O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Chat > Kindle Paperwhite finally launching in Canada

reply to Guspaz

Re: Kindle Paperwhite finally launching in Canada

Just say it you'll feel better. There's lots of swearing here.

reply to Guspaz

I guess I lucked out. I had mine delivered at my office.

reply to Wolfie00

reply to Wolfie00

The general rule is that for any ebook to be successful, it HAS to be made available in both the ePub and Kindle formats. This includes books in the public domain, and books made available under "questionable" circumstances via BitTorrent.

And yes, the new Kindles do show recommendations on the home page. However, they don't necessarily recommend that you get them from Amazon itself.
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reply to MichelR

reply to Guspaz

Kindle Keyboard

Kindle Paperwhite

Thanks for that careful comparison. I would assume, though, from your description, that the Kindle Keyboard (which I would also assume is the same technology as other Kindles of that generation) is dimmer and has less contrast than the Paperwhite? Isn't that the whole point of Paperwhite?

I think many of us would be very interested in your subjective impressions after you've used it for a day or so. Thanks again.

reply to Guspaz
It'll be a while before I use the Paperwhite for actual reading, I'm still going through Fringe :P

It's really hard to compare. The blacks on the paperwhite seem less dark, and whites are brighter, but both of those are because of the frontlight. The screen is a bit sharper, but the text seems less perfect, as if the original Kindle font was designed with pixel accuracy and the current font (which is more or less the same font) isn't. The Paperwhite seems to suffer ghosting more, but I think that's a combination of this screen being very new (the prominence of ghosting seems to have reduced as I've played with it a bit), and the frontlight makes it easier to see the ghosting. The new screen does seem decently sharper, but it's not an enormous difference.

The frontlight itself is pretty amazing. e-ink always amazed me before, but this is just weird. I had the light-on-a-stick official case for my Kindle Keyboard, and the Paperwhite is enormously brighter and pretty much perfectly even, a veeery different experience from the Keyboard.

I kind of miss the physical buttons, and there seems to be more lag on the Paperwhite to turn pages when you tell it to refresh on every pageturn (like the Keyboard does). Not that the page turn itself takes any longer, but that the delay after hitting the button or tapping the screen is longer on the paperwhite. But if you don't have the refresh option, there is less lag. Not sure why, since the extra time is spent before it updates the screen.

Full brightness is too bright for indoors-at-night brightness levels. 50% (12) seems to be decent. The lowest setting at first glance might seem like it's off, but at second glance you can tell it's just that the light is on very low.

I can see the capacitive touchscreen grid on top of the screen at higher brightness levels, something you obviously won't see on the Keyboard. Then again, you can also see the touch grid on an iPhone or iPad under bright lighting.

The screen texture (feel) on the Paperwhite is different than the Keyboard. The Paperwhite is rougher. Probably to reduce fingerprints.

The default view for seeing your books is cover view. This is a dumb view because only 3 books fit on the screen at a time; a bunch of space is taken up by advertisements for "Kindle Singles". You can turn it off, but it's not immediately obvious how. You have to go into the settings, then "Personalize Your Kindle", and then turn off "Recommended Content". Then you can see 6 books on the home screen. There is also a list view (like the Keyboard) that doesn't show the advertisements either way.

Navigating around the Kindle is much faster with the touchscreen (the d-pad on the Kindle Keyboard is horrible), but turning pages isn't as good.

The new OS makes it much easier to differentiate between your cloud and on-device content. On the Keyboard I think I had to use the Kindle website to control what got downloaded, on the Paperwhite there's a "Cloud|Device" switch on the home screen to differentiate and tapping a book on the cloud causes it to download. In this regard I see how the 3G version might have had more value here than the Keyboard, since the Keyboard didn't integrate well with the cloud like the Paperwhite does. Kind of feeling a bit of regret there!

Then again, the 3G killed the battery life in the Keyboard.

Just like the Kindle Keyboard, you still can't change the screensaver image without jailbreaking. Dumb.

EDIT: Just remembered I bought the official case to go with the Paperwhite. It's nice. Half the thickness of the Keyboard's lighted case, much less tall (due to the lack of a keyboard), and even a bit less wide too. Much lighter (the kindle in the case). Supports an iPad-style magnetic unlock (open case cover, kindle wakes up). Way more comfortable to read with the case on due to being so much lighter. We'll have to see if the case works for my primary reading position with the Kindle; lying in bed on my side with the Kindle's case cover holding the thing up next to me.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

Paperwhite looks nice, but not enough to make me give up my Kindle Keyboard with lighted cover.

Also I paid $189 for my KK 3G+Wifi in 2011. The new Paperwhite 3G equivalent is $199.
Storage size is cut in half
Lose physical page-turn buttons on the sides (a fav of mine - don't really care about losing keyboard, but I like physical page turns)
Lose all audio support. No more text to speech, no more headphone output, no more internal speakers, no more audiobooks.
No web-browsing over the built-in 3G. Strictly for purchasing books from the Kindle store.

What new features do you get?
A touch-screen
A built-in front light display
A new Kindle interface
Couple features like "X-Ray" and "Time to Read"

Just not enough to sell me on "upgrading" from my current Kindle.
The only thing I am jealous about is the new cases and the weight.
The KK with lighted cover is a lot heavier then the new design.
The new PW case with the magnet unlock looks really nice and lightweight.

reply to Guspaz
Thanks for the in depth comparison.
I think the screen roughness is there for a couple reasons, to minimize fingerprints, to reduce glare from overhead light sources and also to appeal to the paper types that like the feel of paper. Comparing the feel of the screen between my Touch and Mini, the Mini feels much closer to paper, and reflects less glare.

I don't see the PW as being wavy, perhaps is because it has less grey (the keyboard version appears to be using shading to beef up the weight of the font). Can you tune the font at all (weight or sharpness)? I find that Kobo's font sizes have to wide a range, and as you scale down to smaller font's the stepping between sizes is too much at times with certain fonts. I would have liked less range in overall scale but greater precision over the font size selected. I think Amazon does a better job with their firmware (design & testing), Kobo tends to add bugs with every release and the gaps between releases can be months. I admit that I was very frustrated with the buggy firmware when I got my touch back in the summer (this was also six months after they launched it).

reply to Guspaz
If anyone is interested in seeing the various different readers side by side, The Source has the Paperwhite in stock now. I might drop by later and have a look. The price drop on the earlier model with the physical buttons is also attractive, as I quite like that side button for page turning.

EDIT: Never mind. See my followup post:
»Re: Kindle Paperwhite finally launching in Canada

reply to Guspaz
Kindles give you a bunch of text-related options. Font-specific include selecting between a few different fonts, as well as the font size. For the default font, there is also a narrow version of it as one of the options.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

reply to Wolfie00
The side buttons are terrific. You can read your Kindle with one hand, and hold your morning coffee in the other. I'm disappointed Amazon doesn't make this standard on all Kindles.

A competitor could gain an edge by making a book reader that works perfectly with one hand.
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Watch my future television channel's public test broadcast!
»thecanadianpublic.com/live

I'm also a little suspicious about a touchscreen for page turning because Book Reader on the Playbook in a bit weird sometimes. If you have it set to page forward or back based on tapping at the margin, it can miss the tap if it's not in the right place, and if you have it set to full-page mode (left-half and right-half are activated) it can get confused between page-forward and page-back for some reason. Relatively minor issues, but I've read that the Kindle touchscreen can be a bit temperamental sometimes, too, and it's put me off touchscreens for pagination. A big physical button on the right-hand edge for page-forward and a smaller one for page-back seems a more solid way to do it, IMHO. A touchscreen would be more natural than the silly D-pad for navigation, but since you spend most of your time reading and page-turning, it seems more important to get that exactly right.

reply to Guspaz
So I've been doing a bunch of reading the past two days on it. You can still turn pages single-handed, but page turning is indeed not as good with the touchscreen. It's not a big deal, but I'd still prefer the buttons.

The time remaining in chapter feature is very nice, especially when you're reading on your lunch break, and can say "10 minutes left in the chapter, 11 minutes left in lunch, I'm good."

The screen still seems magical to me.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

So now I have a dilemma. Went down to The Source and they had the Paperwhite in stock but not on display, but I liked the old Kindle with the buttons so much that I would have bought it on the spot except for one thing -- it's the stupid ad-infested one that they are selling for $89.99, and don't have the normal one at all. I actually had the guy bring out the box and sure enough it's right there, "with special offers". Which was yet another reminder why The Source is a lousy place to buy anything.

Amazon is selling it for $89.00 with no mention of ads. However in the US, the ad-infested one is $69 and the normal one $89, but all the others run consistently $20 less than in Canada. So is Amazon's $89 model the $69 US model and infested with ads? I have no idea. The US website makes it clear which one you are buying, but in Canada there is only the one model. If there's any way to get in touch with them I'm going to have to drop them a line, unless someone knows the answer for sure.

EDIT: Sent an email to Customer Service
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"The promoters of the global economy see nothing odd or difficult about unlimited economic growth or unlimited consumption in a limited world."
-- Wendell Berry

reply to Guspaz
Why not buy it directly from Amazon?