Goodbye flashlights. Photo: Dennis Provost/Wired
Before becoming a super store in the cloud, Amazon began as an online bookseller. Likewise, before it got into the tablet business with its Kindle Fire, the original Kindle was a simple e-reader. With its new line of Kindles, Amazon shone its spotlight on those reading roots–or at least, a soft enveloping glow.
Amazon announced the Kindle Paperwhite on Thursday, with a new front-lit screen that it invented just for this Kindle. It’s a dramatic upgrade from the discontinued Kindle Touch, and nothing short of the best-looking illuminated e-reader screen on the market.
The Paperwhite’s glow is nearly perfect. The light just seems to envelops the screen. You can detect the lights if you stare at the bottom of the screen–they’re faint, but they’re down there. But you have to really look for them because Amazon has done such a fine job hiding the source but letting the light shine through. By comparison, the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight offers even illumination, but it’s also very clear where the lights are.
In addition to getting its glow on, the Paperwhite’s contrast has gotten a nice update as well. Even better, Amazon added a slight texture to the screen itself reminiscent of the paper found in quality hardcover books. It’s a little thing, but it’s a very nice tactile experience for flipping pages.
The Paperwhite is also light and easy to hold. It has less heft than the Nook Simple Touch. But, unlike the Nook, the Paperwhite has no buttons beyond the sleep button. Everything is done on screen. That can be a problem when you are just getting a feel for the interface. Getting the settings to appear, for example, took a few frustrating moments of tapping, swiping and selecting before we were able to figure things out.
Wait, who was that again? Photo: Dennis Provost/Wired
A Kindle software update also delivers Amazon X-Ray, which provides additional background data on the text. For large books with a huge cast of characters, X-Ray is amazing. (Amazon demonstrated it with “Game of Thrones.”) Meanwhile an author bio mimics the dust jacket of hardcover books, and lists all of a selected author’s books.
In short, this is a great e-reader and probably the best on the market. We’ll have a more in depth review and proclamation once we get our hands on a review unit. The Kindle Paperwhite is $119 with special offers (ads) and $179 without. You can pre-order today, the e-reader will be available on October 1.
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