmm?) For those who do their reading on a tablet late at night or at bedtime, it’s worth noting that tablets and most other screens emit blue light (?) that can rev up your brain and lead to sleep difficulties. The Oasis and Paperwhite don’t cause sleep-ready problems.
My eyesight is getting steadily worse (corrected it’s still only 20/50), so the ability to increase or decrease the font size easily is a big winner for me.
I agree also that the battery life is phenomenal.
I don’t want to threadjack (but I will…ish)
I have a Kindle DX Graphite that I love, but the battery life is starting to go to
I want to find another one with a 9.7" display, but with a paperwhite / illuminated display. I haven’t had any luck, the closest I can seem to find are 8". Anyone have any suggestions?
At this point, I reckon I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and replace the battery.
@hanzov69
Ebay. But the larger ones aren’t that cheap.