You don’t have to involve your right arm at all. Just stretch your left thumb a bit more toward the center of the screen.
Yes, this is one issue I have had as well. It took me a while to get used to, rather than turning the page back, hitting the actual back button at the top of the screen. I can now rectify this issue pretty quickly, but it’s still annoying.
Me, I just do it myself. I rename every book to begin with a serial number, plus title and author. 00122 Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Then I have a spreadsheet with the serial number, title and author, and other data: a genre category, “one to five stars” (how much I liked it,) the date I downloaded it, and several “notes” fields.
The nice part about doing it all myself is I can customize things my way, doggonit. I don’t have to depend on what someone else thought I might want.
This may be an ignorant question but a lack of a backlight is what makes the Kindle easy on the eyes and work in sunlight. I have the old style kind and love both these features. Does the Paperwhite work the same way?
Missed my edit window but I did some Googling and see it is actually front-lit so those features apparently stand. I am thinking the only thing my current one has on this is the physical page turning buttons on both sides but even still an upgrade may be in order.
calibre is the free software I use. It helps me keep track of books from different sources and can be used to convert formats. If you need any help with the program go to the mobileread forum, there is a calibre subforum there and the developer or his contributors are happy to answer questions.
On topic, I just ordered a Paperwhite to replace my older Kindle Keyboard, it should be here Monday.
I adore my Kindle and I am very glad I bought it. And, all of the good things people in this thread have said about it are absolutely true. And, as Roderick Femm said, I am not sure where you got the November 5th date. The current version of the Papewhite just came out, so they probably will not upgrade it until next year.
If you rely on library books, I would advise you to check your library to make sure they have copies of the sorts of things you like to read. New Releases from popular authors they will almost certainly have (you’ll just have to wait, as you would with a paper book). But, since certain publishers make it harder for libraries to get digital copies you can’t be guaranteed to find everything you want. It’s a good idea to look around and make sure you can find the sort of stuff you like to read, before diving in. But, yeah, once you find it, the process is dead simple.
Oh, and here is a trick that works on my Kindle Touch. (Sadly, I bought too early, and didn’t get the joy of a lit screen!) When you borrow a book from the library you are usually only given a certain amount of time to read it. If you leave wifi turned off, you can continue to read until you are finished and you don’t have to worry about the due date. Writing this out, I realize it’s probably obvious to most people. But, I was happily surprised when I was near the end of the book on my Kindle, and it wasn’t taken away from me the day it was due.
Yes, and the light level is actually adjustable – Amazon recommends lower levels for dimmer environments and vice versa. Also, “backlight” is a misnomer; the screen is the same e-ink type that’s been used since the first Kindle and the light shines down on the screen, not up at your eyes (there were complaints about the first paperwhite model having uneven illumination, or that the light sources were too noticeable, but that hasn’t been my experience).
I’ve had a Kindle since the first one, upgrading along the way to the Kindle keyboard, then the Touch, and now the Paperwhite (first model, I haven’t yet upgraded to the newer Paperwhite). As others have said, it’s great for text-based books and magazines, not so great for graphics-intensive stuff. You can get subscriptions to newspapers and magazines, but yeah, the Kindle will not give you an optimal experience with picture-laden magazines.
Given its ease of use and intended scope, it really is very good at what it does. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to any reader (except the most Luddite).
My hand isn’t big enough for that to work.
I read my Kindle Paperwhite every day. I love it. Mostly books, though, so I can’t really comment on the magazines/newspapers aspect. I suspect newspapers would be fine, but magazines would be lacking due to the b&w limitation.
I just got back from a beach vacation and it was nice to just pack my little Kindle instead of a stack of books. And I can go from hearing about a new book I might be interested in to having purchased it and ready to read in about a minute. (That’s not always a good thing :)).
I love my kindle.
I didn’t think I would, then I bought one and it became my favorite toy. I used to have to worry about whether or not I had the right book with me and think about what I’d take with me to read. I now have almost any book that I’m going to want (I have very pedestrian tastes) almost any time I want it. It isn’t quite the same, but it feels very much like reading a “real” book and I had no problem moving from the former to the latter.
I stepped on my keyboard version (they’re really not designed for that) and had to replace it. The one thing I wish that the paperwhite had was a key for turning the pages. (It’s a touch screen. It works fine, but I like the button slightly better) I don’t miss the horrible excuse for a mouse. And I love not needing an extra light.
How big is the actual reading screen on the Paperwhite? My old Kindle keyboard version’s reading screen is 3 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches. It’s a really nice size, and I wouldn’t want a screen that was much smaller…or much larger.
The same. They’ve kept the screen size the same since the beginning, I think. The smaller overall size is due to the elimination of the keyboard and other buttons (on the touch models).
I have the Kindle Touch, but I love it. I travel a lot and I really appreciate having a bunch of different types of things to read with me.
For those who have upgraded to the paperwhite, do you think it’s appreciably better than the touch?
Kinda depends on what you mean by “appreciably”. The light is a big advantage, but the screen also lives up to the name – that is, text is presented in a much cleaner black-on-white appearance. I always thought the black-on-light gray of the older models was sufficient for my needs, but the Paperwhite in comparison (with the screen aglow) has much better contrast (I think the e-ink technology was improved from the Touch to the Paperwhite, too). Page turn speed was also improved, but that never bothered me, so YMMV.
All in all, the Paperwhite is definitely the best-looking text ever for any Kindle model (and the new Paperwhite supposedly enhances this even more). Compared to the Touch, yeah, I would say it’s a big improvement.
I have a Nook Wifi and a Nook HD+. I love having a library of 856 (so far) books in a convenient portable package. I think everyone should give some sort of ebook reader a try.
I have read this very website on my Kindle. (It’s pretty small, though, and I can’t make it bigger.)
I can make the type bigger on magazines. In some cases it makes the type bigger but the layout change to accommodate. Other times it’s more like a zoom.
In zoom mode I have to scroll around to see the whole page or the rest of the story. New Yorker is a zoom, Publisher’s Weekly just makes the type bigger unless it’s something in a box. Okay, it’s kind of annoying for the magazines.
I resent the extra charge for the Kindle 3g’s. As usual, the new paperwhite 3g is fifty bucks extra.
Book files are tiny. You can fit most on a floppy disk. Charging every customer fifty bucks to transfer books they bought from Amazon stings.
I have an old kindle, and I would have upgraded to the paperwhite in a second if they’d only put page turn buttons on it. What I don’t understand is - why wouldn’t they? It makes no sense.
So, you think you shouldn’t have to pay for the extra hardware and the continuing service? (Although Amazon reserves the right to shut off the 3G at any time, or charge for it, so I guess that isn’t really something you’re paying for.)
(And I do use the browser on my Kindle 3 or Kindle Keyboard or whatever they call it now. Not a lot because it mainly sucks as a browser, but for flipping through a few articles on a text-only news site, it’s not actually that bad. And if I’m away from my wifi, I can do that for free. Well, I paid $50 extra for it. But I’d have paid more than $50 for a full tablet (which I don’t need) and a data plan of my own by now.)