
All-New Kindle Paperwhite - rob-alarcon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AWH595M/ref=amb_link_382772722_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=gateway-center-column&pf_rd_r=1ZS2CMEVE20CKTEHN1MW&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1611619942&pf_rd_i=507846&tag=toofyoga-20
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chimeracoder
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.

~~~
MBCook
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.

~~~
gambiting
Few things.

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.

~~~
MBCook
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.

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vijaykumar13
Amazing to see this reach #4 rank. Good luck with the affiliate profit.

~~~
hnha
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.

~~~
rsync
Even worse is the trend at boingboing, over the last 1.5 to 2 years, of
putting in an _obvious_ throwaway article just for the affiliate link.

Here's a recent example:

[http://boingboing.net/2013/08/24/flash-
gordon-1980.html](http://boingboing.net/2013/08/24/flash-gordon-1980.html)

Add a little color commentary about how you like the Queen soundtrack, a bit
about some related context, and then stick in the affiliate link.

------
acabal
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?

~~~
rob-alarcon
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.

~~~
gambiting
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.

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misnome
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....

~~~
__mharrison__
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...

~~~
mFixman
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.

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DanielBMarkham
Got a DX size? Nope? Not interested.

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.

~~~
ergo14
You can use some other 9-10 inch reader. Onyx has them, pocketbook too.

~~~
abawany
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.

~~~
ergo14
I have a nook right now and onyx with backlight - they both work really well.

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crymer11
Non-affiliate link:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AWH595M/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AWH595M/)

------
hwh
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.

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kabdib
Showstoppers:

\- Only 1.25GB of storage for books. I have many more than this on my K3.

\- As others have observed, the lack of mechanical buttons for page flipping.

Oh well. I'll just keep replacing batteries on my K3s as long as I can.

~~~
snikch
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.

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devindotcom
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.

~~~
desireco42
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!

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drtse4
A referral link, interesting.

~~~
Raphmedia
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.

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emp_
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.

~~~
cheald
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.

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cdjk
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.

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frooxie
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.

~~~
donw
This is something I'm working on with my next project. If you're interested,
ping me -- my email is in my profile.

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sherbondy
Hmm, do you think the new pricing of the Kindle DX on this page is just a typo
($139 as of visiting)?
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000739811](http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000739811)

If Amazon lowered it to that over the next few days, I would actually consider
purchasing the (3+ year-old) DX.

The actual product page still says $239.

Do any HNers have recommendations for large eInk readers suitable for viewing
pdfs/textbooks? I mostly read textbooks these days.

~~~
Casseres
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.

------
mrbill
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.

~~~
easytiger
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

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svtiger
I see this product having multiple life cycles. In about five years it can
easily be re-branded into the Paperweight.

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hack_edu
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.

~~~
gambiting
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.

~~~
alok-g
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.

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ergo14
I was counting for epub support... kobo aura it is then.

~~~
VLM
I'm curious how popular (possible?) it is to use calibre for library
management on the kobo.

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drieddust
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.

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adultSwim
It looks like you can't buy an ad-free version anymore :(

