I get it now, the Kindle Paperwhite is one of my favorite tech products I've used ever.
And as I've used it over the past six months, one question that's been banging around my
head a lot is: is it better than a book?
I think it is.
So let's dive into what's new with the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, why I think it's better
than a book and why I think you should get the Paperwhite over the regular Kindle that
Amazon just refreshed.
The 11th gen Kindle Paperwhite was released in 2021 and is the latest in a long line of
Kindles which originally debuted the same year as the iPhone, in 2007.
There are three main improvements that Amazon has made to this version of the Kindle Paperwhite
over the previous generation.Amazon increased the screen to a 6.8 inch display, while also
slimming down the bezels.
The 11th generation also gets an adjustable warm light plus 10 more LEDS for lighting
than the previous generation & for charging, it now comes with USB-C and optional wireless
charging if you go with the signature edition of the device.
If you're thinking of upgrading to the 11th gen Kindle Paperwhite or you're wondering
if it's worth going for over a tenth generation Kindle Paperwhite.
Yes.
And yes.
The speed of the UI on the 11th gen, combined with the larger display & USB-C support makes
upgrading or going with the 11th gen outright a no-brainer in my opinion.
And I’ll talk about why I’d still go with the Kindle Paperwhite over the other Kindle’s
in Amazon’s current lineup a little later on.
Now, let's dive a bit deeper into the Kindle experience and why I think it's better than
a book.
And I know that is a very controversial statement right there.
Feel free, drop a comment below.
Let me know your thoughts.
If you use a Kindle, which do you prefer: a Kindle or a book?
But now, let me unpack why I actually think it's better than a book.
First ergonomics.
Weighing just 205 g, the Kindle Paperwhite is very lightweight, and often feels lighter
than many books I own, especially the big thick hardcover ones.
The Kindle Paperwhite is also easier to hold than most books, you don’t have to keep
it propped open, making it easier to read with one hand,especially if you like to read
while laying down on your side.
Another feature of the Kindle Paperwhite and all Kindles for that matter now is a built
in light.
Now, what's really interesting about the Kindle is the light that you see included on Kindles,
it's not actually a traditional backlight that you're accustomed to from a device that
has an LCD or OLED display like your smartphone, tablet, TV, etc.
The LEDs Amazon uses for the Paperwhite’s light are actually found at the edges of the
device and then Amazon uses a light guide layer to evenly distribute light across the
device, however, unlike a more traditional display, like an LCD with a backlight, or
even an OLED display where the light is just shining directly from the display to your
eyes.
the light guide is designed in a way where the majority of light emitted from the LEDs
shines down directly on the E Ink Display, making the reading experience very similar
to shining an overhead reading light directly on a book.
This light-guide technology paired with the excellent 300 ppi e-ink display makes the
Kinde much easier to read versus an LCD or OLED display in my opinion, especially at
night, where you can automatically schedule or manually adjust the display to turn to
a warmer color temperature, which is much easier on the eyes.
Also a Kindle is better for reading on than a tablet in my opinion because it's designed
as a single use device.
There are no apps to download, which means no distractions, you can just focus on reading,
and that’s actually a huge benefit.
That design intention plus the better ergonomics of the Kindle, and banning all other devices
within arms reach of my bed, including my phone, that's resulted in me being able to
read three times as many books so far this year as I read last year.
Which yeah, it's kind of staggering actually.
And I feel like the Kindle, getting that was just the final piece of the puzzle for me
at least to be able to form a habit of constantly reading books.
Another feature of the Kindle Paperwhite that’s better than a book is being able to adjust
the font type & size.
You can also pinch to zoom in on an image in a book, which isn’t the smoothest animation
experience because of the lower refresh rate of an e-ink display, but still gets the job
done.
The Kindle Paperwhite also has a built-in dictionary, thesaurus, & wikipedia tie-in
that you can bring up when you tap on a word you’re unfamiliar with or want to learn
more about.
Another feature I love with the Kindle is it'll give you an estimate for how long it'll
take to finish reading either the current chapter you're on or even the entire book
by tapping on the page number at the bottom right hand corner, and this feature has been
pretty accurate for my reading speed & motivates me to read even more and push through to be
able to complete a book.
The Kindle Paperwhite can also be paired to a Goodreads account which is an Amazon-owned
service that’s basically like a social media site for book readers, allowing you to automatically
share what book you’re reading on your Kindle, see what your friends are reading, and keep
a running wishlist of books you want to read next.
It has a pretty cool barcode and book cover scanning feature as well that allows you pull
a book off your bookshelf and mark it as read, reading, or want to read.
Another thing that a Kindle has that a book doesn't is built in search.
You can search your entire book for a keyword or you can search your highlights and notes
you made in your book for keywords as well.
And you can download the Kindle app onto other devices like your iOS or Android phone, tablet,
and even a computer like my Mac to pick up right where you left off in a book on your
Kindle or to bring up your notes and highlights for a book you’re reading, which is a feature
I’ve used a lot.
And, the Kindle, unlike a book, doesn’t constrain the space you have to write out
a note.
Another really, obvious reason why a Kindle Paperwhite is better than a book is it can
hold more than just one book.
It can hold thousands of books and articles with its 8, 16 or 32 GB of storage.
And you buy books directly from the device itself which I’ve done quite a few times,
and they’re typically less expensive than their hardcover or softcover versions, even
books I’ve pre-ordered have been less expensive on Kindle.
But what if you don't want to buy books and you'd like to use the library instead?
well, you can actually borrow ebooks from local libraries at least here in US, and read
most borrowed ebooks on your Kindle through services like the Libby app.
And if you like gifting people books or putting them on your holiday wish-list, Amazon does
allow you to purchase Kindle books as a gift.
So those are all of the main things about the Kindle Paperwhite that to me over the
past six months, make it better for reading on than a book.
Now, there are two other features with the Kindle Paperwhite, that don't really fit into
my better than a book construct that really impressed me and those are its battery life
and the Send to Kindle feature.
The battery of my Kindle lasts literally for weeks, I only have to charge it about once
every 2 months or so, depending on how much I use it, which is awesome.
It definitely has the best battery life out of any device I own.
And sure when you're comparing it to a regular book, a regular book will have an edge because
obviously, it doesn't have a battery inside it, but when you consider all of the extra
things you get with a Kindle, I still think overall, the reading experience on a Kindle
is better than a book.
Now the last feature that has impressed me, but also at the same time has become a downside
to using my Kindle is the send to Kindle feature.
Because the reading experience on the Kindle is so good, I found over the past six months,
I wanted to just read more and more on it.
So not just books but long and short form articles from various publications,The Send
to Kindle feature allows you to send articles to your Kindle device via a phone or tablet
by opening the share sheet on your device, and then selecting the Kindle app and then
you can send the article to your Kindle device.
This worked great for me for several months on iOS, but on Android, I could just never
get this to work with the Kindle app And recently, when trying to send an article from a news
app or Safari, that now hasn’t been working for me either on iOS devices.
The article will be sent to the kindle but when you open it, it gives you a web extraction
error.
I think Amazon could and should do a lot more to make this experience more reliable for
both iOS, and especially for Android users.
In the meantime on both iOS and Android you can download an app called Push to Kindle,
which takes advantage of another part of the Send to Kindle service which utilizes a unique
email address Amazon gives you that you can send articles to and in my limited testing
of the app on iOS, its works great and actually the articles sent to the Kindle look better
and images are actually pulled through correctly compared to the way the Kindle app was packaging
up articles.
The app is 3.99 on iOS and on Android its free but to send an unlimited amount of articles,
that costs $35 dollars a year.
So that was the first little downside I encountered while using the Kindle Paperwhite.
But there are a few others you should be aware of as well.
For one, the typing experience, it kind of sucks.
The keyboard can be laggy at times and not as responsive as you’d expect.
Next, buying books from the Amazon app on iOS and Android no longer works because of
Google and Apple’s app store policies which sucks because searching for a book on the
Amazon app is still my preferred experience, because doing this on the Kindle itself where
you can purchase books directly can be a bit of a laggy experience due to the refresh rate
of e ink display.
Also the web browser on the Kindle is god awful and isn’t very usable, though the
point of this device isn’t really to browse the web anyways, so I don’t think that’s
a big deal.
The last downside with the Kindle is, of course, lock-in.
By going with a Kindle, you're locking yourself into Amazon and their Kindle ecosystem.
So those are all the downsides I've encountered with the Kindle Paperwhite for the past six
months.
Next, let's talk recommendations.
I absolutely love my Kindle Paperwhite and I’d recommend getting a Kindle to anyone
who wants a distraction free device to read books and articles on.
But which Kindle should you get?
That’s the real question now that Amazon just refreshed the regular Kindle which starts
at $99 US dollars and comes with a new 300 ppi 6 inch display, 16 GB of storage with
a USB-C port and a 6 week battery life.
For $99 bucks or $119 dollars, if you don't want ads in your lock screen, that actually
sounds like a pretty great deal.
However, my recommendation would still be to go for a Kindle paperwhite for a few reasons.
The Paperwhite has a 300 ppi 6.8 inch flush display, includes an adjustable warm LED light,
has 10 weeks battery life, faster page turns, and most importantly, an IPX8 water resistance
rating, meaning you can read in the bath, at the pool, or the beach, and not have to
worry if your Kindle Paperwhite gets wet.
The basic Kindle is not water resistant and for $50 more, I think it's worth going for
the Kindle Paperwhite.
Kindles are devices you don’t need to update that often, and having one that’s a bit
nicer, has a larger screen, better battery life and is waterproof, I think that’ll
prolong how long you’ll be able to keep it before needing to upgrade.
Also, the Paperwhite now also comes with 16 GB of storage.
The model I have is the 8 GB model which has been adequate enough for me since ebook file
sizes are pretty tiny anyways.
The Kindle Paperwhite also has a $189 version
with an auto-adjust light, 32 GB or storage and wireless charging support, But none of
those features to me really make it worth upgrading to that version.
But what about the Kindle Oasis?
Unless you just really want dedicated page turn buttons, I don't think for $249 dollars
it's worth going for this version of the Kindle Oasis over the Kindle Paperwhite.
If you’re interested in purchasing a Kindle Paperwhite, regular Kindle, or if you want
to splurge on the Oasis just…because, you can use the the purchase links in the description
& here in this video to purchase those devices and accessories for them like the fabric case
I got for mine, which overall has been great.
Just like an iPad, it automatically wakes the device up when you open the cover and
it has a great microfiber cover to help clean the screen.
And one last thing, if you plan on taking your Kindle Paperwhite to the beach, you might
be tempted to put a screen protector on it, but I actually wouldn't recommend doing that.
Most Kindle screen protectors will make the Kindle actually harder to read on because
they’ll add reflectivity to the Kindle’s screen normally doesn’t have any.
As long as you put your Kindle back in its case it should be okay.
I took my Kindle Paperwhite to the beach this year and I don't I don't seem to have scratched
up the screen at all doing that though I will admit I was pretty careful with it when taking
it to the beach, I put it in its own plastic Ziploc bag outside of just tossing it into
my beach bag because the beach bag can get kind of sandy.
So that’s the Kindle Paperwhite, if you want to share your experience or opinions
on the Kindle or ask any questions about it, leave a comment below and we’ll answer them
there,and while you're down there, hit that thumbs up button if you found this review
helpful, and you like this video, and subscribe to the channel to see more long-term reviews
like this one.
And if you're looking for what to watch next, check out some of our other long-term reviews
on products, like the iPad Mini Pixel phones and the Nest Hub Max, and you can see all
of our long-term reviews in the playlist to the right, or by clicking on some of them
in the description below.
For 6 Months Later, I’m Josh Teder, thanks for watching.