At the top of the home screen, you will see
a black toolbar with the name of your Kindle (It's "Brian's 3rd
Kindle" for me - I always prefer something more interesting like
BattleBook for example), wireless connection (3G), battery percentage and time.
Below that is a row of browser-like buttons, including icons for Home, Back,
Store, Search with many settings (such as View Special Offer!), and adjust the
Light settings.. Amazon has done a really nice job with that last one,
offering up a sensitive dimmer switch with 24 notches, and a reminder to use a
high setting for brightly lit rooms and a low setting for dark rooms, as
unintuitive as that might sound.
You
will see a black toolbar with the name of your Kindle
A
reminder to use a high setting for brightly lit rooms and a low setting for
dark rooms
Far below is the two links allow you to
switch between the books you've downloaded and the one stored in the cloud,
another pretty amazing addition help you easily access to anything you have
purchased but not yet downloaded to the e-reader. Here, you have a huge library
of books. Clicking 1 cover will start downloading it to the device, which has
2GB of storage and cannot be expanded.
In the store, the experience does not
change much. Amazon has the same browser-like toolbar borrowed from the home
screen, in which the large icon pushes things a bit further down the page. The Store
also looks neater, because Amazon has removed the gray borders between
sections. However, what really matters is the choice, and of course Amazon has
one of the best libraries. However, Amazon has always been cagey about giving
hard numbers. Take a look at the company's press materials, you'll find plenty
of pretty meaningless statistic as "more than 1 million books under $9.99"
What about the reading experience that we
have heard so much? We're glad you asked. As ever, everything is about words:
the text monopolizes a good chunk of the page. In the bottom right corner, you
will find the percentage of the book that you've read so far (we still prefer
actual page numbers - although you can access those in the menu). However, at
lower left, the obscure location number has been swapped out for the new
"Time to Read" feature, which is exactly what it sounds like: an
estimate of how many minutes it will take you to complete the book. Features
starting with an average number and then adjusts as it learns your reading
habits. In summary, it’s a great new addition.
As mentioned above, the increase in
resolution and pixel means that the company can provide many more fonts and
styles, making the text readable even at the smallest setting. The latest
Kindle has eight text sizes, seven font sizes (hello, Helvetica) and three settings
for line spacing and margins. Text size can also be adjusted with a pinch
gesture, though the motion is hardly fluid. Quite a number of features have
been carried over from the last generation model, including X-Ray, allowing you
to find characters, places, topics, etc. throughout the book by finding a
specific term. The bookmark setup is simple; just simply tap the top right
corner of the screen. To highlight, hold and drag. From there, you can add
notes, search words in The New Oxford American Dictionary, translate through
Bing translation or share passages on Facebook or Twitter.
To
highlight, hold and drag
Amazon's still referring to its built-in
browser as "experimental," and it's easy to see why. Surfing the web
on an e-reader is still kind of a last-ditch solution, something you might you
do if your computer, tablet and phone are broken at the same time. To use the
browser, you'll have to open Wi-Fi, even on 3G devices - Amazon will let you
download any book you want, but it isn't shelling out for you to surf the web
Between the display limitations and the stuttering required to scroll up and
down a page, there are not many interesting things to say here and in that
case, it is no different from browsers on competing devices. We will say this:
the addition of large toolbar from the home screen is a good thing.
As usual, the device can display PDF
documents. Here, it features the convenient Send to Kindle utility of Amazon.
Just install the application on the device and you can drag and drop files,
which get sent to whichever Kindle tied to your account you specify. Estimated
that "a few seconds" of the Amazon is slightly optimistic, but it
takes less than a minute before a PDF we sent ourselves popped up on our
homepage. When it comes, we have to use the touch screen to zoom in and scroll
around documents - a convenient feature for those who need to read word
documents on the road but do not want to rely on a tiny phone screen.
Amazon also has built some parental
controls here, which are accessible in the Settings menu. From there, you can
restrict access to the browser, Kindle Store and Cloud, requiring all users to
enter a password to use this function - simple, but effective for parents
trying to keep their children away from trouble.
Conclusion
So, do all of these features add up to the
best e-reader out there? Yes. Apparently Amazon has focused on creating the
most possible reading experience with Paperwhite, and they have done it. The
screen modifications are wonderful - everything from the evenly distributed
front light to the improved contrast. Meanwhile, new Time to Read feature,
combined with X-Ray, Whispersync and Send to Kindle further round out the
experience. Of course, there are always perennial favorites like optional 3G and
Amazon's vast catalog of content.
However, the Kindle is still not perfect.
First of all, it's not fun to watch as Nook Simple Touch - after all, it
sacrificed comfort for some small aesthetic details. There's also the Kindle
lineup's continued lack of expandable storage, though the built-in 2GB may be
enough for you, especially with unlimited cloud storage at the ready. At the
same time there are other special offers. Amazon, can we assume that the ad is
just a bonus feature? It's great that companies can reduce the price to $119
for the Wi-Fi version and $179 for 3G version, and of course the ad is not
violated, as some may have thought. However, the Nook Simple Touch with
GlowLight priced at $119 without ads, it's hard to get behind paying $20 for an
ad-free experience. However, beyond these caveats, Paperwhite Kindle makes
Amazon's e-readers hard to be beaten, again.
Pros
·
Excellent front-lighting screen
·
Great contrast
·
New useful software
Cons
·
Not comfortable to hold as the Nook
·
Starting price includes advertising
·
Storage cannot be expanded
Verdict
·
Amazon has added some great new features to
their well-known Kindle series by focusing on what it does best: provide great
reading experience.
|
Specifications
·
Product name: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite
·
Price: $119
·
Screen size: 6 inches
·
Display technology: Paperwhite built-in light
·
Resolution/ Pixel density: 212 PPi
·
Connectivity: Wifi
·
Storage: 2 GB on device plus free cloud
storage for all Amazon content
·
Dimensions: 6.7x4.6x0.36 inches
·
Weight: 7.5 oz
·
Battery life: 8 weeks wireless off
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