After the sad passing of my previous Kindle, I decided to upgrade a notch when replacing what's become an almost essential piece of gadgetry for me. I had my doubts about how necessary the major innovation of this model was - the backlit screen, that is - but then again, I had the same reservations about all aspects of the Kindle generally before I bought it, and have never looked back. So a little faith needed, I thought.
I plumped for the 3G version, which as with previous models, is fractionally more expensive - but I figured it was worth going the whole hog. It's really an advantage, if not an absolute necessity, to be able to access content wherever you are, and it bumps up the whole Kindle experience a bit for me (as well as making it even easier to drop your money on a whim ...)
How is this model different to those before, then? For me, the biggest difference was the introduction of the touchscreen. Again, it's not really a must - it doesn't do anything the previous versions' paddles and buttons didn't, but it's extremely intuitive and makes the navigation of menus in particular much quicker and easier. In terms of performance, this aspect of the Paperwhite is great - responsive and tactile (obviously ...), it's a great addition.
Then there's the backlighting. I was a bit wary of this - one of the best things about Kindle is how they're not-quite-book, not-quite-computer; there's none of the glare and eyestrain that comes with conventional screens, making reading so much more comfortable than I initially assumed it would be. I wondered if this feature would take away from this - but I needn't have worried. Actually, it's a neat upgrade - best of all, it's adjustable on a sliding scale, so it's never brighter than it needs to be and can be controlled and tweaked to your level of comfort. This makes it a bit more versatile than before - it's easy to read in darker light now - without losing anything or sacrificing the major advantages of the Kindle.
Everything that was true of the Kindle before is true of this version - it really does make reading better - you can take books everywhere, you can juggle multiple novels, read documents, instantly buy new material when you've run out ... for me it's a revolution, and this is the logical progression in that process.
I plumped for the 3G version, which as with previous models, is fractionally more expensive - but I figured it was worth going the whole hog. It's really an advantage, if not an absolute necessity, to be able to access content wherever you are, and it bumps up the whole Kindle experience a bit for me (as well as making it even easier to drop your money on a whim ...)
How is this model different to those before, then? For me, the biggest difference was the introduction of the touchscreen. Again, it's not really a must - it doesn't do anything the previous versions' paddles and buttons didn't, but it's extremely intuitive and makes the navigation of menus in particular much quicker and easier. In terms of performance, this aspect of the Paperwhite is great - responsive and tactile (obviously ...), it's a great addition.
Then there's the backlighting. I was a bit wary of this - one of the best things about Kindle is how they're not-quite-book, not-quite-computer; there's none of the glare and eyestrain that comes with conventional screens, making reading so much more comfortable than I initially assumed it would be. I wondered if this feature would take away from this - but I needn't have worried. Actually, it's a neat upgrade - best of all, it's adjustable on a sliding scale, so it's never brighter than it needs to be and can be controlled and tweaked to your level of comfort. This makes it a bit more versatile than before - it's easy to read in darker light now - without losing anything or sacrificing the major advantages of the Kindle.
Everything that was true of the Kindle before is true of this version - it really does make reading better - you can take books everywhere, you can juggle multiple novels, read documents, instantly buy new material when you've run out ... for me it's a revolution, and this is the logical progression in that process.
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