Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Review updated February 13, 2013 After spending four months with the device, I have decided it's time to adjust my review. At the outset, I gave this device a single star because of the frustrating issues I experienced. Every Kindle Paperwhite I sent to me had shadowy blotches of color throughout much of the screen, which didn't meet my expectations from the screen and caused significant eyestrain. I got 3 replacement devices in an attempt to get a better device, but each had problems worse than the last (all had colored blotches, 2/3 had dust specks leaving bright pinhole light spots on the screen, and 2/3 had lower left edge brightness issues). I ended up keeping my original device. I let the review stand because of the bad taste the experience left in my mouth. I know others have gotten good devices, and it rankled that I'd had 4 devices and none of them were what I'd consider good enough - but the return merry-go-round had gotten too frustrating to deal with. I've adjusted the rating up to 4 stars because my experience with the device itself (ignoring the flawed screen, which does still bother me under certain conditions) has been very positive. I debated taking off another star for the hassle, but I think this is the right decision. I'll leave my original review at the bottom... so let's talk about what I enjoy about the device! I switched over from a Nook Simple Touch with Glow Light. Before that I had a Nook Simple Touch, and before that a Nook Color. I switched to e-ink for the reduced eyestrain, great battery life, and daylight reading. I switched to a lighted e-ink reader to retain these benefits and easily read at night before bed, which is when I get a lot of my reading done. I feel that the Paperwhite offers many distinct advantages over my previous e-ink readers: LIGHT: The light allows me to read in any lighting situation. With the NSTWGL, I had to decide what the threshold to turn the light on/off would be and exactly how high it needed to be. The Paperwhite's always-on light design eliminates awkward do-I-or-don't-I lighting situations. Just adjust the brightness and you're good to go. The lack of a large band of light at the top (as with the NSTWGL) is great, and the light feels like it is much more evenly distributed and a more neutral non-blue color. SCREEN: The higher screen resolution and capacitive touch screen offer a superior experience. Images and small fonts look crisp and clear, and the capacitive screen is more responsive and allows me to use one of those waterproof tablet bags for bathtub reading. UI: The time to read feature has become an integral part of my reading experience. As I am person who likes to stop reading on chapter ends, I can now easily tell if I have enough time to finish the chapter during my break or before I sleep. The dictionary feature is simpler to use and is superior to the Nook's. Although a recent firmware update has closed the gap, I still like the Kindle's options better. Highlighting is also better. I also like collections, which allow me to sort by genres, series, challenges, etc. It's a nice touch. On the whole, Kindle's user interface feels much more elegant and attractive. SYSTEM: Despite the hassle of switching e-book ecosystems, I have found Amazon to be superior. With the cloud and being able to e-mail or "send to Kindle" it is much more convenient to use the device. Being able to delete documents from the device without hooking up to the computer is a no-brainer, and something I'm still surprised was missing from my Nooks. With the Nook I had to hook up to a computer any time I wanted to add or delete a file. OTHER: The autowake feature is really nice if you have a no special offers device and a cover that has the feature. If you're willing to tinker, there are several nice benefits the Kindle developer community offers over the Nook's (which was basically root to a non-customized Android or nothing). Really, about the only thing I miss from my Nook devices is the way they handled PDFs. They flowed the text out so you could change the font size and read instead of having to always pan/zoom. In short, this is a 5 star device if you can get your hands on a good one. If you're afraid you'll have bad luck and you won't, Amazon's customer service is actually quite easy to deal with, so you can get a replacement/return if it doesn't work for you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Original review from October 12, 2012: As soon as it was announced, I was extremely excited for the Paperwhite. Once I saw the reveal on the tech blogs, the demos, the pictures... I knew I wanted to trade my Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight for it, even with the large hassle that comes with switching e-reader ecosystems. A screen with higher resolution, even lighting, capacitive touch? Sign me up! I preordered the first day. When I first received my unit, I thought it was much better. It looked impressive, more evenly lit and more responsive than my Nook. And I absolutely loved that I could send things straight to my Kindle via Wi-fi. Then I got to the heart of the matter, the reason I have bought two e-ink readers with a light: reading my books in bed at night. At first, I thought I was going crazy. But the more I looked, the worse it seemed. Then I saw pictures of people with similar problems. See, I'm not giving a 1 star review because of the shadows caused by the LED lights at the bottom. I expect that, and I understand it. I understood it well before Amazon felt the need to clarify it. My problem is that my screen is about 5 different colors. There are shadowy blotches that range from various shades of pink to green to blue that are really quite annoying to look at and produce eyestrain when read around for too long. Nothing I can do helps it, other than turning the light off, which isn't a solution for me. Yes, I've held on to my unit for several days (I got it 10 days ago). Yes, I've set the refresh to be every page. Yes, I've reset it, etc. etc. Now here's the rub. I attempted to get a replacement. It had the same problem -- more unsightly color blobs and some lovely bright dots (reminiscent of dead pixels on an LCD screen) that were beyond distracting once seen. It also had a line of extreme brightness at the lower left edge of the screen. So I got another replacement today. It arrived with more color blobs, even worse than the previous two. Another "dead pixel". Same lower left edge brightness issue. I want to love the Paperwhite. I really do. I like it better than my NSTWGL and I'm not interested in a Kobo Glo. I don't expect that the screen be true white. All I want is a screen that is one color, and it is seeming like that is unattainable. I really don't know what to do at this point, because I've already gotten rid of my Nook Glow. The bottom line is that I cannot recommend this product. It seems that the quality control on the units is very poor to have 3/3 units with this defect (and others) shipped to me. EDITED TO ADD: I don't want to give the impression that I dislike the device. If I could get a screen that didn't have these color blotches and "dead pixel" bright spots that have plagued my experience thusfar, the device would be 5 stars in my book.