Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

(Scroll down for a bulleted Pros and Cons list) After having my Kindle Touch for 7 years, I finally upgraded to a Paperwhite! Overall I love it. I will never forget my book light again, the resolution is incredible, it's faster, the new software interface is great, and I love how opening and closing the cover turns the device on and off automatically. And don't forget how amazing E-Ink is and how much easier it is on the eyes than reading on a backlit tablet. However, there are a few things I miss, like the raised bezel, the 3.5 mm headphone jack, and the better battery life my old Kindle had. When reading in a room with low lighting, the built-in light provides an excellent enhancement, however the light is not so great in a completely dark room. While I love that it goes to a very low level, it has a blueish LED light, which means it's hard to focus on the text, and its blue light that can keep you up at night. Seeing as my Fire tablet was the first device I ever had with a built in blue light blocker, I was surprised that Amazon didn't put more yellowish LEDs into their Paperwhite. The screen on this is wonderful. The resolution is so high that the text is crisper than it could ever be on a printed page, and I have always loved Kindle's easy ability to change the font-size to larger print as needed. I have a love-hate relationship with the solid glass(?) screen. It looks sleek, having the entire front of the device at a single level, but the black bezel area shows fingerprints like mad, and the lack of a raised bevel leaves the screen more prone to chips and cracks, as well as to accidental page-turns if you hold onto the bezel. Only two days after receiving my new Paperwhite, I had left the case open and set the device on the sofa, while I went to get a glass of water. When I returned, I sat down next to it and then had to tend to my toddler on the other side of me, and I knocked the Kindle onto the floor. It landed face-down, and now there's a chip in the screen. Thankfully, that chip is only in the bezel area, but really, a chip in my two-day-old device from falling only 1 foot?! I will probably never use Audible on my Paperwhite. That's for two reasons. The first reason is the lack of a 3.5 mm headphone jack (I own zero Bluetooth headphones or speakers), and the second reason is the lack of immersive reading, where you can have the Audible book read along to the eBook text. I'll just use Audible on my phone or Fire tablet where I have both of these features. Here's hoping Amazon releases the immersive reading feature to the Paperwhite in the near future. The battery life... has issues. Initially, when I first unboxed my Paperwhite, it ate through the battery. However, it was downloading my entire eBook library, I was flicking through lots of menus, and it was downloading a software update in the background. I burned through half my battery that first day. After the software updated, the next day, battery life was a bit better. The new software changed it so that the Kindle goes into standby when not in use, and that helps it use less battery. However, it was still draining faster than my old Kindle Touch battery did. To remedy that, I usually keep my Paperwhite in airplane mode, only turning on wifi at the end of each reading session to sync up my reading progress, and then turning it back off. Doing this has made it so that I only use about 5% of my battery for each half hour of reading. Thankfully, the battery does charge up much faster than my old Kindle Touch did, but it does make me wonder about the longevity of this battery's capacity as my device ages. Overall, I like the Paperwhite more than my Touch, even though I have a few complaints. I could go into even more details, but seeing as I've already written quite a bit, I figured I'd just leave you with a giant list of Pros and Cons. Also, if I could have rated the Paperwhite with 4.5 stars, I would have. Pros: • Screen: ○ High contrast - seems whiter than my old Kindle Touch ○ Amazing resolution, can't see any pixilation, crisper than print on a page ○ Capacitive touch screen means no more accidentally turning the page with my sleeve ○ Can see great in bright light or low light (with the screen light on) • Light: ○ Nice enhancement in low-lighting ○ No more forgetting the book light ○ No glare from a book light shining on the screen ○ Light level goes very low - I can read in the dark without it being too bright, and it doesn't keep up my baby or husband • Updated software interface ○ So many settings, especially for the reading text (font, size, typeface, line spacing, margins, orientation) ○ Peek ahead options, to look at previous or upcoming pages without changing your position (or reading progress) in the book, or even to quickly look through and navigate to another page. ○ The ability to only have some of my collections from the cloud appear on my device. ○ Integration with Goodreads - I can easily share my progress and remarks on the book I'm reading, easily add books to my Goodreads shelf, and easily see my Goodreads lists. • Faster and more responsive than my old Kindle Touch • Waterproof - now I'm not afraid to read in the bath! • Magnetic cover ○ Automatically wakes on open, and puts the Kindle to sleep on close • More storage ○ I never ran out of space on my old Kindle, but now I have even more! • Lighter, thinner, and that cool feeling, almost "fuzzy" hard plastic covers the entire back of the device Cons: • Screen: ○ "Non-reflective" is still semi-reflective, like a high-gloss magazine (same as other Kindle reader screens) ○ Shows fingerprints - no big deal on reading area, but ugly on bezel ○ Solid glass with no bezel means more chances of chips and cracks ○ Capacitive touch screen - I can't turn the page with gloves on, or through a blanket - When the device is wet, water can cause it to register fake taps - use the "disable touchscreen" option in the menu, and then it only detects swipes • Light: ○ Has a lot of blue spectrum in it ○ Feels more like a backlight, when used in total darkness ○ LED light makes it hard to focus without any ambient light, so I have to make the font larger when reading in a dark room • Battery life: ○ Drains fairly quickly when wifi is left on ○ When wifi is off, still drains faster than my old Kindle Touch's battery, but is much, much better and might last a week or two, depending upon how much you read and what level you use the light at • Power button position ○ It's easy to accidentally turn the Kindle off while reading, if you hold it by the bottom • Software interface: ○ I can't figure out how to share to Facebook when I've completed a book. I used to do this with every book on my old Kindle Touch. • No more 3.5mm headphone jack or built in speakers (my old Kindle Touch had these and I loved both) ○ I will never use Audible on my Paperwhite because of this. I will instead use it on my phone. • No immersive reading where you can let your Audible book narrate along the page of your eBook ○ It's either read the eBook text, or listen to the Audible book; you can't do both at once ○ I hope they update the software to support this, like tablets do