I Love My Kindle Paperwhite

One of the things that has been especially useful during the year of COVID-19 isolation has been my Kindle PaperWhite ereader.

I was an early convert to ebooks, and not just because I worked on ebooks at The Voyager Company. I’ve always had vision problems. Being able to set the font and size of type in ebooks has made reading much easier. I started buying ebooks first for my PowerBook 180 (Voyager’s Expanded Ebooks running on HyperCard), moved to a Palm PRC and Mobi ebooks, and now, read ebooks via my Web browser, my iPhone, my iPad, a Chromebook, and for the last year or so, my Kindle Paperwhite.

The Kindle Paperwhite was the first Kindle that looked even mildly interesting to me; previous versions of E Ink were, as a friend once said, “like reading wet newspaper.” The version of E Ink on the Paperwhite (E Ink Carta) is much better, though it still lacks the glorious readability of Apple’s Retina screens. The base model Kindle is still pretty poor in comparison to the cost, screen quality, and utility of the PaperWhite, especially if you have vision issues.

What convinced me to buy a Kindle Paperwhite was that it was clear that I was going to be away from my books for a while, without an easy way to go to the library, which means I’d be mostly reading ebooks. My third generation iPad, while extremely legible, is awkward to hold for long periods of reading, and not really a great option for reading in bed (though I still use it for image-rich ebooks, and digital manuscript facsimiles). The Kindle Paperwhite is lighter and easier to hold than my iPad and displays more text on a screen than my iPhone (which I still use to read ebooks regularly), which definitely offsets the poor image display, and the fact that it’s grayscale, rather than the rich Retina color display of my iPad.

The Kindle Paperwhite is Amazon’s mid-range Kindle e-reader, with higher resolution (300 ppi) than the entry-level Kindle, and a back-light. I didn’t get the 3G version with cellular access; WiFi and USB is all I need. The storage on my 2017 model is 4 GB, less whatever the OS uses; mine has several hundred ebooks, and about 2 GB of free space. The current Kindle PaperWhite holds base model has 8 gigs of memory and is a bit safer with respect to water than my previous generation PaperWhite. That said, I bought mine in 2017, use it daily, and generally get a week’s worth of reading before needing to recharge.

The 300ppi resolution, and the ability to set the darkness or contrast of the type, the type size and font (from a pretty decent list), means I can read the Kindle Paperwhite screen even without my glasses; the back light means I don’t need an external light source, and I can read the screen fairly easily even in sunlight.

My Kindle Paperwhite is perfect for late night and early morning reading. I can hold it with one hand, swiping to turn pages isn’t stressful for my hands (the high-end model, the Kindle Oasis has a slightly larger screen, more control over the backlight, and page-turn buttons). The back light isn’t bright enough to be disturbing to others but it’s bright enough. My Paperwhite holds enough ebooks to keep me happy even away from my own library and easy access to WiFi. When there is access to WiFi, borrowing ebooks via the public Library’s Overdrive collection is quite simple (I use Overdrive’s Libby app on my iPhone and iPad, and Mac, and can easily send books to my Kindle with Libby).  I use Calibre to manage my own ebooks on my Kindle, which makes reading drafts of my own work very easy.

My Paperwhite has also helped my resolve to reduce my printed books to just the ones I use or re-read regularly, or that are otherwise not really suitable candidates for e-reading. More importantly, in the age of COVID-19, the Paperwhite has eased the misery of insomnia.

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