Amazon Kindle

[Lex]

That's very cool.

[splinky]

Out of all the books purchased from Amazon over the years

Matchbook offered me a bean cookbook for $2.99. Hardy har har Amazon. I guess it's good for the orphans who paint the beans

[Sneakeater]

How do they do it? Volume!

[Nathan]

yeah, it was announced as "coming" a few months ago.

 

the selection is a matter of the publishers agreeing to make the Kindle version eligible (and they hate Amazon to begin with)....thus the bean cookbook.

[Lauren]

Gee, I got the bean book suggestion too!

[prasantrin]

With the Kindle, is there a way to read the end of the book then go back to wherever you were before you wanted to read the ending?

 

That's how I read real books, and I'd like to do it with my Kindle, too.

[theclash]

There is a bookmark option, on the paperwhite you just tap the upper right corner.

[porkwah]

well it's kind of nice - there have been a few cases over the past years where i've bought both the e- and real version of a book so i'd have it at home and on-the-go.

[prasantrin]

Ah, that's what the bookmark is for! The app for my phone has a tap, the kindle is a refurbished model which requires a little more effort, but bookmarking is very useful. I am now learning how to use the highlighting function.

[Lex]

I’ve had a Kindle 4 since 2012 and it was getting a bit long in the tooth. It has physical switches that are used to page forward and backward and while I found them convenient to use after hundreds of thousands of presses I noticed they weren’t as smooth as they were originally.

 

Devices don’t live forever. Sometimes they just fade away gradually, leaving you plenty of time to smoothly replace them. Others die abruptly and inconveniently. I figured I’d be proactive.

 

The 3^rd generation Paperwhite caught my eye. It has a touch screen, something I had mixed feelings about. Something I had no mixed feelings about was the backlit screen. Under good lighting conditions the older Kindle displayed text perfectly but if the light wasn’t positioned perfectly I needed to make the overall room lighting brighter than I’d prefer. This was a classic first world problem but gradually I began to really want to dim those lights.

 

The Paperwhite normally sells for $120 but Amazon has frequent sales when you can get one for $90. That price was pretty much irresistible. I set a Google alert to tell me when the next sale occurred and bought one about six weeks ago.

 

Setup was dead easy. I just followed the on screen prompts and entered the password for our home wi-fi. My recent books were downloaded automatically. I had to manually request some of my older titles. They appeared in my Kindle library but I had to click on them for them to be downloaded. I was pleased to see that the Kindle didn’t favor the books I purchased from Amazon. My free books were equally easy to download.

 

The backlight works perfectly. It has lots of settings so it’s easy for find one that suits. There are additional fonts available and you can tweak their size and boldness to find a pleasing combination.

 

My concerns about the touch screen were unfounded. Page turns are done by quick taps to the right or left side of the screen. I prefer that to swipes (which also work.) The screen itself has a slight texture to its surface. In practice this eliminates the annoying type of smudging that appears on smartphone screens. I’ve come to prefer navigating through touches vs. the old switches.

 

Tapping at the top of the screen produces a link to various menus. There’s an icon to a home screen and a second tap takes you there. Unlike the home screen on the previous Kindle this one contains a small amount of advertising, a slight annoyance. Another click takes you directly into your main Kindle library where you can select any of your books like you did before. Since this is something you only do occasionally the extra click isn’t onerous.

 

During the first few weeks of use I had some concerns about battery life. My old Kindle lasted 2 weeks on a charge. Initially I had to charge my new Kindle every 2 days. I wondered if that was the price I was paying for that handy backlight.

 

Then magically battery life got lots better. I’m back to around 2 weeks on a charge.

 

If your old Kindle is showing signs of wear the Paperwhite is a nice replacement.

[Wilfrid]

After three Kindles died on me, I now use the Kindle app on my phone. No problems.

 

Could the screen be bigger? Sure, but I read so much on my phone anyway it's not a big deal.

[Peter Creasey]

Kim, get an Kobo Aura One. Totally open market and very good hardware/firmware.

[Lex]

And only 2 and a half times more than a Kindle.

 

Finally the answer to the question "Now that SONY no longer makes e-readers, what can I buy if I refuse to get a Kindle. Price is no object."

 

[Rail Paul]

I've been using my older Kindle to drive music / radio from Tune-In, and TV programming via Passport. Works perfectly.

[Lex]

I didn't realize you could do that. Which model do you have?