10 ms·

Kindle Paperwhite

127 points by DaNmarner 14y ago

spartango 14y ago
I find it interesting that Joshua Topolsky (the Verge) also reviewed this device[1], but was much more impressed than John Gruber. I don't think this results from a preference difference, but rather a perspective difference: Where Topolsky reviewed the Kindle Paperwhite as an electronic device, comparing it to other tablet and e-reader devices, Gruber weighed the Kindle as a book, comparing its characteristics to the print medium. Considered together, I find the two reviews complementary. The Kindle Paperwhite beats other electronic reading media, but is still lacks some of the characteristics of print. It's certainly a step in that direction, though. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/30/3433110/amazon-kindle-paperwhite-review http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/30/3433110/amazon-kindle-pape...
- maegget 14y ago
  Complimentary ("Expressing a compliment; praising or approving.") does makes sense, but I believe you mean complementary ("Combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize each other's qualities.")
  - spartango 14y ago
    Thanks, typo.
- joelrunyon 14y ago
  >Amazon’s goal should be for Kindle typography to equal print typography. They’re not even close. They get a pass on this only because all their competitors are just as bad or worse. Amazon should hire a world-class book designer to serve as product manager for the Kindle. I thought that was really insightful. It'd be really interesting to make the kindle the best reading experience period - not just the best e-reading experience.
  - efsavage 14y ago
    Apparently Gruber never had to suffer through an offline/static designer struggling to make sense of designing something interactive (i.e. the 90s and early 2000s). And the better they are the former, the more difficulty they seem to have with the latter, so a "world class book designer" would be unbearable.
    - joelrunyon 14y ago
      I think you're missing the point. That was his suggested tactic, the success of which might be debatable, but his overall goal is a great way to orient the future kindle product direction.
      - efsavage 14y ago
        I think I got the point, what I'm saying is that the kindle is not a book, and should not try to be. It should be a kindle/e-reader. Bringing in a book designer would likely make it more like a book, which it would fail at, and a great designer would also try to make it a beautiful book, which it would fail even worse at. Great books design is a factor of not just picking a good font, but the right font. The right margins and font size, the right paper weight and finish, the right line height, cover, putting blank pages and linebreaks in the right spot even when it's not consistent. These are the tools of the book designer. But e-books take all of those tools away. Sure e-books could handle all of that, you could make a reader capable of displaying LaTeX files pixel-perfectly, but it would be a terrible experience. I bought my mom a kindle because she can make the font size gigantic, it would be unbearable for me to read like that. I have my kindle set to use a different font, size, line spacing, and margin than my girlfriend, and the fact that we can make it just right for ourselves is one of the reasons I've read exactly 1 hardcopy book out of 50 in the past ~2 years and she's read maybe 2. I'm not saying the kindle can't be improved, but you need someone who wants to make a better kindle, not a more book-like kindle. In my experience, great leaps in design need to come from a distance. The best early website/Director designs were not made by the best print designers, or the best programmers. They were made by people with backgrounds in music and dance and animation, those that grasped the actual beauty of interaction, in that it is dynamic and ephemeral, not "just so". You can't get much more uncompromising than a book designer. Look at Edward Tufte, he was unable to find a publisher who would make exactly the book he wanted, so he started his own publishing company.
- greenmountin 14y ago
  That review was pure cotton candy -- published the day before the device was released, with a few other similar embargoed pieces [1]. I was convinced that he just wanted to keep getting scoops. I pre-ordered it and got it ASAP, and like it except for the extreme sparsity of settings. The wifi is on either for browsing or page syncing; it should be smart enough to turn off if you're not interested in either. The light can't be turned completely off [although, I admit I can't think of a use case for this]. I was excited at how quickly it transfers files -- the specs say USB 2.0, but it's pretty much instantaneous, even for 100 MB bootlegs. The uneven lighting makes me feel resentful, but of course they're just saving that for v2.0 The Kindle Store is useless at selling me new content -- I have a wishlist of books I'd like to read/buy someday. You'd think offering me a Kindle Version of one of them would be a first choice. And of course, the paperwhite is rooted, so if Gruber wants he can just add new fonts soon [2]. [1] http://gizmodo.com/5947435/kindle-paperwhite-review-forget-everything-else-this-is-the-e+reader-you-want http://gizmodo.com/5947435/kindle-paperwhite-review-forget-e... [2] http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192858 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192858
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    > That review was pure cotton candy -- published the day before the device was released, with a few other similar embargoed pieces [1]. I was convinced that he just wanted to keep getting scoops. That's a very serious accusation. Do you have any proof to back it up? If anything, The Verge has been quite critical of technology products, and I have no reason to doubt that there's anything untoward influencing their reviews (other than from blatant Apple fanboyism, particularly on the part of Nilay Patel. Take a look at his recent iPod Nano review[0], for example). 0: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/10/3481926/apple-ipod-nano-review-2012 http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/10/3481926/apple-ipod-nano-r...
    - gurkendoktor 14y ago
      You start out with: > That's a very serious accusation (Which I don't agree with, the way it was written) And then you go on to accuse the same website of something else: > blatant Apple fanboyism Seriously? - And how is this related to the OP? And from the review you've linked to: > The new nano might have Apple’s connector of the future, but everything else about it clings tightly to the past — to a world in which iTunes is still the center of the digital media universe, not a bloated relic badly in need of a fresh start and new ideas. This is so fanboyish that it's worth the side snark?
- GimbalLock 14y ago
  Joshua left Engadget?! I just learned this. Wow. I guess I should pay more attention. I look at Engadget almost daily. Their article quality doesn't seem to have suffered.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    It's been over a year and a half[0] since Josh and many of the other senior staff (Nilay Patel, Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Chris Ziegler, Ross Miller) left Engadget. The Verge has been up for almost a year now, and I guarantee you that it's far better than Engadget ever was (and definitely better than it is now). For proof, look no further than their features[1] - there's some real hard-hitting journalism there. Check out these pieces for some examples: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/9/3408030/mark-pauline-spine-robot-machines-robots-terrorism-as-art http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/9/3408030/mark-pauline-spine... http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/1/3424828/philip-k-dick-festival-science-fiction-change-your-life http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/1/3424828/philip-k-dick-fest... http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/5/3451206/thinkpad-turns-20-ibm-lenovo-retrospective http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/5/3451206/thinkpad-turns-20-... http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/4/3437364/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-world-lying-only-way-yourself http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/4/3437364/mark-zuckerberg-fa... 0: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/12/hello-i-must-be-going/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/12/hello-i-must-be-going/ 1: http://www.theverge.com/features http://www.theverge.com/features
    - klausa 14y ago
      As a fellow The Verge fan - don't forget to mention "On The Verge". I was blown away by quality of this show.
  - mtgx 14y ago
    Does that mean you also haven't heard of TheVerge (Joshua's new site)? Because it's probably the best tech news site out there right now (not yet the biggest though).
    - GimbalLock 14y ago
corporalagumbo 14y ago
I love the way he approaches the device. His argument that Amazon should work their asses off making this as perfect as possible for reading books is very compelling. Great buttons - yes. Beautiful, deliberately selected typography - yes. I hope someone at Amazon is thinking the same way - I think I'll wait to buy a Kindle when Gruber says "this is what it should be."
- omellet 14y ago
  Even though it's not as pleasant as print typography, it's still worth it. I totally agree that it can be better, but for me it's already outclassing the physical book experience.
- allwein 14y ago
  I would pay a significant premium for that sort of deluxe luxury device. I doubt Amazon will ever do it because they're all about scale. I wonder if they'd ever work with a third-party for doing that sort of work.
- Gring 14y ago
  Don't hope too much. The Kindle app on the Mac is horrendously bad. I mailed Bezos personally about it. The mail was acknowledged, but now, 1 year later, the app still stinks as much as before.
aristidb 14y ago
So I guess not really worth upgrading from the Kindle Keyboard with a lit cover. Too bad, the cover makes it quite heavy, but I also really like page turning buttons for lazy reading.
- joelhooks 14y ago
  I like it much better than the Keyboard + Cover. If it is "worth it" is up to you, but I don't have buyer's remorse.
tzs 14y ago
Does the touch screen require flesh or equivalent, or will it work through cloth and fabric? One of the nicest things about my first generation Kindle, and it's nice big page turning buttons on the sides, is that I can read in bed on a cold night, snug under my blanket, grasping the Kindle through the blanket. To turn the page, I simply have to bump the side with the hand that is not holding it. This can be done without taking either hand out from under the blanket. In fact, I can usually just bump it on my stomach or chest. If I have to actually extrude some fleshy appendage out from under my blanket to turn pages, I will consider that a step backwards.
- quux 14y ago
  The paperwhite uses a capacitive touch screen which does only respond to flesh. THe previous model, Kindle Touch used an infrared touch sensor that could be triggered by anything touching the screen, but in my experience it was too easy to trigger by accident.
lubutu 14y ago
"the Kindle still lacks hyphenation but yet insists upon full-justified text. Full justification without hyphenation inevitably results in unsightly gaps between words on a few lines each page." On my Kindle, at least, words seem to be separated at most 1 em, and any more and they go 'ragged right' instead of hyphenating — which I actually found far more pleasant than even Liang's LaTeX hyphenation algorithm in terms of readability.
- tghw 14y ago
  Looking at my Kindle Keyboard, I have one book (Moonwalking with Einstein) that is ragged-right and another (On Intelligence) that is full justified. Perhaps it's the formatting of the e-book and not the device?
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    Can you (or lubutu) share some pics? Thanks.
    - tghw 14y ago
      Moonwalking with Einstein http://imgur.com/7UJgQ http://imgur.com/7UJgQ On Intelligence http://imgur.com/QIdam http://imgur.com/QIdam
      - lubutu 14y ago
        The justification in On Intelligence is what I'm talking about wrt words being "separated at most 1 em." Contrary to what Gruber says, there are no "unsightly gaps between words" because there is a maximum distance of 1 em between words, after which it favours ragged right.
      - gjm11 14y ago
        The second of those is interesting. Most of the lines are right-justified, and just a few aren't. It looks to me as if it's right-justified the lines except for when it can't do so without introducing an unbearable amount of whitespace, in which case it's fallen back to ragged-right. (You can see it isn't just ragged-right where most of the lines happen to end in the same place; compare the spacing on, e.g., the first two lines.) I don't think I've ever seen anything typeset that way before.
CrazedGeek 14y ago
Has anyone here compared it IRL with the GlowLight Nook? Thoughts?
- mtgx 14y ago
  Should be significantly better. On the Kindle the light is equal all over the screen. On the Nook it isn't.
andrewvc 14y ago
My main problem is the color temperature of the light. It should shift from blue to orange as you make it dimmer. Reading with a blue cast light late at night, with the lights turned down sucks. One of my main use cases is reading a book before bed. Without f.lux-like functionality that use case is significantly worse. On the other hand, I can turn a bedlamp on and turn the backlight off, which is OK.
- geekfactor 14y ago
  Nice. And maybe the Paperwhite should ship with a clip-on battery operated LED lamp with the proper color temperature.
luigi 14y ago
I've owned a Kindle 2 (returned it within 30 days), Nook Touch (sold it), Kindle Touch (soon to sell it), and now the Kindle Paperwhite. The Paperwhite is clearly superior to all of them. Gruber's points are all extremely nitpicky. (1) It's not a big deal to move your thumb an inch to tap the screen. The device is so light that I suspect it would be hard to make a button with just the right resistance so that it could be easily pressed while holding it in one hand. But seriously, moving your thumb isn't hard. Gruber also harps on not being able to operate large screen Android phones with one hand. Just use both hands for crying out loud. (2) The default Caecilia font is great. I think it's beautiful. Gruber loved picking on Droid Sans, but I think that's a great font too. It's a worthy upgrade to any of the previous e-ink Kindles.
- dmorgan 14y ago
  >(1) It's not a big deal to move your thumb an inch to tap the screen. No, but it IS annoying. "It's not big deal" is defensive. It conveys the opposite message, that it _is_ kind of a deal.
  - luigi 14y ago
    Nope, not annoying either.
    - danilocampos 14y ago
      Oh, well, if Luigi says so. Leave a little room for the possibility that others are annoyed by things that you are willing to tolerate.
      - guyzero 14y ago
        Leave a little room for the possibility that John Gruber is annoyed by things that other humans do not notice.
        danilocampos 14y ago
mmanfrin 14y ago
I agree on most points, and made the same upgrade (Keyboard to Paperwhite). I love it, but I have three gripes. Two of them the author mentioned: uneven lighting at the bottom and the lack of physical pageturning buttons. The latter of which is not nitpicky as luigi has stated, it does fundamentally change your most common interaction with the device. The third problem is that I have to go in to settings to turn off wireless. Their 8-week claim only works if there is no wireless on; otherwise it lasts a paltry couple of days. The old Keyboard model allowed you to turn on/off networking while reading a book. This version forces you to go to the home screen, then to settings, turn off networking, back to home, and finally back to your book. That's obnoxious.
- geekfactor 14y ago
  They moved the wireless control to Settings a while ago, with the most recent system software update. I've got a 4th gen Kindle, so maybe that update wasn't supported on the Keyboard version. It pisses me off too.
PaulMcCartney 14y ago
Is it just me or does 'paperwhite' sound all to similar to 'paperweight'? Not a good association if you ask me
- Stealth- 14y ago
  I have been thinking this same thing. I constantly read it as the "Kindle Paperweight" and think it's some sort of Kindle rant before I realize.
jfb 14y ago
I wish Amazon would hire some competent UX people. I love the screens and hate hate hate hate hate hate hate using their devices. I'll put up with the iPad screen to read at night because the Kindle software works better on it. W. T. F.? I'm waiting for an e-ink screen with physical page turn buttons, with no other UI than the absolutely bare minimum to read books. I don't want a keyboard, or a web browser, or even a store. Please, just a THING that lets me read. Does such a device exist? Of course, content is king and therefore no single device will ever suffice, which is maddening in its own special way.
- Semaphor 14y ago
  I agree with nearly everything you say. > I don't want a keyboard, or a web browser, or even a store. It's not the most important point, but I absolutely love that I can finish a book and just go online and buy the next part of a series / a new book. I read a lot so a convenient method to quickly get new stuff is awesome. Also, the dictionary. My English is quite okay but many fantasy novels use archaic words I've never heard of before. Without a built-in dictionary I'd have to get the meaning purely from context.
reaganing 14y ago
The primary reason I upgraded from a 3rd gen Kindle to the Kindle 4 rather than the Touch was the latter's lack of page-turn buttons. But I've been using the Paperwhite for a week now and it's not been a problem at all. I just rest my thumb on the bottom right corner and move it about as much as I did with the actual button on prior models. I was excited about the new fonts when I saw them announced, but will agree with Gruber that none of them are great. I still prefer Caecilia Condensed. My Paperwhite also suffers from some unevenness in the lighting on the bottom, but I quickly forgot about it. Amazon's product description promises an evenly illuminated display, so it would be better if they actually delivered, of course.
mrtron 14y ago
I strongly recommend the Kobo Glo. Amazing backlit ereader.
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  Could you elaborate? I'm seriously considering buying one. Have you compared it against the Kindle?
- amalag 14y ago
  I want to buy the Kobo instead of the paperwhite because I hear the screens are almost comparable and I don't want to be tied to the amazon ecosystem exclusively and the microSD support is a big plus. I need ePub support and I do not want ads. I hear the Kobo Glo screen is just as good.
gcb 14y ago
the amazon product page showing the illuminated white screen lighting up the whole room while the caption says "perfect for reading in bed" cracked me up! would it have killed to add an inverse color mode? well, it would be all grey because the light is cast on top... i think i stick with my OLED display adjusted to black background and blue letters for reading in bed.
pragmatic 14y ago
Agree with most points. I rant into a bug at the gym. The usual tap, swipe to turn page was instead activating the font size select. I'm not sure if my sweaty finger (sorry for the image) was the cause, or some other bug in the Kindle. Amazon really needs to make these devices solid. I like the e-ink for the relaxing time experience AND the fact that I don't have to worry about battery (mostly), I just shove it in my gym bag, something I can't do with my nexus 7, b/c the battery might be almost dead.
- rg 14y ago
  Kindle Paperwhite newly implements two-finger pinch (smaller font size) and expand (bigger font size). On the way to carrying out the font size change, it pops up the font-size select window, then closes it. It's possible that you accidentally invoked this functionality.
hakaaak 14y ago
I agree about the page-turning buttons. That is why I didn't get the touch and won't get the paperwhite. I don't mind not having backlighting, so I'll stick with the cheapest Kindle.
siodine 14y ago
How is the paperwhite with pdf journal articles and textbooks?
- jdpage 14y ago
  I'd like to know this too. One of the main reasons I'm looking at a Kindle is to read journal articles on it.
- msbarnett 14y ago
  It won't be any better than any of the previous regular-sized kindles, and the experience sucks on them. PDFs have a fixed-size baked in, typically 8.5 x 11 or larger, and the Kindle screen is much smaller than that. There's no intelligible way to reflow a PDF, especially not one full of tables and figures like journals and textbooks are. It comes out either unreadably small or with unreadably broken formatting. So basically it's worthless for that use-case. You want a Kindle DX or a 10 inch or larger tablet to fit PDF content comfortably.
- nzmsv 14y ago
  I wish there was an updated DX available. I like my old one. Papers are perfectly readable at this size, it is possible to zoom in to see details in graphs, and carrying around the equivalent of 100 lbs of reference books (that are searchable!) is amazing. The only drawback is the slow page turn. I usually end up placing a bookmark on any page I think I might want to flip back to as I'm reading. It's annoying.
chrischen 14y ago
My nook touch has great hardware buttons and a touch screen. It's also over a year old now and still works great.
- oatmealsnap 14y ago
  Yea, I am very happy with how simple and easy my Nook is. Maybe Kindle's UI has gotten better with the touch screens, but it used to be horrid.
  - chrischen 14y ago
    What I don't understand is why everyone here in The Bay Area seems to overlook the Nook, or really anything competing with the most well known tech brands. Competition is great and the Nook is fairly competitive with the Kindle. I went with the nook at the time simply because it was superior to the kindle (it had the touch screen first). For some reason this guy compares it to an iPad but doesn't even mention the Nook.
merryandrew 14y ago
"Amazon should hire a world-class book designer to serve as product manager for the Kindle." I think this comment is just about right. The Kindle team really needs to focus on making the Kindle as good as traditional books, when applicable, but better than books whenever possible. Currently the Kindle fails to be as good as books where it counts most (e.g., clarity/sharpness of text, page layout decisions [e.g., hyphens], font choices, display contrast, index functionality, TOC functionality), and it only does a decent job of employing some of the technological advantages it has over books (e.g., the Kindle has a great weight-to-content-offered ratio, it backs up your collection remotely). It kind of surprises me that the Kindle hasn't already surpassed traditional books in every way. Maybe my expectations are too high, or maybe Amazon is more concerned with the bottom line than responding to readers like me. I don't know.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  As a (very) avid Kindle user - I'd add the following to your list of features to make the Kindle "as good as a physical book": o ability to loan to others o physically robust (I've cracked three (3) screens) o extended reading time (on at least two 10 day vacations I ran my hyperjuice extended battery down recharging my K3 every couple days) o random-access speeds/location o support for color.
  - mattyb 14y ago
    One data point: I'm also a very avid Kindle user, and I want exactly none of these.
    - ghshephard 14y ago
      I thought these were actually universal desires - so I'd be interested in hearing why? o Robust - You don't mind breaking kindles? o Ability to loan to others - You never lend books? To anyone? o Extended Read Time - How on earth couldn't you want extended battery life. It drives me crazy to go on vacation and have a fully charged kindle run out of battery. I would kill for a solid 100 hour battery life. o Random Access - You never want to flick through a book? (Admittedly, the K3 has the +/- chapter view, which is good, but not as good as being able to flick back and forth in a real book - particularly textbooks or a complex Game of Thrones reading) o Support for color - Really? You don't want any color in your books? Not even Text books? With the possible exception of "Loan to others" - I can't understand why every single one of those isn't a "Must have" in order for the kindle to be as good as a paper book for everyone. Also, and not coincidentally, they also make for a better eBook experience as well. I would love to switch to "eBook Only" (I've purchased about 200 books so far for my kindles over the last several years) - but, for some things, I continue to purchase paper books.
notatoad 14y ago
I don't understand the dislike of Caecilia. Sure, it's not quite a book font, but the kindle isn't quite a book either. For the context, Caecilia looks great.
alok-g 14y ago
OP>> It definitely feels different on my eyes than LED/LCD backlighting. ... This new display, even with the lighting turned on, still feels like e-ink. Does someone know what is going on? As such, the light is light whether from LEDs/LCD or from Kindle Paperwhite. Kindle may be using less default brightness levels but that could be adjusted for LCDs too. Is lower contrast ratio of Kindle helping since black is not too black [1][2] [1] Kindle has contrast ratio of ~10:1. See here http://www.best-ereaders.com/2010/09/02/eink-pearl-vs-eink-vizplex/ http://www.best-ereaders.com/2010/09/02/eink-pearl-vs-eink-v... [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4357002 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4357002
- lmm 14y ago
  Maybe it's actually white rather than r/g/b close together? I can see that being the sort of thing that would make things look different in a way you couldn't consciously explain.
akproxy 14y ago
I no longer read Gruber's posts or reviews of products that do not start with an i. Because all he does is just re-post those iposts replacing is just the right with is just not right, which saves him both time and energy. Thought I shall share the revelation :-/
bad_user 14y ago
I may not be representative, but I actually prefer the lack of backlighting in my keyboard-kindle. The fonts don't bother me either, but Gruber may have a point here. I would like a good touchscreen, however I like my page-turning buttons and do not want to give up those. I'm also concerned that battery life will be worse on these newer version, and that is something I care about. Gruber has a point in that the Kindle should be extremely optimized for reading. I already own an iPad, I don't want an eBook Reader that tries to be a cheap tablet.
Eliezer 14y ago
My top three: 1) Give me back my physical pageturn buttons that I can tap without moving my fingers! Why, Amazon, why? 2) Make the LED whiter, maybe even yellower, instead of bluish. I'm not a color expert, I just know that this color looks wrong. 3) I'm not sure what's up with the font, but pick a font that doesn't look fragile, like some parts of thinner connectors are half-not-there.
- xefer 14y ago
  1. This is a funny one, and is the main reason why I'm getting my wife the new one. My wife loves her Kindle but when we're reading in bed together the sound of her clicking the button drives me up the wall. She likes that she can use a larger font so she doesn't need glasses, but that just means way more clicks-per-minute. I think she's pressed the button so many times it's worn out a bit because it makes a very distinct 'click'. After a while each one is like a gun shot in my ear.
  - pwenzel 14y ago
    Little details like this drive me crazy as well. However, I'm always afraid of voicing complaints like this for fear of looking like a crazy person. Thanks for validating me. :-)
- iterationx 14y ago
  My Big 2: 1) Why page turn?, why not page down? English reads top to bottom. Seems like a big improvement would be a page down instead of a page across. 2) If I zoom into text I don't want to have to horizontally scroll, that's even more annoying that small text.
  - GreenNight 14y ago
    1) Perhaps is because of what we are used to, but I read much better with page turn than with page down. I read a book in the computer, and I read it scrolling down. It didn't feel fulfilling. It was like reading a web-page. But having read a couple of books in my phone (with the kindle app) it felt natural again, I enjoyed much more the books that way. And no, the quality of the book was not the question. It was a free download (by the publisher) and a year or so later I've bought it on paper and read it again. It was much more fulfilling this way. Perhaps in half a generation or so people will feel more natural going down than sideways, right now I prefer the later.
Tichy 14y ago
Considering that paper books don't have buttons for turning the pages, I find the complaint about the lack of a button for page turning amusing. I suspect it is still less effort to flip a page on the kindle than on a paper book. Not that such a button would necessarily be a bad idea (not sure). I suppose it would have to be quite sturdy, as it would be used a lot. Perhaps on the touch screen the clicks are distributed more and so it will last longer.
netcan 14y ago
I have a kobo touch and I love it. My advice is: - buy a simple ereader. - Turn Off everything you can: the store, wifi, 3g, recommendations, awards, share, ads.etc ANything with an off button. - Once a month or three load it up with some books that you would like to read. Just books. Not too many. Choose, then load. Basically, de-gadgetize it. Make it into a book. A nice, light book. Our computer world is a hell of distractions. To me, any reminder that I'm reading on a "device" that can do other things is unwelcome. Even recharging the device breaks the illusions for me. I was initially frustrated that I didn't have a convenient way o get short PDFs, blog posts and such onto the device. Now I'm glad. Short-form articles would just put me into browsing mode. The upshot of all this is that unless the manufacturers can get better at things they are already very good at (eg weight, battery life), I want the old cheap one. I don't want any new features. My default position is suspicion of every "feature." I hear "paperwhite screen" My immediate reaction is I don't want it to feel more like a screen & I don't want it to feel more like a screen and I don't want a brightness button.

127 points by DaNmarner 14y ago

I find it interesting that Joshua Topolsky (the Verge) also reviewed this device[1], but was much more impressed than John Gruber. I don't think this results from a preference difference, but rather a perspective difference: Where Topolsky reviewed the Kindle Paperwhite as an electronic device, comparing it to other tablet and e-reader devices, Gruber weighed the Kindle as a book, comparing its characteristics to the print medium. Considered together, I find the two reviews complementary. The Kindle Paperwhite beats other electronic reading media, but is still lacks some of the characteristics of print. It's certainly a step in that direction, though. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/30/3433110/amazon-kindle-paperwhite-review http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/30/3433110/amazon-kindle-pape...

maegget 14y ago
Complimentary ("Expressing a compliment; praising or approving.") does makes sense, but I believe you mean complementary ("Combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize each other's qualities.")
- spartango 14y ago
  Thanks, typo.
joelrunyon 14y ago
>Amazon’s goal should be for Kindle typography to equal print typography. They’re not even close. They get a pass on this only because all their competitors are just as bad or worse. Amazon should hire a world-class book designer to serve as product manager for the Kindle. I thought that was really insightful. It'd be really interesting to make the kindle the best reading experience period - not just the best e-reading experience.
- efsavage 14y ago
  Apparently Gruber never had to suffer through an offline/static designer struggling to make sense of designing something interactive (i.e. the 90s and early 2000s). And the better they are the former, the more difficulty they seem to have with the latter, so a "world class book designer" would be unbearable.
  - joelrunyon 14y ago
    I think you're missing the point. That was his suggested tactic, the success of which might be debatable, but his overall goal is a great way to orient the future kindle product direction.
    - efsavage 14y ago
      I think I got the point, what I'm saying is that the kindle is not a book, and should not try to be. It should be a kindle/e-reader. Bringing in a book designer would likely make it more like a book, which it would fail at, and a great designer would also try to make it a beautiful book, which it would fail even worse at. Great books design is a factor of not just picking a good font, but the right font. The right margins and font size, the right paper weight and finish, the right line height, cover, putting blank pages and linebreaks in the right spot even when it's not consistent. These are the tools of the book designer. But e-books take all of those tools away. Sure e-books could handle all of that, you could make a reader capable of displaying LaTeX files pixel-perfectly, but it would be a terrible experience. I bought my mom a kindle because she can make the font size gigantic, it would be unbearable for me to read like that. I have my kindle set to use a different font, size, line spacing, and margin than my girlfriend, and the fact that we can make it just right for ourselves is one of the reasons I've read exactly 1 hardcopy book out of 50 in the past ~2 years and she's read maybe 2. I'm not saying the kindle can't be improved, but you need someone who wants to make a better kindle, not a more book-like kindle. In my experience, great leaps in design need to come from a distance. The best early website/Director designs were not made by the best print designers, or the best programmers. They were made by people with backgrounds in music and dance and animation, those that grasped the actual beauty of interaction, in that it is dynamic and ephemeral, not "just so". You can't get much more uncompromising than a book designer. Look at Edward Tufte, he was unable to find a publisher who would make exactly the book he wanted, so he started his own publishing company.
greenmountin 14y ago
That review was pure cotton candy -- published the day before the device was released, with a few other similar embargoed pieces [1]. I was convinced that he just wanted to keep getting scoops. I pre-ordered it and got it ASAP, and like it except for the extreme sparsity of settings. The wifi is on either for browsing or page syncing; it should be smart enough to turn off if you're not interested in either. The light can't be turned completely off [although, I admit I can't think of a use case for this]. I was excited at how quickly it transfers files -- the specs say USB 2.0, but it's pretty much instantaneous, even for 100 MB bootlegs. The uneven lighting makes me feel resentful, but of course they're just saving that for v2.0 The Kindle Store is useless at selling me new content -- I have a wishlist of books I'd like to read/buy someday. You'd think offering me a Kindle Version of one of them would be a first choice. And of course, the paperwhite is rooted, so if Gruber wants he can just add new fonts soon [2]. [1] http://gizmodo.com/5947435/kindle-paperwhite-review-forget-everything-else-this-is-the-e+reader-you-want http://gizmodo.com/5947435/kindle-paperwhite-review-forget-e... [2] http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192858 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192858
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > That review was pure cotton candy -- published the day before the device was released, with a few other similar embargoed pieces [1]. I was convinced that he just wanted to keep getting scoops. That's a very serious accusation. Do you have any proof to back it up? If anything, The Verge has been quite critical of technology products, and I have no reason to doubt that there's anything untoward influencing their reviews (other than from blatant Apple fanboyism, particularly on the part of Nilay Patel. Take a look at his recent iPod Nano review[0], for example). 0: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/10/3481926/apple-ipod-nano-review-2012 http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/10/3481926/apple-ipod-nano-r...
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago
    You start out with: > That's a very serious accusation (Which I don't agree with, the way it was written) And then you go on to accuse the same website of something else: > blatant Apple fanboyism Seriously? - And how is this related to the OP? And from the review you've linked to: > The new nano might have Apple’s connector of the future, but everything else about it clings tightly to the past — to a world in which iTunes is still the center of the digital media universe, not a bloated relic badly in need of a fresh start and new ideas. This is so fanboyish that it's worth the side snark?
GimbalLock 14y ago
Joshua left Engadget?! I just learned this. Wow. I guess I should pay more attention. I look at Engadget almost daily. Their article quality doesn't seem to have suffered.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  It's been over a year and a half[0] since Josh and many of the other senior staff (Nilay Patel, Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Chris Ziegler, Ross Miller) left Engadget. The Verge has been up for almost a year now, and I guarantee you that it's far better than Engadget ever was (and definitely better than it is now). For proof, look no further than their features[1] - there's some real hard-hitting journalism there. Check out these pieces for some examples: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/9/3408030/mark-pauline-spine-robot-machines-robots-terrorism-as-art http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/9/3408030/mark-pauline-spine... http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/1/3424828/philip-k-dick-festival-science-fiction-change-your-life http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/1/3424828/philip-k-dick-fest... http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/5/3451206/thinkpad-turns-20-ibm-lenovo-retrospective http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/5/3451206/thinkpad-turns-20-... http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/4/3437364/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-world-lying-only-way-yourself http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/4/3437364/mark-zuckerberg-fa... 0: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/12/hello-i-must-be-going/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/12/hello-i-must-be-going/ 1: http://www.theverge.com/features http://www.theverge.com/features
  - klausa 14y ago
    As a fellow The Verge fan - don't forget to mention "On The Verge". I was blown away by quality of this show.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Does that mean you also haven't heard of TheVerge (Joshua's new site)? Because it's probably the best tech news site out there right now (not yet the biggest though).
  - GimbalLock 14y ago

corporalagumbo 14y ago

I love the way he approaches the device. His argument that Amazon should work their asses off making this as perfect as possible for reading books is very compelling. Great buttons - yes. Beautiful, deliberately selected typography - yes. I hope someone at Amazon is thinking the same way - I think I'll wait to buy a Kindle when Gruber says "this is what it should be."

omellet 14y ago
Even though it's not as pleasant as print typography, it's still worth it. I totally agree that it can be better, but for me it's already outclassing the physical book experience.
allwein 14y ago
I would pay a significant premium for that sort of deluxe luxury device. I doubt Amazon will ever do it because they're all about scale. I wonder if they'd ever work with a third-party for doing that sort of work.
Gring 14y ago
Don't hope too much. The Kindle app on the Mac is horrendously bad. I mailed Bezos personally about it. The mail was acknowledged, but now, 1 year later, the app still stinks as much as before.

aristidb 14y ago

So I guess not really worth upgrading from the Kindle Keyboard with a lit cover. Too bad, the cover makes it quite heavy, but I also really like page turning buttons for lazy reading.

joelhooks 14y ago
I like it much better than the Keyboard + Cover. If it is "worth it" is up to you, but I don't have buyer's remorse.

tzs 14y ago

Does the touch screen require flesh or equivalent, or will it work through cloth and fabric? One of the nicest things about my first generation Kindle, and it's nice big page turning buttons on the sides, is that I can read in bed on a cold night, snug under my blanket, grasping the Kindle through the blanket. To turn the page, I simply have to bump the side with the hand that is not holding it. This can be done without taking either hand out from under the blanket. In fact, I can usually just bump it on my stomach or chest. If I have to actually extrude some fleshy appendage out from under my blanket to turn pages, I will consider that a step backwards.

quux 14y ago
The paperwhite uses a capacitive touch screen which does only respond to flesh. THe previous model, Kindle Touch used an infrared touch sensor that could be triggered by anything touching the screen, but in my experience it was too easy to trigger by accident.

lubutu 14y ago

"the Kindle still lacks hyphenation but yet insists upon full-justified text. Full justification without hyphenation inevitably results in unsightly gaps between words on a few lines each page." On my Kindle, at least, words seem to be separated at most 1 em, and any more and they go 'ragged right' instead of hyphenating — which I actually found far more pleasant than even Liang's LaTeX hyphenation algorithm in terms of readability.

tghw 14y ago
Looking at my Kindle Keyboard, I have one book (Moonwalking with Einstein) that is ragged-right and another (On Intelligence) that is full justified. Perhaps it's the formatting of the e-book and not the device?
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  Can you (or lubutu) share some pics? Thanks.
  - tghw 14y ago
    Moonwalking with Einstein http://imgur.com/7UJgQ http://imgur.com/7UJgQ On Intelligence http://imgur.com/QIdam http://imgur.com/QIdam
    - lubutu 14y ago
      The justification in On Intelligence is what I'm talking about wrt words being "separated at most 1 em." Contrary to what Gruber says, there are no "unsightly gaps between words" because there is a maximum distance of 1 em between words, after which it favours ragged right.
    - gjm11 14y ago
      The second of those is interesting. Most of the lines are right-justified, and just a few aren't. It looks to me as if it's right-justified the lines except for when it can't do so without introducing an unbearable amount of whitespace, in which case it's fallen back to ragged-right. (You can see it isn't just ragged-right where most of the lines happen to end in the same place; compare the spacing on, e.g., the first two lines.) I don't think I've ever seen anything typeset that way before.

CrazedGeek 14y ago

Has anyone here compared it IRL with the GlowLight Nook? Thoughts?

mtgx 14y ago
Should be significantly better. On the Kindle the light is equal all over the screen. On the Nook it isn't.

andrewvc 14y ago

My main problem is the color temperature of the light. It should shift from blue to orange as you make it dimmer. Reading with a blue cast light late at night, with the lights turned down sucks. One of my main use cases is reading a book before bed. Without f.lux-like functionality that use case is significantly worse. On the other hand, I can turn a bedlamp on and turn the backlight off, which is OK.

geekfactor 14y ago
Nice. And maybe the Paperwhite should ship with a clip-on battery operated LED lamp with the proper color temperature.

luigi 14y ago

I've owned a Kindle 2 (returned it within 30 days), Nook Touch (sold it), Kindle Touch (soon to sell it), and now the Kindle Paperwhite. The Paperwhite is clearly superior to all of them. Gruber's points are all extremely nitpicky. (1) It's not a big deal to move your thumb an inch to tap the screen. The device is so light that I suspect it would be hard to make a button with just the right resistance so that it could be easily pressed while holding it in one hand. But seriously, moving your thumb isn't hard. Gruber also harps on not being able to operate large screen Android phones with one hand. Just use both hands for crying out loud. (2) The default Caecilia font is great. I think it's beautiful. Gruber loved picking on Droid Sans, but I think that's a great font too. It's a worthy upgrade to any of the previous e-ink Kindles.

dmorgan 14y ago
>(1) It's not a big deal to move your thumb an inch to tap the screen. No, but it IS annoying. "It's not big deal" is defensive. It conveys the opposite message, that it _is_ kind of a deal.
- luigi 14y ago
  Nope, not annoying either.
  - danilocampos 14y ago
    Oh, well, if Luigi says so. Leave a little room for the possibility that others are annoyed by things that you are willing to tolerate.
    - guyzero 14y ago
      Leave a little room for the possibility that John Gruber is annoyed by things that other humans do not notice.
      - danilocampos 14y ago

mmanfrin 14y ago

I agree on most points, and made the same upgrade (Keyboard to Paperwhite). I love it, but I have three gripes. Two of them the author mentioned: uneven lighting at the bottom and the lack of physical pageturning buttons. The latter of which is not nitpicky as luigi has stated, it does fundamentally change your most common interaction with the device. The third problem is that I have to go in to settings to turn off wireless. Their 8-week claim only works if there is no wireless on; otherwise it lasts a paltry couple of days. The old Keyboard model allowed you to turn on/off networking while reading a book. This version forces you to go to the home screen, then to settings, turn off networking, back to home, and finally back to your book. That's obnoxious.

geekfactor 14y ago
They moved the wireless control to Settings a while ago, with the most recent system software update. I've got a 4th gen Kindle, so maybe that update wasn't supported on the Keyboard version. It pisses me off too.

PaulMcCartney 14y ago

Is it just me or does 'paperwhite' sound all to similar to 'paperweight'? Not a good association if you ask me

Stealth- 14y ago
I have been thinking this same thing. I constantly read it as the "Kindle Paperweight" and think it's some sort of Kindle rant before I realize.

jfb 14y ago

I wish Amazon would hire some competent UX people. I love the screens and hate hate hate hate hate hate hate using their devices. I'll put up with the iPad screen to read at night because the Kindle software works better on it. W. T. F.? I'm waiting for an e-ink screen with physical page turn buttons, with no other UI than the absolutely bare minimum to read books. I don't want a keyboard, or a web browser, or even a store. Please, just a THING that lets me read. Does such a device exist? Of course, content is king and therefore no single device will ever suffice, which is maddening in its own special way.

Semaphor 14y ago
I agree with nearly everything you say. > I don't want a keyboard, or a web browser, or even a store. It's not the most important point, but I absolutely love that I can finish a book and just go online and buy the next part of a series / a new book. I read a lot so a convenient method to quickly get new stuff is awesome. Also, the dictionary. My English is quite okay but many fantasy novels use archaic words I've never heard of before. Without a built-in dictionary I'd have to get the meaning purely from context.

reaganing 14y ago

The primary reason I upgraded from a 3rd gen Kindle to the Kindle 4 rather than the Touch was the latter's lack of page-turn buttons. But I've been using the Paperwhite for a week now and it's not been a problem at all. I just rest my thumb on the bottom right corner and move it about as much as I did with the actual button on prior models. I was excited about the new fonts when I saw them announced, but will agree with Gruber that none of them are great. I still prefer Caecilia Condensed. My Paperwhite also suffers from some unevenness in the lighting on the bottom, but I quickly forgot about it. Amazon's product description promises an evenly illuminated display, so it would be better if they actually delivered, of course.

mrtron 14y ago

I strongly recommend the Kobo Glo. Amazing backlit ereader.

bryanlarsen 14y ago
Could you elaborate? I'm seriously considering buying one. Have you compared it against the Kindle?
amalag 14y ago
I want to buy the Kobo instead of the paperwhite because I hear the screens are almost comparable and I don't want to be tied to the amazon ecosystem exclusively and the microSD support is a big plus. I need ePub support and I do not want ads. I hear the Kobo Glo screen is just as good.

gcb 14y ago

the amazon product page showing the illuminated white screen lighting up the whole room while the caption says "perfect for reading in bed" cracked me up! would it have killed to add an inverse color mode? well, it would be all grey because the light is cast on top... i think i stick with my OLED display adjusted to black background and blue letters for reading in bed.

pragmatic 14y ago

Agree with most points. I rant into a bug at the gym. The usual tap, swipe to turn page was instead activating the font size select. I'm not sure if my sweaty finger (sorry for the image) was the cause, or some other bug in the Kindle. Amazon really needs to make these devices solid. I like the e-ink for the relaxing time experience AND the fact that I don't have to worry about battery (mostly), I just shove it in my gym bag, something I can't do with my nexus 7, b/c the battery might be almost dead.

rg 14y ago
Kindle Paperwhite newly implements two-finger pinch (smaller font size) and expand (bigger font size). On the way to carrying out the font size change, it pops up the font-size select window, then closes it. It's possible that you accidentally invoked this functionality.

hakaaak 14y ago

I agree about the page-turning buttons. That is why I didn't get the touch and won't get the paperwhite. I don't mind not having backlighting, so I'll stick with the cheapest Kindle.

siodine 14y ago

How is the paperwhite with pdf journal articles and textbooks?

jdpage 14y ago
I'd like to know this too. One of the main reasons I'm looking at a Kindle is to read journal articles on it.
msbarnett 14y ago
It won't be any better than any of the previous regular-sized kindles, and the experience sucks on them. PDFs have a fixed-size baked in, typically 8.5 x 11 or larger, and the Kindle screen is much smaller than that. There's no intelligible way to reflow a PDF, especially not one full of tables and figures like journals and textbooks are. It comes out either unreadably small or with unreadably broken formatting. So basically it's worthless for that use-case. You want a Kindle DX or a 10 inch or larger tablet to fit PDF content comfortably.
nzmsv 14y ago
I wish there was an updated DX available. I like my old one. Papers are perfectly readable at this size, it is possible to zoom in to see details in graphs, and carrying around the equivalent of 100 lbs of reference books (that are searchable!) is amazing. The only drawback is the slow page turn. I usually end up placing a bookmark on any page I think I might want to flip back to as I'm reading. It's annoying.

chrischen 14y ago

My nook touch has great hardware buttons and a touch screen. It's also over a year old now and still works great.

oatmealsnap 14y ago
Yea, I am very happy with how simple and easy my Nook is. Maybe Kindle's UI has gotten better with the touch screens, but it used to be horrid.
- chrischen 14y ago
  What I don't understand is why everyone here in The Bay Area seems to overlook the Nook, or really anything competing with the most well known tech brands. Competition is great and the Nook is fairly competitive with the Kindle. I went with the nook at the time simply because it was superior to the kindle (it had the touch screen first). For some reason this guy compares it to an iPad but doesn't even mention the Nook.

merryandrew 14y ago

"Amazon should hire a world-class book designer to serve as product manager for the Kindle." I think this comment is just about right. The Kindle team really needs to focus on making the Kindle as good as traditional books, when applicable, but better than books whenever possible. Currently the Kindle fails to be as good as books where it counts most (e.g., clarity/sharpness of text, page layout decisions [e.g., hyphens], font choices, display contrast, index functionality, TOC functionality), and it only does a decent job of employing some of the technological advantages it has over books (e.g., the Kindle has a great weight-to-content-offered ratio, it backs up your collection remotely). It kind of surprises me that the Kindle hasn't already surpassed traditional books in every way. Maybe my expectations are too high, or maybe Amazon is more concerned with the bottom line than responding to readers like me. I don't know.

ghshephard 14y ago
As a (very) avid Kindle user - I'd add the following to your list of features to make the Kindle "as good as a physical book": o ability to loan to others o physically robust (I've cracked three (3) screens) o extended reading time (on at least two 10 day vacations I ran my hyperjuice extended battery down recharging my K3 every couple days) o random-access speeds/location o support for color.
- mattyb 14y ago
  One data point: I'm also a very avid Kindle user, and I want exactly none of these.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    I thought these were actually universal desires - so I'd be interested in hearing why? o Robust - You don't mind breaking kindles? o Ability to loan to others - You never lend books? To anyone? o Extended Read Time - How on earth couldn't you want extended battery life. It drives me crazy to go on vacation and have a fully charged kindle run out of battery. I would kill for a solid 100 hour battery life. o Random Access - You never want to flick through a book? (Admittedly, the K3 has the +/- chapter view, which is good, but not as good as being able to flick back and forth in a real book - particularly textbooks or a complex Game of Thrones reading) o Support for color - Really? You don't want any color in your books? Not even Text books? With the possible exception of "Loan to others" - I can't understand why every single one of those isn't a "Must have" in order for the kindle to be as good as a paper book for everyone. Also, and not coincidentally, they also make for a better eBook experience as well. I would love to switch to "eBook Only" (I've purchased about 200 books so far for my kindles over the last several years) - but, for some things, I continue to purchase paper books.

notatoad 14y ago

I don't understand the dislike of Caecilia. Sure, it's not quite a book font, but the kindle isn't quite a book either. For the context, Caecilia looks great.

alok-g 14y ago

OP>> It definitely feels different on my eyes than LED/LCD backlighting. ... This new display, even with the lighting turned on, still feels like e-ink. Does someone know what is going on? As such, the light is light whether from LEDs/LCD or from Kindle Paperwhite. Kindle may be using less default brightness levels but that could be adjusted for LCDs too. Is lower contrast ratio of Kindle helping since black is not too black [1][2] [1] Kindle has contrast ratio of ~10:1. See here http://www.best-ereaders.com/2010/09/02/eink-pearl-vs-eink-vizplex/ http://www.best-ereaders.com/2010/09/02/eink-pearl-vs-eink-v... [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4357002 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4357002

lmm 14y ago
Maybe it's actually white rather than r/g/b close together? I can see that being the sort of thing that would make things look different in a way you couldn't consciously explain.

akproxy 14y ago

I no longer read Gruber's posts or reviews of products that do not start with an i. Because all he does is just re-post those iposts replacing is just the right with is just not right, which saves him both time and energy. Thought I shall share the revelation :-/

bad_user 14y ago

I may not be representative, but I actually prefer the lack of backlighting in my keyboard-kindle. The fonts don't bother me either, but Gruber may have a point here. I would like a good touchscreen, however I like my page-turning buttons and do not want to give up those. I'm also concerned that battery life will be worse on these newer version, and that is something I care about. Gruber has a point in that the Kindle should be extremely optimized for reading. I already own an iPad, I don't want an eBook Reader that tries to be a cheap tablet.

Eliezer 14y ago

My top three: 1) Give me back my physical pageturn buttons that I can tap without moving my fingers! Why, Amazon, why? 2) Make the LED whiter, maybe even yellower, instead of bluish. I'm not a color expert, I just know that this color looks wrong. 3) I'm not sure what's up with the font, but pick a font that doesn't look fragile, like some parts of thinner connectors are half-not-there.

xefer 14y ago
1. This is a funny one, and is the main reason why I'm getting my wife the new one. My wife loves her Kindle but when we're reading in bed together the sound of her clicking the button drives me up the wall. She likes that she can use a larger font so she doesn't need glasses, but that just means way more clicks-per-minute. I think she's pressed the button so many times it's worn out a bit because it makes a very distinct 'click'. After a while each one is like a gun shot in my ear.
- pwenzel 14y ago
  Little details like this drive me crazy as well. However, I'm always afraid of voicing complaints like this for fear of looking like a crazy person. Thanks for validating me. :-)
iterationx 14y ago
My Big 2: 1) Why page turn?, why not page down? English reads top to bottom. Seems like a big improvement would be a page down instead of a page across. 2) If I zoom into text I don't want to have to horizontally scroll, that's even more annoying that small text.
- GreenNight 14y ago
  1) Perhaps is because of what we are used to, but I read much better with page turn than with page down. I read a book in the computer, and I read it scrolling down. It didn't feel fulfilling. It was like reading a web-page. But having read a couple of books in my phone (with the kindle app) it felt natural again, I enjoyed much more the books that way. And no, the quality of the book was not the question. It was a free download (by the publisher) and a year or so later I've bought it on paper and read it again. It was much more fulfilling this way. Perhaps in half a generation or so people will feel more natural going down than sideways, right now I prefer the later.

Tichy 14y ago

Considering that paper books don't have buttons for turning the pages, I find the complaint about the lack of a button for page turning amusing. I suspect it is still less effort to flip a page on the kindle than on a paper book. Not that such a button would necessarily be a bad idea (not sure). I suppose it would have to be quite sturdy, as it would be used a lot. Perhaps on the touch screen the clicks are distributed more and so it will last longer.

netcan 14y ago

I have a kobo touch and I love it. My advice is: - buy a simple ereader. - Turn Off everything you can: the store, wifi, 3g, recommendations, awards, share, ads.etc ANything with an off button. - Once a month or three load it up with some books that you would like to read. Just books. Not too many. Choose, then load. Basically, de-gadgetize it. Make it into a book. A nice, light book. Our computer world is a hell of distractions. To me, any reminder that I'm reading on a "device" that can do other things is unwelcome. Even recharging the device breaks the illusions for me. I was initially frustrated that I didn't have a convenient way o get short PDFs, blog posts and such onto the device. Now I'm glad. Short-form articles would just put me into browsing mode. The upshot of all this is that unless the manufacturers can get better at things they are already very good at (eg weight, battery life), I want the old cheap one. I don't want any new features. My default position is suspicion of every "feature." I hear "paperwhite screen" My immediate reaction is I don't want it to feel more like a screen & I don't want it to feel more like a screen and I don't want a brightness button.