Great price compared to other Kindles; waterproof; connects to Bluetooth for audiobooks
Screen easily dented; unremarkable battery life
Just over a year ago, Amazon released the perfect ereader. The Kindle Oasis was waterproof, had a gorgeous LED-backlit screen and paired with Bluetooth headphones so you could switch between the text and audio version of a book with relative ease.
It still does all of those things, of course. But it also cost £230 for the very cheapest model. The swankiest version – with 32GB of storage and 3G – costs £320. That’s the same price as the latest version of the standard iPad for a device that – until you drop some more cash to fill it with ebooks – is nothing more than a fancy slab of anodised aluminium.
Amazon’s latest update to its ereader lineup is a welcome antidote to the unabashed luxury of the Oasis. The new Kindle Paperwhite incorporates most of the standout features from the Oasis line, most notably waterproofing and Audible integration, while keeping the price down to a just-about-acceptable £120.
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New, and (mostly) improved
Almost all the notable features in the new Paperwhite have been handed down from the Oasis, so if you’re familiar with that device there will be few surprises here. Chief among them is IPX8-rated waterproofing, which means the Paperwhite can be submerged in up to two metres of fresh water for as long as 60 minutes.
It’s not the only waterproof ereader out there – the Kobo Aura ONE and H20 Edition 2 can also withstand a dunk – but it is now one of the cheapest ones available. This level of waterproofing is enough to make sure that reading in the bath or by the pool no longer means weighing up the risk of losing your device forever if it slips out of your grasp.
Another hand-me-down from the Oasis is Audible integration. If you pay a few quid extra to buy both the ebook and Audible version of a title you can switch between each version, picking up the audio iteration on your Bluetooth headphones or speakers where you left off in the text version. This also works across platforms, so if carry on reading on the Kindle app on your phone, your Paperwhite will open to the correct page when you switch to that instead.
All of these audiobooks take up a lot of room, so the new Paperwhite now comes in 8GB and 32GB varieties, instead of the original 4GB. The sizes of audio files varies, but a medium-sized novel runs to about 150MB, meaning the 8GB Paperwhite can squeeze in at least 40 audiobooks at any one time, allowing for a little room for the operating system.
The heftier storage options will cost you, however. The 32GB version costs £150 in Wi-Fi only, which goes up to £220 if you add 4G. At that price, you might be better off opting for the Oasis, which has a 7in screen and feels a much more refined product than the somewhat workmanlike Paperwhite.
A slightly tweaked design
At a glance, the latest Paperwhite isn’t an awful lot different to its predecessor. It’s still got a slightly curved, plasticky back that’s grippy enough to stop it falling out of your hand but also picks up greasy fingerprints like a trooper. Dimension-wise the new Paperwhite is almost imperceptibly smaller – 167mm x 116mm versus 169 mm x 117 mm – and 0.9 mm thinner than the last device, although you’d be hard-pressed to notice the difference in your hand.
Amazon, however, has done away with the recessed screen of the old Paperwhite and replaced it with a entirely flush display. Both ereaders have the same 300ppi six-inch screen, but the newer model feels noticeable more refined, a step closer to Amazon’s goal of getting the device out of the way altogether and bringing the book right to the fore. The flushed screen also makes page turning feel slightly more natural, since the device lacks the dedicate page turn buttons of the Oasis.
Slick though it may be, the Paperwhite screen might not be the most robust. A modest (albeit unscientific) thwack against the edge of my office desk is enough to put a noticeable dent in the screen. Although it’s nowhere near as ugly as a cracked smartphone screen, it’s a little distracting and a reminder that, despite its robust appearance, the Paperwhite is far from indestructible.
Top-notch reading experience
So far, so unremarkable. But how does the Paperwhite stack up when it comes down to its raison d’être: reading? Here, it’s almost impossible to fault the Paperwhite. Although it has five LED lights, versus the Oasis’ 12, reading at night is exceptionally easy on the eye and the screen is crisp and responsive.
A small tweak to the Kindle operating system also makes it easier to switch between different fonts and text sizes. Now you can switch between three preset font settings – compact, standard and large – and also put together your own custom settings meaning there’s no need to fiddle around pinching the screen to try and change the font size.
According to Amazon, a single change lasts up to six weeks if you read half an hour a day and keep the Wi-Fi off. In my experience with previous Kindles, Amazon’s own battery estimates are a little generous and after a few days of reasonably light use the Paperwhite was down to 80 per cent charge. If you’re heading off on holiday with your Kindle, make sure you bring a charger.
Verdict
With the latest Paperwhite, Amazon has reached a new high watermark when it comes to creating unremarkable, slab-like pieces of plastic and metal. And that’s no criticism – on the contrary it’s precisely the point of the Paperwhite.
As all good ereaders should do, the Paperwhite gets itself out of the way from between the reader and the book and provide as few distractions as possible. It’s nowhere near as showy or expensive as the Oasis, but hugely benefits from the addition of most of its standout features.
If you want an ereader that can do it all, won’t break if you drop it in the bath and can play audiobooks from, then this is the ereader you need. Now the only challenge facing Amazon is to convince people with a little more spare cash that there is a reason to buy an Oasis instead of opting for the much cheaper Paperwhite. Right now, there isn’t.
Dimensions: 167 x 116 x 8.2 mm
Display: Six-inch Paperwhite (300 ppi)
Storage: 8GB - 32GB
Battery: Several weeks if reading half an hour a day, with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi off
Waterproofing: IPX8 (can be safely submerged in up to two metres of water for up to an hour
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
