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on July 24, 2015
So, I have two problems with this new kindle.
First - The light is just too yellow in comparison to paperwhite 1 and 2 (as can be seen in the photos I'm providing). Also, the light is weaker, which makers for a not so good experience while reading in a bright lit ambient).
I'm not sure if my device is simply defective or if this new yellowish and weaker light is by design, if it is, I don't like it and think it should probably be advertised, maybe a change name to kindle paperyellow?
Second: The 300dpi thing is quite meh (in comparison to 212 and even 167 of the pw1), I mean, is it better? Yes, I guess it is but - Will it make much of a difference? Well, maybe if you read using the largest setting, but even then just a small difference... Oh, also bookerly, it is a nice typeset, but I still prefer Caecilia and Palatino... A matter of taste, I know... Still, not much of a thing having this new typeset, even if one prefers it... Btw, why can't we just side-load our favored typesets as is some other brads reading devices? That would be an improvement.
And what I like about it? Well, the same I did like about the previous devices, it is still a good ereader and I could probably get used to it, but I still prefer the previous version, both one and two, in my opinion, make for a better overall reading experience.
The photos. They are, from left to right, Paperwhite 1, Paperwhite 3 (the current version), and Paperwhite 2.
First - The light is just too yellow in comparison to paperwhite 1 and 2 (as can be seen in the photos I'm providing). Also, the light is weaker, which makers for a not so good experience while reading in a bright lit ambient).
I'm not sure if my device is simply defective or if this new yellowish and weaker light is by design, if it is, I don't like it and think it should probably be advertised, maybe a change name to kindle paperyellow?
Second: The 300dpi thing is quite meh (in comparison to 212 and even 167 of the pw1), I mean, is it better? Yes, I guess it is but - Will it make much of a difference? Well, maybe if you read using the largest setting, but even then just a small difference... Oh, also bookerly, it is a nice typeset, but I still prefer Caecilia and Palatino... A matter of taste, I know... Still, not much of a thing having this new typeset, even if one prefers it... Btw, why can't we just side-load our favored typesets as is some other brads reading devices? That would be an improvement.
And what I like about it? Well, the same I did like about the previous devices, it is still a good ereader and I could probably get used to it, but I still prefer the previous version, both one and two, in my opinion, make for a better overall reading experience.
The photos. They are, from left to right, Paperwhite 1, Paperwhite 3 (the current version), and Paperwhite 2.
on December 10, 2016
Note that this review is for the latest model of the Kindle Paperwhite. I have an earlier version from 4 or 5 years ago that I absolutely love.
I recently bought a new Kindle Paperwhite for my wife for her birthday. The screen was half yellow when lit and had very prominent shadowing along all four edges. When I contacted customer service, they arranged to have a replacement sent out. The replacement didn't have any issues with the yellow light color, but it had even worse shadowing that the first one. Again, I was told to send the Kindle back for a replacement.
A week later:
I just printed the shipping label to return the FOURTH replacement Kindle they've sent me. That's a total of FIVE Kindles in a row with the same lighting issue. I have been assured by customer service many times that the shadows along the edges are NOT NORMAL. If they were, they wouldn't keep sending me replacements. I'll update my review after my FIFTH replacement (SIXTH) Kindle arrives, but I'm not at all confident that it's going to be any different. At the moment, I'd recommend that anyone looking to replace an older generation Paperwhite wait until the next generation comes out. These ones seem to be inherently defective.
I recently bought a new Kindle Paperwhite for my wife for her birthday. The screen was half yellow when lit and had very prominent shadowing along all four edges. When I contacted customer service, they arranged to have a replacement sent out. The replacement didn't have any issues with the yellow light color, but it had even worse shadowing that the first one. Again, I was told to send the Kindle back for a replacement.
A week later:
I just printed the shipping label to return the FOURTH replacement Kindle they've sent me. That's a total of FIVE Kindles in a row with the same lighting issue. I have been assured by customer service many times that the shadows along the edges are NOT NORMAL. If they were, they wouldn't keep sending me replacements. I'll update my review after my FIFTH replacement (SIXTH) Kindle arrives, but I'm not at all confident that it's going to be any different. At the moment, I'd recommend that anyone looking to replace an older generation Paperwhite wait until the next generation comes out. These ones seem to be inherently defective.
on February 11, 2016
I received my Kindle Paperwhite bundle today and just submitted a return request. I had been thinking about buying a Paperwhite for sometime so when I saw the sale, it seemed like the perfect time to buy. I had expected crisp black text on pristine white "pages" but when I turned it on, the screen appeared a dull grayish/off-white color and the text looked blurry and gray. Other reviews mentioned the poor contrast and I can attest to the same issue. The lighting is also uneven, with brighter light up top and shadows at the bottom. I also had issues with light leakage/bright pixels and dust under the screen. Finally, I didn't care for how the pages flicker; sometimes it's just one page to the next and sometimes the whole page flickers black to white. The lack of consistency is annoying and I'm not sure I could get used to that. The product isn't terrible if the convenience of an e-reader outweighs the space/weight of real books. But for someone who reads hours a day, the screen issues are just not worth the eye strain. I was so looking forward to my new Kindle but I guess it's back to the library. Sigh...
on July 4, 2015
I'm sure it's a great device if you can get one that doesn't have dust trapped under the screen. I went through three of them in the span of two days and practically all three had anywhere from one to three specks of dust trapped under the screen. Sorry, Amazon. I'll continue to cling to my 5th Generation Kindle until you get your quality control issues sorted out.
Very disappointed!
Very disappointed!
on July 3, 2015
I’ve been trying for the last nine months to upgrade my older Paperwhite. First I bought the Voyage and received a pink and blue colored screen. I sent it back.
This new paperwhite is equally disappointing. Although Amazon has had years to get it right, this one has obvious shadows along the bottom. I wish Amazon would do the quality control needed to fix this once and for all. They seem to prefer to let their best customers do the QA/QC.
Equally troublesome is the lower contrast on the screen. Side by side with my old Paperwhite (Sept 2013), the new one has fuzzier, lower contrast text. I am near sighted and don’t need reading glasses, so it’s very easy to see that my old Paperwhite has better contrast. Adjusting the backlights to match apparent brightness between the two doesn't change the situation.
The technical specification of 300 dpi doesn't matter if the assembly, backlighting, touch screen overlay, and quality control are so poor that the result looks worse than a slightly lower resolution e-ink version.
This new paperwhite is equally disappointing. Although Amazon has had years to get it right, this one has obvious shadows along the bottom. I wish Amazon would do the quality control needed to fix this once and for all. They seem to prefer to let their best customers do the QA/QC.
Equally troublesome is the lower contrast on the screen. Side by side with my old Paperwhite (Sept 2013), the new one has fuzzier, lower contrast text. I am near sighted and don’t need reading glasses, so it’s very easy to see that my old Paperwhite has better contrast. Adjusting the backlights to match apparent brightness between the two doesn't change the situation.
The technical specification of 300 dpi doesn't matter if the assembly, backlighting, touch screen overlay, and quality control are so poor that the result looks worse than a slightly lower resolution e-ink version.
on April 2, 2016
This is my fifth Kindle. Sixth if you count my Kindle Fire HD. I currently have this one and a Kindle Fire HD. I can't drive due a neurological condition, so I travel by bus or cab. This means I spend a lot of time at stops waiting for a bus, so I like to carry a book along to read while I wait. My Kindle Fire is hard to read outside in bright daylight, and my previous Kindle Touch was hard to read after sundown unless the stop is brightly lit, which is seldom the case. So when the chance came to buy a Paperwhite, I jumped at it. Now, I find myself using my Paperwhite most of the time for reading, while I use my Fire for game playing and internet. Since My Fire has a larger screen, it is slightly better for reading at home in the evenings, but Whispernet keeps me on the same location on both devices, so I just grab whichever is closest to hand when I want to read.
One thing I recommend is to make sure and get a good case for any Kindle device. The best kind is one that had a magnetic closure which turns your Kindle on when you open it, and puts it to sleep when you close it. This is amazingly convenient, but whatever kind you get, a case is absolutely necessary for protecting your Kindle from damage and dirt.
If I could have two wishes, the first would be for a faster way to navigate through my Archive. I currently have over five hundred books in my library and I usually buy at least five more each month, so finding a particular book can be time consuming if you want to reread it.
My second wish would be for a larger screen. The Kindle was clearly designed to compare to a paperback book. but publishers stopped using a six inch page over forty years ago. The reason is that you can only get so much more information on such a tiny page. You either had to use such a fine print that the book caused undue eyestrain, or you had to use many more pages and the reader was constantly flipping pages. The modern paperback novel uses an eight inch page, measured diagonally. That's about forty percent larger than the kindle's six inch page. I would gladly trade the slight increase in weight for more information on each page.
Another good point about my Paperwhite is that it's 3G. I'm not tied to a hotspot when I need to go online for some application. There are very few, if any, bus stops with Wi-Fi in my town. With 3G, I don't have to worry about it.
With my new Paperwhite, I can read my Kindle anywhere, anytime, and under any lighting conditions. I can even use it to light my path in total darkness. So far, I haven't tried it in blizzard, pouring down rain, blizzard, or tornado, but in those conditions, I would have other things on my mind than reading a book.
One other thing, both my Kindle fire and my Paperwhite fit neatly into the lower pocket of my cargo pants, case and all. It really is completely portable. They're really handy and I take one or the other everywhere I go. This is truly one of the greatest inventions of the twenty first century.
The above was written last year At that time I was delighted with my Paperwhite and used it often, but after a few months, I began to run into problems. It seemed that when I tried to recharge my Paperwhite, it would only recharge if I used certain chargers. As the months went by, it got even more picky until it would only charge on one charger, which was actually the charger for an LG cell phone. The Amazon chargers did not work at all. A couple months later, it stopped charging at all. By this time I could see that the plug was clearly loose in the socket, and would only make contact when I physically held it in place. Since I couldn't possibly stand there holding the cord for the whole time the battery was charging, this rendered the device useless. I returned it to Amazon and they sent me a replacement. This worked fine for about six weeks, then the replacement began to show the same problem all over again. The battery on the replacement is now dead and refuses to recharge. To me it shows that there is a basic fault in this model, and I am now shopping for another model. I am now reading my kindle books on my kindle fire, which has the problems I mentioned above.. Kindle is usually a very good brand and I have had no problems with other models, but this particular model has given me major trouble and I would not recommend it to anyone.
One thing I recommend is to make sure and get a good case for any Kindle device. The best kind is one that had a magnetic closure which turns your Kindle on when you open it, and puts it to sleep when you close it. This is amazingly convenient, but whatever kind you get, a case is absolutely necessary for protecting your Kindle from damage and dirt.
If I could have two wishes, the first would be for a faster way to navigate through my Archive. I currently have over five hundred books in my library and I usually buy at least five more each month, so finding a particular book can be time consuming if you want to reread it.
My second wish would be for a larger screen. The Kindle was clearly designed to compare to a paperback book. but publishers stopped using a six inch page over forty years ago. The reason is that you can only get so much more information on such a tiny page. You either had to use such a fine print that the book caused undue eyestrain, or you had to use many more pages and the reader was constantly flipping pages. The modern paperback novel uses an eight inch page, measured diagonally. That's about forty percent larger than the kindle's six inch page. I would gladly trade the slight increase in weight for more information on each page.
Another good point about my Paperwhite is that it's 3G. I'm not tied to a hotspot when I need to go online for some application. There are very few, if any, bus stops with Wi-Fi in my town. With 3G, I don't have to worry about it.
With my new Paperwhite, I can read my Kindle anywhere, anytime, and under any lighting conditions. I can even use it to light my path in total darkness. So far, I haven't tried it in blizzard, pouring down rain, blizzard, or tornado, but in those conditions, I would have other things on my mind than reading a book.
One other thing, both my Kindle fire and my Paperwhite fit neatly into the lower pocket of my cargo pants, case and all. It really is completely portable. They're really handy and I take one or the other everywhere I go. This is truly one of the greatest inventions of the twenty first century.
The above was written last year At that time I was delighted with my Paperwhite and used it often, but after a few months, I began to run into problems. It seemed that when I tried to recharge my Paperwhite, it would only recharge if I used certain chargers. As the months went by, it got even more picky until it would only charge on one charger, which was actually the charger for an LG cell phone. The Amazon chargers did not work at all. A couple months later, it stopped charging at all. By this time I could see that the plug was clearly loose in the socket, and would only make contact when I physically held it in place. Since I couldn't possibly stand there holding the cord for the whole time the battery was charging, this rendered the device useless. I returned it to Amazon and they sent me a replacement. This worked fine for about six weeks, then the replacement began to show the same problem all over again. The battery on the replacement is now dead and refuses to recharge. To me it shows that there is a basic fault in this model, and I am now shopping for another model. I am now reading my kindle books on my kindle fire, which has the problems I mentioned above.. Kindle is usually a very good brand and I have had no problems with other models, but this particular model has given me major trouble and I would not recommend it to anyone.
on October 12, 2016
I have a 2nd gen Paperwhite that I've used for years and has been great. I ordered the newest Paperwhite, and it had dark spots/smudges at the bottom of the screen. I returned it for another which had similar spots, plus a yellowish tint that got more noticeable further up the screen. I didn't bother trying for another replacement, I just returned it.
So, I love my older Paperwhite, but I can't recommend the newest Paperwhite given this experience. Perhaps there was a bad batch, or I got unlucky twice.
**UPDATE**
I recently purchased a Kindle Voyage, thinking that perhaps the 6 leds (vs Paperwhite's 4 leds) would results in more even backlighting. Nope. The yellowish tint was still there, and it was also there on the replacement Voyage I ordered. Lots of reviewers indicate the same problem (quality assurance anyone?) and while it may not bother some, for me it can be a real distraction. Particularly when turning pages and going from looking at the good backlit portion of the screen (bottom) to the yellow backlit portion of the screen (top).
I'm sure Amazon is aware of this problem, but apparently it's not a big enough issue, or not enough people have noticed/complained about it, to warrant them doing anything about it.
So, I love my older Paperwhite, but I can't recommend the newest Paperwhite given this experience. Perhaps there was a bad batch, or I got unlucky twice.
**UPDATE**
I recently purchased a Kindle Voyage, thinking that perhaps the 6 leds (vs Paperwhite's 4 leds) would results in more even backlighting. Nope. The yellowish tint was still there, and it was also there on the replacement Voyage I ordered. Lots of reviewers indicate the same problem (quality assurance anyone?) and while it may not bother some, for me it can be a real distraction. Particularly when turning pages and going from looking at the good backlit portion of the screen (bottom) to the yellow backlit portion of the screen (top).
I'm sure Amazon is aware of this problem, but apparently it's not a big enough issue, or not enough people have noticed/complained about it, to warrant them doing anything about it.
on May 26, 2016
I'm writing this several months after purchasing, and attempting almost daily, to LIKE, this Kindle. I had three of the earliest Kindles (one of them inherited, but none of them lived long after being dropped!) and I liked all of them. I then got a Kindle Fire which I like very much, but I thought I would prefer the Paperwhite for every day reading and for reading less obtrusively in public (I'm one of those horrible mothers who reads during school concerts, etc). But I really can't learn to love it. While the Fire is very user-friendly and intuitive, this Paperwhite seems to thwart me at every turn. When I pull up my library to search for a book, it is very hard to get from page to page - instead, I touch the screen where I think I need to to proceed and it opens up a book near where I touched. Similarly, it is annoyingly difficult to get to "home" or any of the other "top of the screen" links without the Kindle thinking I'm trying to turn a page. I also miss being able to see my percentage progress on the bottom without having to tap for it (which again, results in an unwanted page turn), and I find the bookmark list very unwieldy. I like the size of the Paperwhite much more than the version of the Fire I'm using (from a few years back), but since I dislike everything else, I tend to grab the Fire, anyway, even when I want something smaller. I know the latest versions of the Fire are smaller, but I'm getting very tired of shelling out money for these things!
on February 10, 2017
My wife and I own five readers or fire devices. This is the first that does not meet our expectations. It appears that the Paperwhite has a serious software problem. My Paperwhite would not update automatically, and my wife's Paperwhite has the same problem. I spoke to Amazon support and they wanted me to manually update my Paperwhite. This is not a straight forward task and is a temporary fix. I told them that I wanted a fix that would enable automatic updating. The tech had no solution to the problem and would not transfer me to the next level of support. So I returned my Paperwhite. A new Paperwhite is sold with an old version of software. Does Amazon expect the buyer to keep track of its updates? It's the update process that protects and improves your Paperwhite. Manual updates are a thing of the past! Please fix.
on March 11, 2016
Generally I like Kindles, however, there is one thing that I find extremely annoying about this one. Even after paying extra $20 for a Kindle without special offers I get special offers called "book recommendations" that are impossible to get rid off! How is an unsolicited recommendation to buy something is not an advertisement? Hello Amazon-- I paid extra $20 so that I will not be harassed with solicitation to buy things when I want to read a book. Apparently this is too much to ask.
