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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 October 2021
The new Kindle Paperwhite retains many familiar features from the previous generation, including touch screen, ease of navigation, storage capacity, waterproof design, and audiobook playback (via Audible/Bluetooth headphones) – but is now larger, has an almost totally flat front similar to smartphones and tablets (there’s just a tiny lip at the edge), charges via USB-C, and allows the colour temperature of the front lighting to be changed. The Kindle comes neatly packaged in a slim box, accompanied by a USB-C charging cable.
This remains an excellent device to read outdoors, especially in bright light – where tablet and phone screens can become unreadable from glare. The matte screen doesn’t become shiny at all, and the finish (and front lighting) makes the Paperwhite generally easier on the eyes than trying to read from a non-specialised device.
I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the larger size of this update – would it make the Paperwhite seem cumbersome? In reality, it really doesn’t. This is a little bit larger than previous generations of Paperwhite and the display is better for it, but there’s really not much in it in terms of hand hold.
The device has a soft-touch feeling anti-slip back – a nice touch but not probably something I’m going to notice once this is installed in a case.
I like the flat-fronted, almost frameless design. Something that has been a minor source of irritation with previous Kindles has been small specks of dust getting trapped under the edge of the frame next to the screen and proving almost impossible to get back out whilst simultaneously being illuminated, something which emphasised their presence. The new design shouldn’t have this issue.
I’m also quite keen on the colour-changing light. I’d never really thought about it because Kindles just came with one light colour and brightness only variable, but I typically prefer warm white light shades to cool ones – and find the warm light setting cosier for reading in the evenings. The settings on this range from a fairly a stark, greyish white to a deep amber. At full warmth this is rather too deep a colour for me, but potentially really useful to dyslexic readers who favour yellow/orange overlays when reading. There’s also an option to invert text and screen colours.
You can alter the warmth setting at any time, or create a timer schedule to alter it automatically for you.
This doesn’t have the wireless charging function available on the Signature edition or the enhanced storage capacity, but those features cost an extra £40 – and 8GB is still a lot of storage for books.
This was very easy to set up, having been pre-registered to my account. I’m used to preregistration associating new Amazon devices to my Amazon account from other Kindles and Fire tablets. What I was not used to was finding that when the device switched on it immediately connected to my home wi-fi – without me having to select our router and enter the login key.
I really didn't like this: I would prefer to set devices up myself rather than have Amazon store and use the ID and password for our router. I’m not aware of ever having given consent for router information and password to be accessed and used in this way. It’s quite one thing for a specific device to be manually given permission to access and remember networking equipment so that it can automatically connect to a site/store, it’s something else completely for that information to be automatically stored/accessed and duplicated across on to other devices.
Overall, an excellent e-reader and a worthwhile upgrade. I’m really pleased with it (now that I’ve worked out how to switch popular highlights - hate them! - off again), but have some concerns about privacy.
This remains an excellent device to read outdoors, especially in bright light – where tablet and phone screens can become unreadable from glare. The matte screen doesn’t become shiny at all, and the finish (and front lighting) makes the Paperwhite generally easier on the eyes than trying to read from a non-specialised device.
I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the larger size of this update – would it make the Paperwhite seem cumbersome? In reality, it really doesn’t. This is a little bit larger than previous generations of Paperwhite and the display is better for it, but there’s really not much in it in terms of hand hold.
The device has a soft-touch feeling anti-slip back – a nice touch but not probably something I’m going to notice once this is installed in a case.
I like the flat-fronted, almost frameless design. Something that has been a minor source of irritation with previous Kindles has been small specks of dust getting trapped under the edge of the frame next to the screen and proving almost impossible to get back out whilst simultaneously being illuminated, something which emphasised their presence. The new design shouldn’t have this issue.
I’m also quite keen on the colour-changing light. I’d never really thought about it because Kindles just came with one light colour and brightness only variable, but I typically prefer warm white light shades to cool ones – and find the warm light setting cosier for reading in the evenings. The settings on this range from a fairly a stark, greyish white to a deep amber. At full warmth this is rather too deep a colour for me, but potentially really useful to dyslexic readers who favour yellow/orange overlays when reading. There’s also an option to invert text and screen colours.
You can alter the warmth setting at any time, or create a timer schedule to alter it automatically for you.
This doesn’t have the wireless charging function available on the Signature edition or the enhanced storage capacity, but those features cost an extra £40 – and 8GB is still a lot of storage for books.
This was very easy to set up, having been pre-registered to my account. I’m used to preregistration associating new Amazon devices to my Amazon account from other Kindles and Fire tablets. What I was not used to was finding that when the device switched on it immediately connected to my home wi-fi – without me having to select our router and enter the login key.
I really didn't like this: I would prefer to set devices up myself rather than have Amazon store and use the ID and password for our router. I’m not aware of ever having given consent for router information and password to be accessed and used in this way. It’s quite one thing for a specific device to be manually given permission to access and remember networking equipment so that it can automatically connect to a site/store, it’s something else completely for that information to be automatically stored/accessed and duplicated across on to other devices.
Overall, an excellent e-reader and a worthwhile upgrade. I’m really pleased with it (now that I’ve worked out how to switch popular highlights - hate them! - off again), but have some concerns about privacy.
