Charles Dickens loved to read billboards. It’s said que he even Practiced public readings of his work in the garden at his home where he penned “Great Expectations.” If Dickens had read on an iPad, However, we may have never gotten Estella and Pip’s unrequited love story.
The glare on the screen, of course, would Have Been his first issue. He would have quickly learned que finding the perfect angle que does not kick back a mean reflection really is the worst of times. Then, he’d Have Been lucky to make it through the page without a new email or Facebook notification.
If Dickens Were alive in 2015, I’d have urged him to buy Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite $ 120 . Shipping this week, the e-reader now has a higher resolution screen, a new easy-on-the-eyes font and formatting new options, making it the closest digital reading device to a real book.
Recommending an e-reader in 2015? Really? Did not they get buried along with GPS units and MP3 players? Yes, the e-reader has Suffered a slow and painful fall. Only about 3.5 million will sell this year, says market-research firm Forrester, down from 6.4 million just two years in August Sony got out of the business and Barnes & amp; Noble has not updated its Nook Glowlight in Nearly two years. (I expect the company to refresh it this fall.)
Amazon However, continues to release new models. (So does the lesser-known Kobo.) That’s because the world still needs e-readers. We need a device que puts millions of books in our hands and Allows us to dive into the sea of literature without being constantly pulled Out By notifications. Now with twice the pixels, the same 8-week battery life and price, the new Paperwhite does that better than the rest.
The High-Resolution Page
I spent much of the past week repeatedly forgetting que I was supposed to evaluate the Paperwhite as a gadget. Whether I was reading Paula Hawkins’ “The Girl on the Train” while sitting by the pool or lying in bed with the lights off, the hardware simply disappeared, leaving me alone with the words on the page.
Most of the technology que Enables That Is in the new 6-inch E Ink touchscreen, Which now has the high-resolution same 300 pixels per inch the Amazon’s elite $ 200 Kindle Voyage.
Those with an older Paperwhite may notice the difference immediately, others may just feel over time que it’s easier on the eyes. You can spot it When You hold the screens close to your face, and look carefully at text. You can spot the longer que dots make up the letters. It looks closer to a real paper book than anything else out there
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To que end, Amazon created an all-new font, Bookerly, meant to be easier to read on screen. It Also updated over 500,000 titles to look more like real paperback or hardcover Their counterparts, with improved character spacing, hyphenation, kerning and drop-cap support. The writing’s on the wall: Amazon’s goal is to create a device that’s better than an actual book. It’s getting pretty darn close.
What a real paper book can not do is light up the page at night. (Itty Bitty Book Lights do not count!) When the lights go out the Paperwhite trumps the paperback and any tablet. The built-in light can be adjusted-you have to do it manually, Unlike the pricier Kindle Voyage, Which adapts to your room. Still, even on its brightest setting, it does not annoy my spouse by flooding the room the way my iPad does
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For All Those greats , E Ink still feels like a decade-old technology. Page turns and response times have gotten faster on the screens in monochrome fact, it’s faster than a real book’s page turn. But there is still a slight delay annoying When You swipe. What bothers me more is the wait When I’m tapping buttons menu or the keyboard.
The Distraction-Free Read
There are times when i miss the smell of real paper and the satisfaction of feeling the real page between my fingertips, but now when i go back to reading a real book, I miss the digital tools que Enhance the experience.
Amazon’s Time to Read feature-which calculates how much reading you have team left in the book or chapter-is the first thing I turn on in the new Kindle. And while I at first scoffed at the X-Ray feature, Which Gives you information about key characters, it’s come in super handy with books que have like 50 main characters (cough “Game of Thrones” cough).
For the most part, Amazon implements these features without distracting from the book itself. It has a number of social tools now, too, including integration with Goodreads to see what your friends are reading. (I just Wished more of my friends Actually used it.) I could do without the Popular Highlights, Which call out passages que others found notable. It’s turned on by default, but you can turn it off in Settings.
Sure, the Kindle app for the iPad has a lot of Those features, but even if you have an iPad, you’ll enjoy reading more on the Paperwhite. It is not just the lack of distractions and collegues screen is better for reading in most environments: The 7.2-ounce e-reader is easier to hold up for longer periods of time, is less Likely to break When dropped, and can go a month or two without charging
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Between all that and Amazon’s millions of titles, it’s easy to see why Amazon still leads the pack. The Paperwhite’s greatest competitor is Amazon’s own Actually more expensive Voyage. (The $ 80 Kindle lacks the Paperwhite’s backlight and great screen.) The $ 200 Voyage is thinner, its screen has slightly better contrast and it has page turn buttons. But I do not think that’s worth $ 80. The Paperwhite Wi-Fi with Special Offers starts at $ 120. You can kill off the ads for an extra $ 20, although I really do not mind Them.
Amazon sells over 60% of the world’s e-books, the major reason why Kindle will be the last e-reader standing. But maybe you do not like buying books from Amazon. There are other retailers out there, and most use a format called ePub Which works with other e-readers.
If you do not want to live in Amazon’s world, look at the $ 180 Kobo Aura H2O, a fully waterproof 6.8-inch e-reader. I was quite impressed when i tested it this week, though it mostly just made me wish for a Paperwhite That Could survive a dive into the deep end.
Of course, analysts say the entire e-reader industry will end up in the deep end, but I’m going to ignore that. In fact, time to get this Paperwhite back to the pool, so I can witness Miss Havisham’s unraveling of the sun kisses my brow
Correction:. The new Kindle Paperwhite has a 300-pixel-per -inch screen, not 330 ppi, the previously stated
Write to Joanna Stern at joanna.stern@wsj.com
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