Kindle Paperwhite E-reader (Previous Generation - 7th) - Black, 6" High-Resolution Display (300 ppi) with Built-in Light, Wi-Fi + Free Cellular Connectivity - Includes Special Offers

Let me guess: you love books, but you're not sure you want to get a kindle because you love the feel of books, right? I'm here to tell you that the kindle is the perfect balance of book and digital format. SHORT REVIEW Yes, you should buy a kindle. Get the paperwhite with no ads. You're welcome. LONG REVIEW I love physical books too, I'm with you. But I know myself, and I know that once I forget to take the book I'm reading with me, that's it. I'll start another book and rarely finish the first. I also know if I try and read on my phone or iPad that I'll get distracted and start wondering about what's happening on the internet (Instagram's not gonna scroll ITSELF). Either way I'm not finishing the book. WHY KINDLE The kindle takes the best of both worlds and mashes them together. The e ink display is honestly incredible. I wish iPhones had an e ink display. It really looks just like a printed page. So you get the experience of reading a physical paper book, but with the perks of being digital. Namely: - Share what book you're reading to Goodreads, Facebook, or twitter (so you can look SMORT) - Built in dictionary (so you can learn the proper spelling of the word SMORT) - Export your highlights as a PDF Plus, it'll also sync with the kindle app on your phone so you can squeeze in the final few pages of the chapter while you're in the bathroom (don't pretend you don't do that. You're either on your phone or you're reading the febreeze ingredients) READING IN BED The backlight looks great. It's a perfect size. And because it's one page at a time, you overcome another annoyance of physical books: you can read laying down in bed without the awkward "I just need to hold the book weird like this for a second while I finish the left page, then I'll be on the right page and can relax" situation. It's great. LIBRARY BOOKS You can check out library books digitally without leaving your house. And yes, you can make highlights and export those as a PDF (to answer your next question, yes, you could technically highlight the whole book, but that would take more time than it's worth). ADS OR NAH? Get the one without ads. Remember the problem with reading on your phone? Distractions. Why would you buy a device that ONLY does one thing exceptionally well (isolated reading) and then ruin the experience with ads about products you should buy? Now you're thinking about "oh right, I gotta get my oil changed" or "what am I gonna make for dinner?" instead of whether Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy are really ever going to get together. WHICH MODEL? And no, you don't need a more expensive kindle. This one works great and the other ones don't give you much more for the money. Get the wifi only model (please, you're REALLY going to use the 3G to download books on the go? Get real). And yes, this is the best e-reader out there. Come on, it's Amazon. ANY book you want is a few taps away. WHAT YOU WANT Kindle Paperwhite (wifi only, cuz really, you're gonna use 3G??) with no ads. You're furiggin welcome.

My first e-reader. I'm in love with it. If you're thinking of going e-book, here's pros and cons vs a paperback/hardback book. Pros: --It always weighs the same. No more massive paperbacks that you can barely open (I'm looking at you, Robert Jordan). --The light is almost perfectly even so you can keep reading even as the sun sets and changes the light in the room you're in. (the uneven part is all at the bottom below the last line of text so it doesn't really matter). --It tells you how many minutes to finish the book ... not that this keeps me from "one more chapter before I go to bed" but it ought to. --As I get older, I'll still be able to read my books instead of having to get large print versions because I can make the print any size I want. --No one can tell what you're reading and then mock you for the ridiculous cover image (which you have to admit, a lot of books have very mockable covers--or worse, if it's your parents and you're reading a romance). --You can take as many books as you want on vacation and not have to have a separate luggage for them all (you know, in case you're in the mood for a different book) --It stays "open" to the same page you were reading when you closed it. Or dropped it because you were mugged by your cat(s). No more losing bookmarks down the back of the sofa cushions. (Or having said cats play with the bookmark tassel until they unravel it.) --the above pro also means it's way easier to put down momentarily to pay attention to the other humans or four-foots in the house. You can pick it back up and instantly keep reading, without having to find the bookmark, put it in the book, put the book aside, and then do all that in reverse to get going again. --No eye strain beyond what you'd get from a normal paperback book --You can't be allergic to it; to the book mold because it won't ever have any. (So nice not to be constantly sniffling while I'm reading!) --If you are an avid reader and like to re-read your books, and you end up collecting in the thousands of books, this is way easier to move when you have to change houses/apartments! --You don't have to buy a book until you're ready to read it. E-books (as far as I can tell) don't go out of print. So you don't have to snag that book in the series that only stays in print for 6 months now even though you're in the middle of another massive series and won't get to that book for quite some time. Cons --It's black and white. Completely. No cover pictures in color, no illustrations in color. For that you'll need a tablet and the Kindle app (or the physical book). And tablets come with physical eye strain. --You can't zoom in on a map illustration ... or I haven't figured out how to, yet. This "con" might be a lack of knowledge on my part! --It's got a battery. Which means it could run out in the middle of a book. So you have to keep an eye on it. However, if you do most of your reading at home (or within reach of a plug) it's fairly simple to plug it in and keep reading. Also, the battery lasts for weeks, unlike a tablet battery. --It's harder to browse your books. The Kindle has a horrible sorting style (author or title, that's it, unless you have collections which you do manually to add books to each collection, and you can't "nest" collections). I do wish it would sort by series too. Some series are 10 books or more (over 40 in one case) and it'd be nice to have a view of just series names. I use Calibre to organize my books and just put on the Kindle what I'm currently reading if I'm not heading on vacation in order to get past this one. Neither Pro nor Con --it won't read to you out loud. Well, neither will a physical book. To sum up: I hate change. I collected books for the last 39 years and I never thought I'd ever like an e-reader until I developed allergies and was forced to move to one. Now I love it and wish I'd switched ages ago ... except the older e-readers weren't nearly as good (I read a book on my sister's previous generation Kindle and missed that "frontlight" this one has so very badly!) Love my Kindle! Especially with a cover that has the "other" side to the book so the transition to e-reader wasn't quite such a shock to me.

I love to read but held off buying a Kindle until now because I could not abide the resolution of early generations' screens. The fonts used to look penciled-in, jagged and coarse to my eye. Plus, I travel frequently and would need a backlight for reading on long flights, and the earliest Kindles lacked a backlight option. Times change, and when I finally succumbed to the Kindle's siren call just ahead of a sun-drenched holiday where there'd be zero hope of reading poolside on my iPad or iPhone, I was happy to see that the Paperwhite model now comes with a high-resolution display and a backlight at a reasonable price. Reading Experience The fonts do look pretty nice now. There are about six or eight font choices you can apply, and you can choose their size and weight easily from a menu. I'm still experimenting to find a favorite. I'm a bit of a font snob but have no serious criticisms of the kerning and justification options (I prefer ragged right formatting to fully-justified, and most books allow this). The backlight works well, is fully adjustable, and is nice and even save for a bit of faint scalloping at the far bottom edge. Glare has been no problem at all. Images look pretty terrible, but that's not what this device is for. It's a single-purpose tool for consuming textual books in any environment, and at that it excels. There are lots of reader tools, such as word lookup and things like that. I haven't explored most of those options. User Interface I have a passcode set, and entering the passcode is weirdly slow; you must pause significantly between characters. The touch interface works well, but there are some drawbacks to it. Mostly, it can be annoying to fumble the device and find you've lost your place in the process of grabbing it. That's less of a problem with the dedicated buttons on some other models. I do wish the Goodreads option were removable from the menu as I have no interest in it and have accidentally tapped it a few times. The single ads you see on waking the device don't bother me. They're static and inoffensive and go away with a swipe. I'm unmotivated to spend the $20 to eliminate them, but that option is there if they bug you. Slightly more concerning is that occasionally the text has lacked contrast. But I've found that going into and out of a menu, which forces a screen refresh, can help that. (I have Page Refresh turned off to minimize the blinking effect that otherwise accompanies most page turns, limiting the blinks to chapter transitions. This may be the cause of the occasional contrast loss. Now that I've found what seems to be a work-around, I'll leave Page Refresh off.) Connectivity Both the WiFi and mostly-free 3G connectivity work well. So far I've tested the 3G in five countries with no problem. WiFi has worked well and I've had no problem connecting to hotel WiFi that requires browser input-- the Kindle's "experimental browser" has worked sufficiently well for that. My understanding is that Amazon-purchased book downloads, syncing and updates are free over 3G even if you are roaming internationally. But, if you're roaming internationally, you will be charged a small amount for downloading documents other than Amazon-sold books. By the way, that downloading capability is a really cool feature (you can email .pdfs and non-Amazon ebooks in certain formats to your Kindle via a special Kindle email address Amazon automatically sets up for you) but one that I'd wager 99% of Kindle users don't use or even know about, much less use internationally. Battery & Charging Note that the vaunted Kindle battery life of umpty-ump weeks is based on benchmarking with an estimated usage of only 30 minutes per day, and I believe it includes Airplane Mode being enabled. But after my 12-hour flight that I mostly spent reading with the backlight on and Airplane Mode enabled, the device still has about 65% battery charge. Not bad! I did not purchase a charger. I pack an Anker 10-port USB charger (which works off of any national voltage and frequency and is highly recommended!) to keep all my gizmos charged when I travel, and the Paperwhite has had no objection to that. Bottom line I'm liking my Kindle Paperwhite a lot. There has been no problem reading in the bright poolside sun or on darkened transoceanic flights, and the touch user interface works well enough for me. The unit seem solidly built and is a great bargain for serious readers. UPDATE: I totally neglected to note how delightful it was to order this from Amazon and have it arrive fully configured and personalized for my account. This made the unboxing experience the rival of Apple's! Special kudos to Amazon for that. UPDATE: I did the Kindle a disservice by calling its built-in illumination a "backlight". It's actually a "front light"-- the white LEDs shine along the front faceplate and their light is directed down towards the screen by a nano-machined pattern embossed into the back side of the faceplate. So, the light is reflected off the e-ink screen (just as ambient light is), rather than shining through the display as is the case with smartphones and tablets.

I purchased a Kindle Paperwhite along with a Fire HD8, they are so very different, but each very good in their special way. I write this as the question I had is why before I bought both was : Why buy a Paperwhite if I am going to get a Fire HD tablet, and the answer is - they are for very different purposes. The tablet is good for applications off the internet, such as games for my 8 year old daughter can play on, logging onto the internet or other applications via wifi such as reading newspapers (easier to deal with than paper hardcopies). The Paperwhite on the other hand reads much better than the Fire HD or any other tablet, not faulting the Fire HD, but the technology of the Paperwhite is truly superior, and it is something not mentioned or explained clearly. The advantage of carrying one paperwhite rather than a dozen paperbacks or worse yet hardcover books is obvious, but the small size of the Paperwhite isn't obvious until you hold one. It really is small and light. And when you do finally use it to read it is a relevation, instead of a full page you read from a paragraph or two, it isn't like reading a line or two, and the words are large and easy to read, not like an ipod display. but what is really amazing is how easy it is to read. Backlighting makes for reading that is easier than reading from a physical book. The decrease in eye fatigue from either lights being too bright or hard to read because of low light conditions like reading in bed are gone. If you are an avid reader, or someone who has put off reading for whatever reason but want to, this is the time to start now by getting one of these devices.

Absolutely a wonderful reader. I have owned a B&N Nook, a Kindle 'Fire' HD (now known only as a 'Fire'), and currently own a Fire HDX and a Samsung Galaxy Tab S, so I've been around the block a few times in terms of small tablets/e-readers. But I must say that although all of these aforementioned tablets can do the job of an e-reader, they weren't true e-readers, and I found myself being slightly jealous of some of the capabilities afforded by a Paperwhite. Fires/Tablets have their advantages, but the one they don't have is the ability to last weeks without charging the batteries, and their screens aren't optimized for reading. So, I finally acknowledged that fact and looked into getting a true e-reader. Then I learned that Amazon was releasing a new Paperwhite with sharper resolution (as sharp as the recently released Voyage, which was already receiving rave reviews from critics). I reviewed the rest of the pre-release specs and knew this was the only choice for me. Yes, there are other e-readers on the market, but none had this resolution AND access to the formidable library of Amazon books. The caveat I'd like to make clear is that this is a no-brainer if you're already an Amazon Prime member and/or already possess a lot of books purchased through Amazon, which I did prior to pre-ordering the Paperwhite. Two weeks later, my Paperwhite arrived (two days prior to the 'release' date) and I opened it with great anticipation. The front screen was covered with a black and white picture of some artistic work that I had to peel off. -But then I realized that the Paperwhite was 'on' and what I was seeing was the actual screen in its off mode! It looked so realistic that it fooled me. And that's a great hint regarding how sharp the display truly is. I immediately switched it on and went through the setup process, which is really a no-brainer if you've been through a few of them before. And even I you haven't, just follow the directions. You'll be OK. I downloaded much of the content I already owned and have already read a couple of books. As I said, the display is simply awesome. you really cant discern (or at least, I can't) any pixels whatsoever. The letters and numbers are extremely sharp and crystal clear. However, the true blessing of the all-new Paperwhite is the ability to read in direct sunlight. Unlike my Fire HDX, I never have to worry about sitting in a dark place to be able to read a book. Now I can actually sit on the sunny side while riding the metro and I don't have to shift around when the sun hits the screen. Sure, some things take some getting used to. For one thing, the Paperwhite cannot play games or surf the web like a Fire or other tablet, but then again, you don't need to charge it every day either. I now have the best of both worlds. When I'm reading books, the new Paperwhite is the place to go. But when I'm playing games or surfing the web, I'll reach for my Fire. They're both excellent machines and I have them in my bag every day when I leave for work. Is this new Paperwhite a worthy upgrade to the original Paperwhite? I dunno. I suppose that's up to you to answer. I know that the screen resolution was already fairly nice on that machine, so my hunch is that you'd have to carefully weigh the pros and cons to decide whether its worth it to upgrade. But for me, this is my first true e-reader (vice the Fire HDX, which is essentially a tablet with reader software onboard), so it was definitely worth the cost. If you're been thinking about getting an e-reader, the new Paperwhite is definitely a no-brainer. Just get it. This new Paperwhite is an absolute steal and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a serious e-reader.

This is a really nice device, but right after my 30 day return ran out they came out with the Oasis. I want the newest device. I held onto my old original Kindle for over 4 years and finally decided to upgrade. I am so disappointed I missed out on the Oasis but cannot see a reason to have 2 devices. The Paperwhite by Kindle or any reader by Amazon is your choice if you want a reader. I have looked at other readers and here is the issue. Books for those devices cannot be read just anywhere or on just any device (phone, etc. even with apps), you have to be careful what you download. The trick with Amazon and Kindles is you can choose from so much and read them on any device, with the app, or carry your Kindle. There are options for free books without prime and if your a Prime member, get a free book every month from the top editor's picks. I have not seen these offers anywhere else and I always do my research. My Kindle goes everywhere even if I don't use it all the time. I may use it while standing in a grocery store line, or just for 5 minutes but it is so light it fits right in my purse. The battery on this one lasts forever. I just took it on a week long trip and didn't charge it once and read it exclusively on the airplane and through long layovers. This device has an airplane mode also which is nice. The light on this one auto adjusts perfectly so far, although you can set it where you want. Keep note this is a touch screen only so if you're used to buttons to turn the page, this is not the device for you. All-in-all I love my Kindle and I think Amazon support and products are the best in the world. To give me a free top book a month is awesome, thanks Amazon.

For the price, with WIFI, free 3G and ads it was a great deal. There was a promotional offer to purchase with installment payments at no interest just direct debit. It was a great option because I didn't have to use a credit card and pay interest, plus it was easier on my pocket book. I wish I could have upgraded just for the new press to turn page feature on the next level Kindle but I feel I have exactly what I need. This is the 3rd Paperwhite I've purchased. My original one (which was sat on and cracked), one for my nephew and this one to replace the broken one. Actually, I ordered the black one in error and realized too late to amend the order to white. I didn't want to go thru the return/re-order process and am keeping as is. It’s nice that there is a color option now. I have the custom Kindle cover that "sleeps" the device upon closing it and it is very sturdy. I also recommend getting the Kindle cover, it’s money well spent. I will continue to purchase the Paperwhite as a gift or to replace my own if needed. I have to say this new edition of the Paperwhite is whiter than my original. Maybe it’s just me but I always felt the first one was on the grey side of white. I used to call it my Paperwhite-ish. Adjustable font size and font style, adjustable light, bookmarks, x-ray, the ability to group books by collection all these and more are so neat to use. The packaging in delivery was well padded and arrived on the date as promised. The user guide is a must read to get the full experience of using the Kindle to your own style. I bought a Kindle because I had cataracts and couldn't see much. Before the cataracts I was kinda snobby about e-readers, why would anyone not want a BOOK? I have a huge collection of hardback books and I felt I would miss having the feel of an actual book in my hands. The heft, using a bookmark, writing snarky notes to myself in the margins (they're my books, I can write in 'em if I want to), the tactile love of books has always been an important part in my love of reading. Once I had the Kindle in hand I had to admit, hardbacks are a little cumbersome to lug around plus I had to hold the book 3 inches from my face. I’m sure people thought “why’s she hiding behind that book, what’s up with that?”. With the Kindle I felt almost normal and wasn't embarrassed to read in public. Now with my surgeries done and perfect vision again the Kindle continues to be the book I carry with me everywhere. My Kindle is so convenient, easily fits in all my handbags along with my tablet and other junk. Now I carry all the books I haven’t yet read with me. I can drop one and pick up another just like that. The conversion to e-reader happened pretty quickly and painlessly. You can't beat the ability to read the Kindle in all types of light including outdoors with no glare on the screen. I recommend the Kindle product, find the one that fits you and I believe you'll enjoy it.

I used to have shelves of books taking up space in my home. Now, I can get nearly every book in one tiny device. As a bit of background, I'm a "gadget geek" but I'm not on the bleeding edge of technology as much as I used to be. My last e-reader was the Sony Reader bought in 2006. I have to say that the Paperwhite blows it away. First, it's surprisingly light. Even with an aftermarket cover it weighs about the same as an average paperback and is nearly the same size (unless you're taking about the paperback version of War & Peace. Second, the print is great, perfectly white to my eyes and the built-in night reading is a great bonus. In the past I've bought at least a half-dozen clip-on book lights for night reading and they are always odd and unwieldy. Paperwhite solves that problem. Third, even though it has a limited amount of internal memory, it's more than enough for a year's worth of books for me. Plus, Amazon Kindle books stored on the cloud are available for download at any time, so if you happen to fill up your memory, just delete some off the device and download ones you want from the cloud. The only cons are my own. Since I owned the Sony Reader, everything I have is in epub format, which is not compatible with the Paperwhite. However, I Googled for a workaround and things are fine. Even someone without extensive technical skills could figure it out, if not, you can always ask a tech-savvy friend. Until the prices drop on the Oasis, I'll enjoy the Paperwhite for a while. Also, check your local public library to see if they have an eBook program. You can borrow ebooks straight to the Paperwhite from a lot of different sources. I also like that you can "loan" any of your Kindle books to a friend -- Amazon made a wise decision allowing that. With a paper book it was a great way to share good books with your friends, and not being able to do that with an ebook reader was a major disappointment (although I found ways around that when I had my Sony Reader). So, try it out and get rid of all the extra books on your shelves that just sit there collecting dust. I understand the appeal of having shelves and shelves of books in a home for the decor and style, but getting rid of stuff that you don't read will free up space and help unclutter your home and your psyche.