Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Review: The Best E-Book Reader?
Frontlighting, Examined
E Ink, Revisited
At its core, the Paperwhite remains an E Ink-based e-book reader. So, page refresh times are still significantly slower than what you’ll ever see on a tablet’s LCD.
E Ink employs charged microscopic capsules in order to generate images. So, the screen's refresh rate directly correlates to the time it takes to charge electrodes and move the capsules. This process isn't measured in single-digit milliseconds, as it might be on a tablet. Rather, the latency is quantified in the hundreds of milliseconds.
Paperwhite: What’s Different?
For starters, the Paperwhite employs a capacitive touch sensor, as opposed to the previous Kindle Touch's infrared sensor. This improves response times noticeably. Back in January of last year, we benchmarked screen refresh rates on the Kindle Touch and found them to be about 50-100 ms slower than the non-touch version and older Kindle Keyboard. The capacitive sensor yields a substantial speed-up; we can't detect a noticeable difference in the delay.
Perhaps more important, Amazon adds LED lights to the Paperwhite, allowing you to read the display in the dark. Backlight might be the wrong term to use, though. While tablet screens and computer monitors are illuminated by LEDs that emit light out towards the user, the Kindle Paperwhite shines light back down towards the screen. Ergo, the Paperwhite’s backlight is actually a frontlight.
The clip below is an excerpt from Amazon’s official Quick Tour video, which gives a breakdown of this technology:
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In the next video, Amazon employees talk about the challenges they faced designing the Kindle Paperwhite.
It was actually very hard: We had to spend many hours in dark rooms to pick LEDs. We looked at samples and looked at for this batch here these are the best LEDS to match the characteristics of a white, very neutral color. We spent a lot of time looking at how many LEDs to put in, how hard to drive them, how bright we could get it without impacting the battery life. You don’t want someone to have to [consciously] manage their light, and say, I’d really like to have the light on but that’s gonna hurt my battery life.
In a nutshell, Amazon combined the extremely power-efficient characteristics of a non-glare display with a touch-sensitive screen, and managed to tack on illumination for good measure. This is nothing short of a tremendously impressive feat.
To be precise, the Paperwhite’s display employs a light guide that sits atop the capacitive touch sensor. The guide is made of a transparent material, and light from white LEDs enters at the bottom edge of the display, bouncing along nanoimprinted channels within the guide. Amazon says it operates in much the same way as a fiber optic cable, though the company doesn't share much more detail than that.
The nanoimprinted channels are responsible for an even distribution of light across the entire display. Because the LEDs provide the strongest illumination towards the bottom edge of the screen, the criss-cross pattern of these channels becomes denser towards the upper edge, intensifying the output to maintain even distribution of brightness throughout.
Current page: Frontlighting, Examined
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Stimpack I've been contemplating whether I should buy the Kindle Fire or the Paperwhite for a couple of weeks now. While this summation of the Paperwhite and its features helped shed some light (heheh.) on its selling points, I still feel no closer to a decision.Reply
Nevertheless, it was an entertaining read! In fact, it's made me register an account here. I can't wait to read more articles like this. Fun stuff! -
kartu slomo4shoI am still waiting for a Kindle with SD or mSD expandability.It's called "Sony Reader T2". It runs Android. And it's rooted.Reply
And you are not bound to Amazon's store with it, even non rooted you can burrow books from electronic libraries and read common formats like EPUB. -
Mark Matthews dirtyferretive read several books on my kindle fire HD, often for hours at a time, and never had an issue with eye strain or battery life. In fact i prefer reading on the kindle HD then a regular book.Reply
The one advantage of e-ink readers like the traditional kindle, is you can read it in daylight. I have an iPad and spend a lot of time chilling on the back deck during the summer, and I have to go through a lot of seating arrangements to minimize the glare so that I can see the iPad. Ordering a new Kindle just for this purpose. -
ubercake I like my Paperwhite. It's really easy on the eyes and does not have all the distractions of a tablet. When I want to read, I use this. It's great under sunlight, but does in fact have a sort of mild glare under artificial overhead lighting conditions. Nothing bad, though. You can just tilt it a little one way or another to elimnate the glare. What is especially great is when it's dark and you're a passenger on a car ride. You can continue to read. The lighting is great and doesn't fatigue your eyes like an LED or LCD screen.Reply
Cloud sync is great too for those times when I don't have my Kindle with me. I can pick up my phone with my Kindle app and start reading right where I left off on my Kindle and vice versa.
Also, the battery lasts significantly longer (we're talking months of daily reading) if you just shut off the wireless connection when you're not downloading any books or sync-ing to the cloud. If you leave the wireless connection on full-time, you need to recharge after about 4 weeks. -
tridon I really fell in love with the graphs over Display Performance that showed the differences between the Kindles. Please use this the next time you review a Kindle as well. It would be valuable extra information when deciding whether or not to buy a new version a year or two :) It will be very interesting to see if the Paperwhite has improved the clearness in a year.Reply
Great article! *thumbs up the article* -
tridon StimpackI've been contemplating whether I should buy the Kindle Fire or the Paperwhite for a couple of weeks now. While this summation of the Paperwhite and its features helped shed some light (heheh.) on its selling points, I still feel no closer to a decision. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining read! In fact, it's made me register an account here. I can't wait to read more articles like this. Fun stuff!Reply
If you plan to read a lot where there is natural light (in the sun or shadow outside or near windows, etc) I would really recommend the Paperwhite. Just my personal preference. My eyes are really having a hard time reading on a tablet under such conditions. If you mostly read where you can control the lightning condition the Paperwhite would still be easier on the eyes, but there is no longer a real problem reading on the tablet =) -
I've being using 3 models of kindle. The back light on the latest one is great but the touch screen... ARG, my god, a pain in the but. Get me simple buttons, I miss my buttons SO MUCH.Reply
If you are using your tablet to read, not comment, not surfing the web, not playing, reading, all you need is a previous/next page. The touch screen is not flawless, it will not work then you will skip 3 pages. Then you'll put your kindle on the coach and something will touch the screen and...
Bring back the button please! -
shadowfamicom hadignyI've being using 3 models of kindle. The back light on the latest one is great but the touch screen... ARG, my god, a pain in the but. Get me simple buttons, I miss my buttons SO MUCH.If you are using your tablet to read, not comment, not surfing the web, not playing, reading, all you need is a previous/next page. The touch screen is not flawless, it will not work then you will skip 3 pages. Then you'll put your kindle on the coach and something will touch the screen and...Bring back the button please!Reply
Yes I am really pretty sick of the lack of buttons in favor of touch screens. Part of the reason I never really used a first gen iPod touch that someone gave me. If I am walking and have my MP3 player in my pocket... I want it to have buttons, for switching songs and volume up and down. Don't even get me started on phones without physical keyboards.