Amazon Officially Announces The New Kindle Paperwhite | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Officially Announces The New Kindle Paperwhite

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231 pointsaaronbrethorst175 comments

I'm really disappointed.

The hardware buttons for the page turn are the essential feature i love about my Kindle Keyboard (3rd Gen).

The integrated lighting is nice, but not really the kind of innovation that i wish the market leader in e-books would be capable of and nothing i'd buy a new one for.

I'd instantly buy another Kindle if they had a color e-ink version like the Jetbook color, or that prototype that e-ink showed on the 2011 IFA.

I agree w/r/t hardware buttons. My wife has a Kindle Touch, and I find it nigh unusable from a UI standpoint, since there is so little feedback after touching the screen to turn the page, especially with PDFs. (Did I accidentally flip backward? Did the software crash again?)

I was also surprised that the basic model was not upgraded to the new screen. I think the cheapest kindle is actually the best one to get, because of hardware buttons. I won't be upgrading it anytime soon, it seems.

The basic model appears to have a higher contrast screen, at least.

Well, no. From what I can see, all the "PaperWhite" models have a touch screen (which I really do not want) and no hardware buttons (which I really do).

So, no upgrade path for me. I'm sticking to my current Kindle.

I use a nook touch, and I stopped using the mechanical buttons after I realized how nice it is to just tap the screen instead. A tap on the left side means back, tap on the right side forward. Not that hard, and feels really nice. I found swapping gestures to be too long, and slightly unstable as well. Does the kindle support page turns by tapping?

"Nothing I'd buy a new one for." Exactly my thought. I'll continue to use (and love) my Kindle Keyboard everyday.

This makes me worry about Amazon's future in the ereader space. The Touch is gone, replaced with this for $139 sans offers. The capable Kobo Touch and Nook Touch are $99.

$40 for a light and whiter background? I'll continue to use my $4.50 clip-on light, thanks.

Kindles aren't at the head of the price versus performance curve anymore.

They're still at the head of the price curve if you look at the price that matters: $69. you don't really need a touch screen, a glow light, and the ads are not a big deal. Kindle is still the cheapest real player in the e-reader market.

I probably won't be upgrading from my 3rd-gen kindle either, but somehow i doubt amazon cares. I'm sure they make more off of book purchases from 3-year-old kindles than they do from the sale of new hardware. They want to sell kindles to as many people as they can, but once you've got a kindle all they need you to do is keep buying content.

The price of the Kobo goes down by $20 too if you throw in ads.

Also, how do you search for words or phrases without a keyboard or touchpad? I find that a very handy ereader feature. Well worth $10.

Oh remember the days of paper books and indexes...

I rarely do searches on my Kindle 4, and when I do there's a not-as-cumbersome-as-you'd-think-but-pretty-cumbersome-anyway keyboard that you can use. In exchange, I get a smaller, lighter Kindle that's easier to pack around.

That said, the physical page-turn buttons are the best part. Without those, I'd never use the thing.

Maybe it's just me, but there are circumstances when I prefer a good index to a text search. If a term is informally introduced and used a couple of times in the few pages before it's defined, for example, I usually want the formal definition, and I can just remember that that's the second index entry rather than the first rather than Ctrl-G-ing my way through a bunch of uses.

(I do passionately hate bad indexes, though.)

Yup. I have a 2nd gen Kindle, but I purchase material regularly. They could care less whether I buy the latest model.

$69 only in US, others still have to pay the full $89 price.

$69 is the Ad supported one (which is US only). $89 is the ad free one I believe

Maybe the point is Amazon doesn't want people to upgrade?

They make the money on content sales, as long as you keep buying books they are happier you don't purchase a new loss leader device.

Jeff Bezos stated this explicitly during the presentation - Amazon wants to make money when you use the device, not when you buy it. So they sell the Kindles at a very aggressive price in order to get you into the Amazon ecosystem. If you're already there, they're not going to make much, if anything, if you upgrade.

Which is why it's odd that they seem to abandon their older devices the moment new hardware is released. You can't report passages with errors in them on the KK for instance, because that feature only exists on the Kindle4 devices.

It's possible that the new software couldn't be ported to the older hardware of course, and keeping multiple lines of software current takes more developer resources, but if Amazon doesn't want people to upgrade, then turning their hardware into abandonware seems like it's a counterproductive move.

Amazon makes a virtue internally of doing everything 'on a shoestring' supposedly, this is probably just an external reflection of that I guess.

Yeah, this is a good point. It's long seemed to me the incentive for Android manufacturers is not to provide retroactive upgrades (and only helpful for Apple insofar as it is a competitive selling point).

Amazon seems the opposite; good software updates would make your old device feel new (just optimize speed and bugfixes, if nothing else). That would prevent people from upgrading to such "cheap" new models.

On the other hand maybe they expect to sell an order of magnitude more devices each generation. Also, depending whether the old devices end up in desk drawers or new users' hands it might all work out.

Further investigation reveals that Amazon did release a firmware update to the KK in June: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_n...

They've still pretty much abandoned the K2 & DX users, but perhaps the userbase for those is so small it isn't worth supporting them: it would probably be cheaper to just send them all new Kindles, but I doubt Amazon will do that...

$40 for a light, and better contrast, and better resolution. 800×600 was getting pretty long in the tooth; cramming 1024×768 into the same space may not sound like much, but I'm looking forward to the higher pixel density for sure.

And faster page turn speed. None of it is worth it for what Amazon is trying to do with books: exclusivity deals etc. are going to turn books into cable tv and Amazon is leading the charge.

I honestly am not fussed about amazons sales model. Have Calibre, Will Travel.

Question - why do you prefer the hard keys to the touchscreen page turns? BTW the non-touch model is still available, it has the hard keys.

I have a Kindle Keyboard and a Nexus 7 with the Kindle app. Lately I've been reading more on the Nexus 7, but when I use the touchscreen to turn pages it has a very high error rate. I usually turn the page by tapping the screen on one side or the other, but as often as not, my tap has a bit of a slide to it, and if that slide goes the wrong way I get the wrong page. It's really very annoying.

(I don't know if the touchscreen Kindles have the same tap/slide interaction; I'm just reporting my experience with the Kindle hardware and software I have.)

It would be much less annoying if I had the option to disable sliding entirely and just respond to taps without regard to any sliding motion. Then I could tap one side of the screen or the other reliably.

But seriously, one side of the screen or the other? Haven't they heard that people hold the Nexus 7 with one hand while reading - and not always the same hand? If I'm holding it with my left hand, it's not easy to get my thumb all the way to the right side to do a tap page flip.

If this worked like the late great FictionWise eReader software, I'd have the option of ignoring all sliding motion and tapping the bottom of the screen for the next page or the top of the screen for the previous page. Then it would work identically with whichever hand I'm holding the device.

Now consider the Kindle Keyboard: Each side has a big next-page and a smaller previous-page button. It's trivial to hold the device with either hand and rest my thumb on the next-page button. I can click that button when I want, without moving my hand at all! No worries about tapping the wrong side of the screen, accidentally sliding the wrong way, or anything. It just works.

You can turn the pages using the volume buttons (enabled from Settings on the home screen). I reallly love that feature.

Thanks for the detailed explanation! And also, thanks for the mention of Fictionwise! I was actually the dev manager for Fictionwise's entire eReader apps line (iPhone, Android, Mac, PC, Blackberry). I later moved to the Nook team after the acquisition and I'm currently on the Kindle team at Amazon. Your feedback is really valuable and hasn't fallen on deaf ears.

Whoa - so you worked on eReader? That is too cool. If you're in Cupertino these days let me buy you lunch or a beer. eReader was the killer app for me back in the Windows CE/Windows Mobile days.

While I've got you, then, I'll mention the other two major features I really miss from eReader:

1) The ability to turn off right justification and select ragged right margin instead. This is what made eReader so usable on my tiny old Windows Mobile screens, and it still matters when reading on any phone-sized screen. The extra gaps and rivers of whitespace resulting from flush justification really interfere with readability.

2) The ability to turn off all animation. eReader would just show me the next page without no fuss. Of course the e-ink Kindles work like this, but all the Kindle apps seem to do some kind of animation.

Here's another big wishlist item. I would really like the ability to sync not to the farthest page read, but to the most recent page read. I often jump around in a book, look at footnotes at the end, etc. before starting to read through it from the beginning. This makes the "farthest page read" sync useless in many cases.

OK, this is obviously not the right forum for Kindle suggestions - if you can point me to a better place to send them in I'll be happy to do it. :-) Thanks!

Thanks Stratoscope, for summarizing most of the feedback i would've wanted to give about the hardware buttons, since i use them exactly like you do.

The Kindle App on Android could need more customization features, i find it very important to be able to change the text color to a grey or brown on a black background.

On the Samsungs AMOLED Displays that don't emit any light when the color is black this makes for a great reading experience in the dark since its perfectly readable while dark enough without keeping you artificially long awake.

The only app i found that offers all the features i need is a chinese one, which sometimes shines through...

EDIT: It's called iReader if anyone is wondering: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chaozh.iRe...

I work in Cupertino - let's grab lunch and chat about eReading. Email in profile

Ha! You may think your email is in your profile, but that one is hidden. It has to go in the About section for anyone to see it.

Having said that, I'm embarrassed to admit that I also had my email only in the email field in my profile, so if you went to look you wouldn't see it. That's fixed now! So drop me a note, or I'll look for your updated profile later. :-)

I bought a Nexus 7, thinking that it would replace my Kindle (with the benefit of also being a tablet). I found that, even thought the Nexus 7 is higher resolution, it's harder on my eyes for some reason. So I sold the Nexus 7 and went back to the Kindle...

"But seriously, one side of the screen or the other? Haven't they heard that people hold the Nexus 7 with one hand while reading - and not always the same hand? If I'm holding it with my left hand, it's not easy to get my thumb all the way to the right side to do a tap page flip."

Yeah, this is one big problem. One-handed reading is key for public transit, where one hand may be occupied keeping yourself upright.

I also find that when I use the Kindle app on the iPad, or iBooks for that matter, I often end up with undesired taps changing the page, or even taking me to a page far from where I want to be. With physical buttons it's easier to avoid this. With touch screens and narrow bezels, it's very easy to encroach upon the screen and unintentionally 'tap', when you're just trying to hold onto the device.

I can use my left hand to turn to the next page on my Kindle 3. I don't know how the touchscreen works on the Kindle hardware, but the tablet versions of Kindle software a tap on the left side moves to the previous page.

The way I hold the kindle rests my thumb lightly against the next page button. I only have to do the tiniest movement to change the page. Tapping on a touch screen is unattractive by comparison.

I would prefer a model with touch and hard keys, but it doesn't look like that's forthcoming, so I stick with the basic model.

I think they are less concerned about making people buy another kindle than getting a kindle into the hands of everybody. They make money with selling ebooks.

Yep, like they said in one slide, they don't want to make money when you buy it, they want to make money when you use it.

Does every product launch have to be about replacing existing gear? Our expectation that good products need to replace what we have seems pathological. I have friends with first gen iPhones that they love. I've subsisted on a ten year old Nokia before...

The higher contrast is pretty neat, but was hoping Amazon had figured out how to significantly improve on the slow response rate of E-Ink.

Slow UI or animations (ahem, looking at you iOS/OSX), are for me personally, a serious distraction to the reading experience.

I agree. I wrote the following after having used my Kindle Keyboard for a few weeks:

What’s really remarkable about the device is how relaxing it is to use. ... The e-ink screen, at the cost of some functionality and elegance, is not only relaxing to the eyes, but also completely kills the low-grade but omnipresent anxiety of a touch screen. Which means you don’t have to worry about triggering a destructive action by accidentally brushing the screen somewhere and grip-placement is a lot less restrictive, i.e. if it’s most comfortable to hold by a corner of the actual screen, you can. The physical buttons mean that you know for sure when you’ve made an input. And the incredible battery life means I have literally never had to think about charging the device. I plug it in to sync to Instapaper (more on this later) often enough that I’ve never even come close discharging the whole battery, even on long trips. And while you get used to having to deal with all of these things using a modern smartphone, once you don’t have to anymore the immersiveness of the reading experience is truly unmatched. http://blog.byjoemoon.com/kindle

I really feel like in some contexts (reading device, cars) touch screens are more gimmick than feature.

> The hardware buttons for the page turn are the essential feature i love

Interesting, I often find myself swiping across my (3rd Gen Keyboard) screen wishing I didn't have to use those buttons to turn a page.

I find that it depends on your seating position when reading. If you sit upright, it would be easy to hold the device with one hand and swipe with the other. I however often find myself laying on my side reading, this makes swiping quite a lot harder.

Agree, being an owner of a Kindle Touch I am occasionally frustrated by its refusal to acknowledge I want to change pages. There are times where I simply turn it off and on just so I can page change.

Still, I think I have some gifts for Christmas. While this might not be enough for me to upgrade it will be a nice gift for a few relatives I know who love to read.

I am however more interested in their other tablets as children's gifts.

On a side note, I will give Amazon credit for making a resilient device. I left mine out overnight and it got caught in a full down pour. Found it on the table outside with water to the brim. Shook it out, put it port side down in the bathroom sink with a hair dryer aimed at it for the morning and the damn think still works as well as day one.

Just keep in mind that most real books you read are printed on recycled paper that's beige, creme, off-white, somewhat yellow, grey, or a little brown anyway. The only "white paper" you actually read would be computer printouts.

I've never had a problem with "real books" and wished they were printed on "white paper" instead, nor have I ever complained about the Kindle display - it was always more than adequate in terms of contrast and colors. It's just the goddamn lag (esp. in the touch screen edition, which makes it so infuriating because of the lack of both tactile and visual feedback). So I'm inclined to just call this a marketing ploy.

I wouldn't call it a ploy. They are trying to improve the readability of the characters on-screen. Books have very dark lettering, so the beige paper doesn't matter. E-ink, on the other hand, is still working on darkness, and so increased whiteness of the background can be used to bolster contrast.

I have a ereader from Asus that has a slightly yellow, slightly grey screen. I don't know exactly how to describe the color, but it looks like a piece of paper.

I completely agree. I only accept reading technical whitepapers because I have to. When I'm reading for comfort, I don't want my eyes subjected to a harsh white (which is what I feel is implied by them focusing on how white it is). I'd have to see it in front of me to be comfortable saying I could replace my non-lit, non-white screen ereader. If it's pure white, it's a no-go for bedtime reading with sleepy eyes.

looking at non-marketing pictures of the new kindle [1], it looks like the screen is about the same colour as a paperback page. The real advantage of the white seems to be that the front-lighting is a warm white light, not the bluish light that the nook uses.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/6/3295939/amazon-kindle-paper...

The 3rd from last picture compares the old & new Kindles with the backlight off. You can see the new one's color is closer to white, but it's not really that different. They're both still pretty close to a standard paperback.

However, in that picture you can see how much sharper the text on the new Kindle is. That really appeals to me.

I like my 3G, but I think I'd really like the increased resolution. The thing I worry about is turning pages. I like using the buttons on the sides of my Kindle to change pages (even if I think they should be reversed vertically). I'm not sure I like the idea of having to poke the screen all the time and get finger prints on it.

I'll have to see one in person either way. But they've got me interested.

Yes. And since I am in charge of office supplies in my group, all the printer paper is recycled, too.

Agreed. You can choose from several different color schemes (foreground/background) for text on the Nook Color. I'm most comfortable with the cream colored scheme which is closest to actual print.

I totally disagree. The biggest (or maybe 2nd biggest if you include battery life) disadvantage of ebook readers has always been contrast.

It was most obvious with the 1st gen, where they were unreadable in anything besides bright, direct sunlight. Even in the current gen, the cheapest paperback is still more readable in lower light than a Kindle or Nook.

Amazon knows its audience with the Kindle ebook readers. It's not gadget nerds, it's readers. Contrast and screen brightness are absolutely key to readers.

I think the difference is that the kindle isn't a "real book" if real books were printed on perfectly white paper (that wasn't glossy) they would easily show up any marks or finger prints on the pages making it distracting to read in the future. This isn't an issue with the Kindle.

It's also possible that off white paper is cheaper to produce which made it the choice for mass produced books for many years leading to us being more comfortable with it than alternatives.

All that being said I've never had a problem with the contrast of the Kindle but that doesn't mean I won't be happier with the new high contrast version, once I get in my hands for a few weeks and read in different lighting conditions then I'll know for sure.

My biggest concern is the page turning of this latest version...

I read this as "The New Kindle Paperweight." I sincerely hope that it's a successful product so this pun doesn't show up too often.

My first thought was that they're planning to release a black one just so they can call it the Paperblack.

No, that's going to be the Kindle Scissor.

Followed shortly by Kindle Rock (the true paperweight).

Hahaha: quote from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19509626 under the image (the caption):

"Amazon said the Kindle Paperweight's battery could last for up to eight weeks"

(emphasis added)

(screenshot: http://cl.ly/image/3n0f0p3X173q)

I think the "eight week" translates well if the average daily usage is half an hour?

I'm not referring to the battery life, rather the slip-of-tongue wrt the name of the device.

Amazon launched a new ereader Thursday, the Kindle Paperweight.

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/tablets/amazo...

Looks like they've corrected it, but the URL still shows the original title

The slug doesn't matter:

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/tablets/amazo...

Disclosure: I own a kobo ereader.

One thing that is really interesting to me is battle of spec marketing and how Amazon is really managing to outdo its competitors here.

As far as I can tell the Kobo Glo and the Kindle Paperwhite use the same new display and lighting technology. However Amazon has christened theirs as the "Paperwhite" and so several sites I have read have discussed how kobo has released a competitor but it uses the "older e-ink pearl" technology. If anyone has some clarification about the displays I would happy to get more detail, but from the matching resolutions, to the similar device photos on their respective websites, to the description of how the front-lighting is achieved lead me to believe that Amazon is using commodity e-ink technology available to everyone else and christening it as a revolution.

Their other claim is that they get 8 weeks of battery life with the light enabled. Closer reading of the small print reveals that this is going by 30 minutes of reading a day, for a grand total of 870.5 = 28 hours of reading with the light. On their site Kobo claims 55 hours of use with the light on. Amazon does not say in their comparison if the light stays on for the whole 8 weeks, or just while it is being read. But either they have achieve an incredible breakthrough in battery life to allow for 8724 hours of lights or their battery life is 1/2 that of a competitor. Regardless I have seen several sites claiming that Kobo has some serious catching up to with "only" 55 hours of battery.

Anyway, just the usual specs jockeying between tech companies, but in this case as an owner of a kobo I was intrigued by the details as I have experience with one of their competitors. Always interesting to see what gets reported unchecked and what doesn't.

This is called great marketing: "Amazon is using commodity e-ink technology available to everyone else and christening it as a revolution."

Apple does the same thing, again and again.

It's true, and I wasn't expecting them to say anything like that. Of course they would trumpet it as a revolution, it would indeed be terrible marketing if they didn't.

My post was muddled, so I guess what I was really trying to say is this: Most of the tech reporting I have seen around this event has uncritically parroted most of these claims. This bodes poorly for getting accurate information in areas where it isn't as obvious to me. It caught me off guard this time because I saw it being done by several resources which I had previously viewed as being more in-depth and trustworthy. I guess it's like reading an article in the newspaper about a topic you know quite well. It makes you incredibly suspicious of reporting on topics you don't know as much about.

Can it read epubs yet?

I was thinking of buying a Nook Glowlight because I often read in bed while my partner sleeps. But when I went to check it out in the store, the contrast is noticeably worse on the Glowlight, to the point where I decided not to get one. If this new Kindle can read epubs, has a light, and has contrast that's at least as good as a regular Kindle, I'm sold.

Edit: I know I can convert files, but it's a big pain to be constantly converting a big library, especially since I very often correct ebooks in Sigil.

It is trivial to convert epub to mobi. Amazon has released a free tool for all platforms.

You can convert epubs easily with Calibre. I think it might even do it automatically when you tell it to put an epub on your Kindle.

However, the formatting doesn't always get converted properly.

epub->mobi is a more or less lossless conversion using calibre.

Check out the Kobo Glo. Seems to be what you're looking for.

Use Kindlegen (http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000...)

Seriously. Calibre produces a very poor conversion. Kindlegen will retain much of the ePub fidelity.

Thank you! I've been using Calibre to convert everything. Is there a way to add WhisperSync too?

I convert to mobi using Calibre and mail to the amazon personal documents account (name@kindle.com). It adds WhisperSync.

If your kindle is non-3G, the content that you email to your kindle address will show up when it's connected to wifi.

Thanks for this! I'm downloading it and the Kindle Previewer now. I don't yet have a Kindle, but my birthday and Christmas are coming soon. And of course I have the Kindle app on my Android phone. :)

That's my must-have.

Along with a growing aversion to vendor- (and increasingly: online-marketplace-) devices.

No, conversion isn't a substitute.

And yet when I go to amazon.co.uk or amazon.com they aren't advertising the new version as available for purchase.

One thing Apple gets right is that you can buy a new product as soon as it's announced.

Exactly. I don't even care if they're not selling it yet, at least have an informational screen up. I just went there to look up the specs on the new Kindle Paperwhite (weight, mostly) and the product isn't even mentioned anywhere on their site.

No you can't. There's often delays in highly desired products, not to mention they stop their entire storefront when doing product launches ("We'll be right back!", but I won't since I can't order it right now). At least I can still use Amazon.com to order things.

"We'll be right back!", but I won't since I can't order it right now

Yeah, you will.

Yeah, you're right. I can't quit you Apple!

Do you really jump to do a multi-hundred dollar purchase on impulse and then cancel when you have to wait an hour?

Yea, that was weird. But if you search for Kindle Paperwhite, it shows up. I just ordered the 3G one.

It's now on the front page, product at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007OZNZG0/

The previous model is now cheaper too (USD 69/89 with/without ads).

PS. Good summary appreciation at http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/06/amazon-kindle-paperwhite-...

It's on the front page of amazon.com now (8pm US EST)

I'm excited. I have to admit that I really like the Nexus 7, but I can't really get into fiction books unless I see them on something that looks like paper. I can't really explain it, but I'll probably be purchasing one of these things. If only Google Play Books worked on the Kindle :)

I have the same unexplainable perspective on long-form fiction on LCDs, but I think I've actually isolated the hangup: It's the backlight timeout. I don't care whether the light is coming through or bouncing off the screen (your eyes can't actually tell the difference!), but it's the psychological effect of having a clock constantly counting down to when the screen will shut off, requiring that I spend no more than a certain amount of time reading each page.

I always end up extending the backlight timeout setting until it doesn't bug me anymore. For me, if I haven't read a page in 5 minutes, it's because I'm not reading anymore.

Increase the timeout then. You're probably already in the habit of manually turning off the screen when you're done with the device, so why do you need it to turn off automatically after a minute or two of inactivity? Especially when modern tablets have battery life measured in many hours of time with the screen turned on, does it really matter if you do happen to forget and it takes five or ten minutes for it to correct your mistake? And if it really takes you more than 10 minutes to read a page on a tablet screen before you touch it again to flip the page, just turn off the timeout altogether.

Your eyes can tell the difference if the backlight is a completely different color/intensity from the surroundings, though. In candlelight, kindle vs monitor/phone is an easy win for the kindle. (Yes, maybe I'm old-fashioned for using candles, but they have a pleasant light which helps me actually get tired enough to sleep). f.lux or redshift helps a bit with monitors, but it's still no competition.

The Kindle app for Android tablets overrides the normal backlight timeout. I didn't measure it, but it must be at least 5 minutes - more than enough to read a page and not think about the display turning off.

ISeeYou when reading on android or SmartStay in galaxy s3 prevent screen sutting off when they see a face in the front camera. As a side note, I prefer galaxy nexus as a portable reading device.

212 PPI could be revolutionary in viewing non-text documents on an e-ink screen. The current Kindle is basically unusable for PDFs unless you have a DX. It might still be too low of a DPI, but it has to be a major improvement and right now most PDFs are just BARELY unreadable.

Back in 1990 I saw a prototype IBM display that was 230PPI which really impressed me. The person doing the demo said that eyestrain drops dramatically once you're eye can more easily infer the lines rather than connecting the dots on 'large' pixels. Their claim was that 200 PPI was the reading threshold where eyestrain due to pixelation became 'negligible'.

At one time I had a link to some studies but now I only find later papers, sigh. Searching for 'eye fatigue ppi' gets you some decent hits.

Jakob Nielsen mentioned the impact of PPI on reading speed in an old article but unfortunately he didn't cite the original source.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9511.html

On the contrary, I find reading PDFs with reasonable margins (e.g. the kind you find in computer science papers) on my 3rd gen Kindle very easy, so long as I flip the Kindle into landscape mode (for one-column documents) or zoom in a little bit (for two-column documents).

Probably one of the most interesting features of the new Kindle Paperweight is this: "The display has 62 percent more pixels, and it’s super sharp with excellent contrast". There haven't been any new breakthroughs in the eInk department since B&N Nook Simple Touch and Kindle 4.

Kindle 4 was 600x800, Kindle Paperwhite is 768x1024.

Glad to see they are finally increasing the resolution, although I think I would prefer a 7"-8" version with higher resolution. 6" is kind of small for reading books, isn't it?

Doesn't bug me. I like the DPI increase. Might be truly to retina levels, but the difference should be noticeable.

To each their own, but I think 6" is too big. Both my wife and I prefer reading on our smartphones than on our 6" eReaders and 7" and 10" tablets.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this. You'd prefer to read 1.5 paragraphs at a time on your smartphone to reading something that approximates the size of a book?

It's not 1.5 paragraphs, but in essence, yes. Have you tried it?

With a book or slow ereader, page turns interrupt your reading, but on a phone they're instantaneous so pretty much disappear as a reason to prefer large pages.

When reading, your eyes focus on an area about 3 lines high and about 5-10 words across. Unless you're a beginner reader you don't read one word at a time. Because the width of a smartphone is the same as the width of what you're focusing on, the lines above and below your current reading line provide full context for your brain to help interpret the current line, improving reading speed and comprehension.

Also there is no eye scanning or head movement required, which I really appreciate when reading in bed.

I've tried it and found it pretty much intolerable. Way too much page turning for my liking, not enough on-screen text, and I don't like looking at a backlit screen right right before I go to bed.

That is just going from 800x600 to 1024x768. It does make a difference reading wise, but is long overdue for Amazon.

Funny, spec wise this is identical to my cheapo $49 iRiver HD which I've had for a year. Some other readers have it too.

"Paperweight"? Brain glitch, auto-correct, or opinion?

The higher resolution was pioneered by iRiver one year ago, the frontlit screen by Barnes and Noble 4 months ago. And the combination of both by Kobo yesterday.

So not a breakthrough by amazon ;-)

You're right, but the way they are lighting it is indeed different.

I am interested what their plan for the DX form factor is. I really don't like the small form factor of regular kindles.

I posted a longer comment about this last night[1], but the short version is: Amazon is clearly much more interested in profiting from content than hardware. That means they want cheap devices that people will take everywhere and read lots of books on. The Kindle DX is less portable (and thus you're less likely to take it on your commute, etc), and its main advantage is for reading PDF's, on which they make money.

So I think it will be an expensive second-class citizen for the forseeable future. It's not in their interest to change that.

1: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4483305

> main advantage is for reading PDF's, on which they make money.

I suppose you mean "make no money", assuming PDFs are off-the-net stuff, which is quite likely.

A couple of years ago I got a Kindle DX for technical PDFs, and haven't used it much past the first year - it's not really pleasant to use. It combines the size/weight disadvantage of an iPad 10" (not the upcoming mini ;-) with the slowness and poor resizing of eInk.

I have a DX and frankly, I think it's a pleasure to read and use. I would like to see a DX2 come out sometime!

"Amazon: 'We are pretty much done' with the Kindle DX"

http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/6/3298468/amazon-kindle-dx-ki...

Sad pie. The DX is better for reading technical books, where things like code listings look better if they're not line-wrapped to hell and back.

It looks like if you preorder by September 14 you can avoid sales tax in CA! I checked on some other preorder items that will not ship before Amazon starts charging CA tax.

Well, to be clear - you end up having to pay the tax yourself, instead of having amazon collect and pay it for you.

Technically I believe you wouldn't pay a sales tax, but rather a use tax. But yeah, same thing.

That is if they ever get around to accepting preorders.

I'm going to order the 3G model as soon as it's up on the store. The backlight is what was holding me back before.

Edit: Ordered. Should be here on October 2nd.

How far off is the technology to combine this type of screen with your typical LCD tablet screen? I would love to read on a "paperwhite" screen, and watch movies/surf on a standard tablet screen, all on one device.

It's happening: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/lcd-and-e-ink-dual-screen...

Also I was thinking about buying something like this for my netbook: http://pixelqi.com/products

This is actually a pretty good upgrade IMHO.

The backlight is a huge upgrade - I have wanted this for years. And a sharper screen is always great. I bought a $79 Kindle last year (over the Touch) because it was smaller and had physical page turn buttons. I'm probably going to upgrade as soon as this is actually available.

I'm not crazy about the lack of physical buttons, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Color e-ink would be great, but from what I hear, the performance just isn't there yet. Hopefully next year.

Why would you make the bezel case black? That creates an eye-straining contrast between the bezel and the white screen.

Exactly. It makes the contrast, one of the selling points, more noticeable than if everything around it was white. The black case of the previous kindle was in my opinion a very good design choice.

No, not a good design choice. A good sales choice.

I can tell you the main reason I bought the 3G version of my Kindle (since re-named the Kindle Keyboard 3G) was to get the white case instead of black.

The press conference is thin on some details, like refresh rate of the new screen, but I'm really excited about this. Higher contrast, long battery life, backlight..

I will order two. I haven't had a kindle for a year or so, but I'll use this in bed at night when I don't want bright screens / work intruding on my reading.

I'll probably get one, I just got the most recent kindle touch after selling the 2nd generation kindle for it. Looks like I'll be moving on to my 3rd kindle.

There's something about the price point that really sells me on these...$120 doesn't seem like a big deal, specially if I sell my current generation, it only ends up costing maybe ~$50 to upgrade and reading on an ultra light kindle is a lot more comfortable to me than an iPad or physical book.

It sounds like they wont have a non-touch model this time though. I like all the new features but I would probably go back to a non-touch screen if they offered it. I tend to hit the screen too often by mistake and end up losing my place.

There were both touch and non-touch Kindle e-ink readers announced. The non-touch Kindle does not have the "Paperwhite" screen but it is super fast and light weight, and it's now $69...

I've been waiting to take my Kindle Paperwhite home for some time now; I love the front-lit screen.

Why nobody is excited about size of new Fire? To me 7" is cute and all pockety, but it is still too small to feel confortable doing stuff on it. 8.9", on the other hand, is good compromise between small 7" and large 10".

Because we have yet to see if the software has improved.

And also 3 new tablets. Kindle Fire upgrade, and two Kindle Fire "HD" editions.

I think this looks interesting and I will order one. The only thing that annoys me about the Kindle is that you can't set you own lockscreen image, even if you buy the non-ad supported version.

There's a minor hack that lets you use your own images. I don't know if it'll work as-is with the new devices, or if it needs to be updated.

Isn't everyone (and by that I mean everyone, including naive customers) already fed up with this HD thing?

I dream of a day when I wake up and don't hear this word (mis/ab)used again.

  “Paperwhite” display, which offers more contrast
  and brightness

Brighter? As far as I know it doesn't have any backlight, so how can it be brighter?

It has front light. Thus it is brighter.

If the previous one had no light and this one has, "brighter" is a strange way to describe it, isn't it?

Now ∞% brighter!

Not at all. It's very common to refer to papers as brighter and darker. This analogous use for an electronic reading surface seems very natural to me.

Everything that reflects light has brightness. Something doesn't need to emit its own light to have brightness. However, if it emits light of its own, it will usually appear brighter.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightness

@BoppreH what word would you use instead?

Don't mention it? Citing better contrast makes the point clear enough.

"...it has 25 percent more contrast than the Pearl screens in the current Kindles and, with 212ppi, it has a 62 percent higher resolution. It relies on a fiber optic like system to direct light down onto the display, not unlike the Nook but, from what we can see, the color is much whiter." [1]

[1] -http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/06/kindle-paperwhite/

It can still have a higher contrast ratio. Flat black vs flat white, whereas previous versions were not quite flat black and not quite flat white.

If you look at this page: https://sites.google.com/a/etccreations.com/kdesignworks/

It's clear that the existing Kindle is grey-to-grey with a moderate contrast ratio.

It can be brighter in the same way that real dead-tree paper can be brighter. If you go into an office supply store, look at the paper selection, you'll notice that some shades of "white" are much, much brighter white than others.

> Brighter? As far as I know it doesn't have any backlight, so how can it be brighter?

It does have a backlight, but it can be brighter because the pages are more white.

Maybe "lightness" or "whiteness" would be more accurate because it's a matter of reflectance and not luminance, but brightness is already commonly misused in that context, so I don't think this is particularly egregious. Paper has a brightness rating, afterall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleaching_of_wood_pulp#Paper_br...

Just like whiteboard is brighter than blackboard.

I'd upgrade to the Paperwhite just for the built-in light. I backpack a lot, and reading my Kindle with a headlamp is really annoying...

How fast is the response time on the display? Something with "paper" whiteness, a reflective screen, and an option to backlight is the perfect basis for an e-ink "digital moleskine." However, it would need to add instant response time and a good stylus. A "paper-like" feel of the stylus on the surface and attention to other details would be needed as well.

Not backlit, it's "front-lit" http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Paperwhite-Resolution-Display-B...

They say it's "25% better contrast", but is this with the display lit or unlit? It's easy to increase contrast by adding more light, but not great on the eyes.

I find http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/dp/2012/KC... saddening. Comparing battery life in completely different units? Isn't that something of a sleazy marketing "trick"?

Question: I want to buy either, a kindle for $69 or a Nook for $99

I want to:

* Read books (by the way, recommended: ebooks.adelaide.edu.au)

* Install Android and install a vocabulary training program (e.g. anki: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70FIv5Qfrag )

Question: Can the kindle be rooted?

> Question: Can the kindle be rooted?

Oh yes :-)

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150

My Kindle is the best piece of electronics I have ever bought. Just ordered this new version.

Any opinions on the "Special Offers" version?

Has anyone tried one of these? Just wondering if it's worth saving $20 to have yet another source of ads (very clever getting ads close to...if not yet _in_ a book).

I've used those for two versions now. The ads don't come in the way at all.

Thanks.

Looks like you can turn if off, and they'll simply charge you the price difference.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_s...

I have a kindle touch with ads, and honestly I sort of prefer them over the ad-less version. Those same 10 screensavers on the ad-less one get old fast, and I even buy an advertised product on rare occasions.

They really need to hook it up to my AMZN recommendations to show me targeted discounts though =P.

So once they've taken (micro)SD port, they'll never give it back?

Anyone know for sure whether or not the browser will work international with 3G? That's the one thing that would prevent me from upgrading from my keyboard model.

I have a Kindle 3 with 3G, and it works great over here in Italy, and was also the only internet connected device I had when stuck in Amsterdam because of snow a few years back (hotel charged something obscene for wifi, and the phone would have incurred big roaming charges).

Of course, with the touch, they only let you see wikipedia and Amazon.com, I've heard.

"9.1mm thin"

It's kinda like "40 years young", I guess. 5'9" short.

Yeah, I get why the manufacturers spin it that way, but it irritates me no end that tech sites and bloggers repeat it.

ANyone know if the technology used in this Kindle the same as before (e-ink again?). Or did they move to a better alternative (since there are several ones) ?

Preorder the Fire HD here http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRDL0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

And the paperwhite here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008UB7DU6/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

This seems like poor timing to announce just prior to the iPhone 5 and later the iPad Mini.

An early launch could have given them a bit of traction going into the holiday season. ("My friend just got one and now I want one.") Announcing after the new Apple products could have made them top-of-mind around the holidays. But this timing puts them uncomfortably close to what will surely be a much larger Apple news event.

http://live.theverge.com/amazon-kindle-fire-paperwhite-reade...

Apple has some serious competition.

That's for an 8.9" 1920x1200 tablet, 32GB storage, stereo audio, 4G LTE, mimo dual-antenna wireless, bunch of other features.

That is even more locked down than Apple...

XDA developers. Honestly I'd be disappointed with my kindle fire if I hadn't installed the awesome roms that are available on that page. Now I have a cheap as dirt device, capable of playing new gen Android games (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.madfingerg...) with stunning graphics at 60+ fps. Don't even doubt they will be releasing a JB rom for it.

You instantly get their products top of mind if you ever use Amazon.com - I think most people who are both Apple and Amazon customers go to Amazon.com more than Apple.com.

Just as support, I'm an Apple customer (typing this on a MBP) and I go to amazon.com at least twenty times as often as I go to apple.com.

Edited add: I just went to amazon.com, and ironically enough, they don't seem to have updated to reflect the new Kindles.

Well, yeah, I go to amazon.com to buy everything except an iphone, ipad, or macbook. Not a good comparison.

But you will still see a Kindle ad when you are there.

I think you are wrong about the timing strategy. The Apple events are going to get a ton more press and readers, and Amazon want's to be mentioned in those articles and compared to whatever Apple launches. That isn't possible if they announce after Apple.

You don't think they would have thought that through, do you?

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