How good is Amazon's new Kindle Paperwhite - Wall Street Journal Germany

LAUREN GOODE

The new e-book reader Kindle Paperwhite brings some welcome changes, compared to the model of the previous year – including a faster processor and a better screen. However, this is not a revolution, and therefore might wonder whether the device is well worth its price Kindle e-reader and lover beginners.

The current

Paperwhite model costs 129 euros in Germany from Amazon, the predecessor is sold for 119 euros. Not to be confused with the e-reader Amazon Kindle Fire series, when it comes to tablets, including color screen.

I tested the Kindle Paperwhite a week and mainly read books about media theory and economic fact. In other words, I have used the device more than an hour before going to bed and then I fell asleep

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Amazon

Overall it can be said that the White Paper is an excellent product, but not a must-have for all those who are happy with their White Paper from the year 2012 -. although the new device can come with some temptations

The new Kindle Paperwhite just seems a bit livelier than the old one. On the E-Ink display now appear no longer the shadows that had disturbed some old copies of the White Paper from the past year. According to Amazon, the screen has been revised several times to solve this problem.

The White Paper has three new key features:. Flip Page, “expand vocabulary” and a new function for footnotes

footnotes Popup Window

Page Flip can scroll around in the virtual directory, without losing orientation. The new footnotes function can display footnotes in a pop-up window on the page on which you just is instead that it is catapulted to the end of the book. However, this only worked on some books I’ve read. The “Add vocabulary”, which appears as a drop-down menu in the settings, shows virtual index cards for each word that has been sought after during reading.

If one turns

the Kindle, a menu appears on the home screen – including Home, Back, adjust backlight settings and the shopping cart, which leads one to the Amazon store. Amazon offers around 2 million e-books for the Kindle on, including 400,000 titles exclusively for the readers – most of the books are in English. On German about 212,000 e-books for the Kindle are available.

customers using Amazon Prime for 29 euros a year, each month you can borrow a Kindle book for free from the library in Germany. But there is only a fraction of all e-books, which are published for the Kindle available.

Once I started reading, the differences between the old and the new generation of the White Paper were obvious. My old Paperwhite had a strange shadow on the bottom of the screen – had a total of screen illuminated somewhat uneven. The new screen looks brighter, the contrast is stronger and the shadows are gone.

Faster Processor

a faster processor is installed. Everything feels faster on the new White Paper on – switching to the start screen, searching, accessing the settings. Even books were downloaded quickly, the page curl, however I noticed little difference.

new Paperwhite costs 129 euros with pure Wi-Fi connection and “special offers”, which means that Amazon advertisement is displayed on the lock screen. using 3G mobile connection, the device will cost 189 euros. Exemption from advertising costs each 15 euro extra.

Paperwhite is equipped with 2GB of internal memory, which can accommodate approximately 1,000 square books. The device has only an on / off button, an LED status light and a micro-USB input for charging.

Despite the better processor of the new White Paper by battery lasts as long as the old one. With Wi-Fi turned off, the device can use according to Amazon up to two months without recharging. After I had the Kindle Paperwhite used five evenings with enabled Wi-Fi, the battery was still charged to approximately 70 percent.

charging cable is extra

Amazon

still puts the device at no charge cable. Who wants to download the Kindle without a PC, you must shell out for the appropriate charger 15 euros extra – at least, when he ordered the official charger from Amazon. Equivalent Charger for Micro-USB port, which is also suitable for the Paperwhite devices are available from other manufacturers, starting from 7 € at Amazon.

The White Paper does not have a headphone output and also does not support audiobooks. The “experimental browser” feels just to – as an experiment

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What struck me really positive, was the auto-correction of notes when I used the Kindle app on the iPad. In contrast, there is no auto correction for the self-written texts on the Kindle, which I constantly mistyped myself and some notes left behind, probably sometime make no more sense to me.

the new Kindle Paperwhite Apart from these drawbacks is a welcome improvement for the Kindle series.

Contact the Author: redaktion@wallstreetjournal.de