Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2024) review: slightly larger, slightly faster, slightly better

Three years person passed since Amazon past updated its flagship e-reader, and portion this year’s Kindle lineup seemed focused connected Amazon’s archetypal colour offering, the Paperwhite inactive got immoderate welcome improvements. With a higher-contrast surface and snappier performance, the 12th-generation Kindle Paperwhite remains the champion e-reader connected the market.

I tested the $199.99 Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, which is $40 much than the $159.99 basal Paperwhite. The surface and internals are the same, but the Signature Edition includes an ambient airy sensor for automatic brightness adjustments, 32GB of retention alternatively than 16GB, nary lockscreen ads, wireless charging, and a metallic decorativeness connected the back. The metallic jade mentation I was sent looked large (metallic achromatic and raspberry are besides options) but felt somewhat little grippy than the integrative of the basal Paperwhite.

The caller Paperwhite features a 300ppi surface with a tiny bump successful size from 6.8 to 7 inches — not truly capable to beryllium noticeable, but capable to fto you compression a fewer other lines of substance connected a page. Thanks to smaller bezels, the caller Paperwhite is conscionable a fewer millimeters larger than the erstwhile mentation portion managing to beryllium somewhat thinner; successful use, it feels astir identical. This year’s exemplary besides brings the show flush with the bezels, though it’s different subtle improvement.

What is noticeable is the accrued contrast. Thanks to the usage of an oxide thin-film transistor connected the screen, the caller Paperwhite has the highest opposition ratio of immoderate e-reader I’ve ever tested. The benefits aren’t instantly evident erstwhile you’re speechmaking plain text, but the deeper blacks marque the surface look person to an existent printed page. It gives illustrations, pictures, and publication covers much popular and presence, and makes comics and manga panels look sharper. The caller surface occasionally made immoderate of the good substance successful Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man: Married with Children appear bolder and easier to work without zooming in.

It’s not a diagnostic that’s arsenic flashy arsenic a colour E Ink screen, but it’s easy the caller model’s champion upgrade, and it’s going to marque it hard to instrumentality to my Kobo Libra 2.

Amazon has besides improved the caller Paperwhite’s lighting, giving the surface a much neutral code astatine its default settings. The past procreation Paperwhite’s surface skews a small cooler, but with some Paperwhite models’ warmth sliders turned up, the differences are indistinguishable.

This is besides the archetypal Paperwhite to usage a dual-core processor (the Oasis, remainder successful peace, had a dual-core processor backmost successful 2017). The 1GHz Mediatek CPU would beryllium painfully dilatory for a instrumentality with an LCD screen, but it makes a large quality connected an e-reader. Amazon’s claims of 25 percent faster leafage turns weren’t noticeable erstwhile I was speechmaking substance — the refresh complaint of the E Ink surface is the limiting origin determination — but I was genuinely amazed astatine however overmuch faster it opened half-gigabyte, image-heavy PDF files I sideloaded. On the 11th-generation Paperwhite there’s a intermission that makes maine wonderment if the instrumentality is going to choke connected the files, but the caller Paperwhite opens them instantaneously and flips done the pages astir arsenic accelerated arsenic it does with plain text.

The idiosyncratic interface besides feels faster. It’s inactive not arsenic accelerated oregon responsive arsenic a smartphone oregon tablet, and zooming successful and retired of comics and photos tin inactive consciousness sluggish, but scrolling done publication lists, navigating Amazon’s publication store, and popping successful and retired of assorted menus is satisfyingly speedy. Or astatine slightest arsenic speedy arsenic it tin beryllium with the limitations of E Ink.

Amazon claims the caller Paperwhite tin beryllium utilized for up to 12 weeks betwixt charges, but that’s erstwhile limiting your speechmaking to conscionable 30 minutes a time astatine fractional surface brightness and wireless features turned off. After an hr reading, jumping backmost and distant betwixt books and PDFs, and browsing different titles connected Amazon’s online store with surface brightness acceptable to 75 percent, the caller Paperwhite mislaid 5 percent of its charge. With that regular daily I’d expect to compression astir 3 weeks retired of the Paperwhite’s battery, and perchance adjacent longer if I wasn’t truthful indecisive astir what I was reading.

If you’re a Kindle idiosyncratic who’s upgraded successful the past fewer years, the caller Paperwhite’s functionality volition consciousness familiar. If you’re switching from competitors similar Kobo, you whitethorn find yourself moving into immoderate frustrating limitations. Sideloading documents similar PDFs oregon ePUB files is harder than it needs to be, since Kindle devices nary longer link to computers arsenic outer drives. You request to usage Amazon’s online services oregon desktop apps to get e-books and different documents onto the Paperwhite, and some options are clunky.

Text customization is besides constricted successful the Kindle OS compared to Kobo devices, which connection finer adjustments for font size, enactment spacing, and margins. Although I find the Paperwhite’s formatting options excessively simplified, I tin spot the entreaty for those wanting a instrumentality that’s precise casual to use. I similar that you tin prevention your adjustments arsenic customized themes — it’s a diagnostic I privation Kobo would adhd — but I can’t recognize wherefore Amazon limits each instrumentality to conscionable 5 customized themes.

Borrowing room books is besides easier connected a Kobo. The caller Paperwhite inactive requires you to usage the Libby app oregon website connected a abstracted instrumentality to browse and get titles. Kobo’s e-readers person Overdrive built-in, and portion they bash obfuscate the borrowing process, you don’t request to propulsion retired your telephone to bash so.

But Kobo seems to beryllium focusing connected colour e-readers and larger E Ink note-taking devices these days, and its black-and-white e-reader options are present limited. The $129.99 Kobo Clara BW uses the aforesaid E Ink Carta 1300 surface arsenic the caller Paperwhite, but it’s lone six inches, and its opposition doesn’t look arsenic good. Its all-plastic assemblage and sunken surface besides consciousness cheaper than the caller Paperwhite’s. And portion the $269.99 Kobo Sage has leafage crook buttons and stylus support, it’s much of a hybrid e-reader and note-taking device; I find that the eight-inch surface makes it excessively large to beryllium a take-anywhere e-reader. 

Although it’s not a important upgrade, the caller Kindle Paperwhite remains the champion e-reader you tin buy, with a beauteous black-and-white surface that feels person to printed insubstantial than immoderate e-reader I’ve tested and a UI that’s faster and much responsive than the erstwhile version. If you’re connected the hunt for your archetypal e-reader, the caller Paperwhite should beryllium astatine the apical of your list.

Although the basal Amazon Kindle is cheaper astatine $109.99, the amended screen, adjustable warmth lighting, and waterproofing — other security if you work successful the bath oregon astatine the formation — marque the caller Paperwhite worthy the other money.

Is the Signature Edition worthy an other $40? Wireless charging isn’t indispensable fixed the Paperwhite’s artillery life, and it tin beryllium frustrating to align properly. But the ambient airy sensor tin prevention you the swipe and pat needed to set surface brightness manually if you instrumentality your Kindle everyplace (warmth settings don’t automatically adjust) and other retention is ever invited connected a instrumentality with nary representation paper slot. When you origin successful the $20 Amazon charges to region lockscreen ads from the basal Paperwhite, the Signature Edition is the mode to go.

Unless you work a batch of ample PDF files and are frustrated by laggy performance, the caller Paperwhite isn’t a indispensable upgrade implicit the 2021 model.  But it’s a antithetic communicative if you’ve got an adjacent older Paperwhite exemplary oregon different aging Kindle. When you adhd up the past six years of improvements — including USB-C, color-temp-adjustable lighting, a larger surface with amended contrast, and amended show —  it’s astir apt clip to see an upgrade.

Photography by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge