Kindle Paperwhite for Dummies (4 page)

If you anticipate needing to use only wireless — at home or connected to another Wi-Fi network — the Wi-Fi –only Kindle Paperwhite is a good choice. On the other hand, if you don’t have access to Wi-Fi, you travel regularly, or you just love the magic of being able to download an e-book in less than a minute, anywhere, any time, you may prefer the Kindle Paperwhite 3G.

Special offers and sponsored screensavers

In 2011, Amazon came out with a new option: special offers and sponsored screensavers — in other words, advertising on Kindle e-readers. In exchange for this, Amazon discounted the price of the device — at present, a $20 discount on the price of the Kindle Paperwhite. On online forums, users’ reactions to this change have been mixed, but mostly positive. Those who are opposed don’t like having advertising on their Kindle Paperwhite, period. On the other hand, many appreciate the discounts and special offers on Kindle e-books and accessories, as well as on other products, such as clothing and electronics sold through Amazon. The special offers appear as screensavers and on a small bar at the bottom of the Home screen. No advertising occurs in content on the Kindle Paperwhite.

If you choose a Kindle Paperwhite with special offers and decide you don’t like them, you can unsubscribe for $20 — the difference in the price that you paid originally. Go to the Manage Your Kindle page for your Amazon account (
www.amazon.com/myk
), choose Manage Your Devices, and click Edit in the Special Offers column to unsubscribe. You may resubscribe later at no additional cost if you want, but you will not receive a refund.

The $20 charge does not include sales tax (for those states that tax Amazon purchases).

If you choose a device that includes special offers, the screensaver changes regularly. Some people, even if they don’t take advantage of the discounts, like the variety of pictures. Traditional Kindle Paperwhite screensavers — that is, with no special offers — display a variety of graphics related to printing, publishing, and writing, such as pen nibs and blocks of type.

The Paperwhite Screen

Weighing 7.5 or 7.8 ounces (the 3G model is a tiny bit heavier), with a 6-inch-high display, the Kindle Paperwhite provides 2GB of e-book storage (and free Cloud storage for all Amazon content), enough to store approximately 1,100 e-books and other content. With minimal use of wireless and a half-hour of daily reading, the battery charge can last up to two months.

Touchscreen technology

The Kindle became a touchscreen device with the introduction of the Kindle Touch in 2011. That technology has been further developed and refined in the Kindle Paperwhite.

The screen on the device uses capacitive technology, which means that very light touches with your finger — or a capacitive stylus — will cause changes on the screen.

Note that you must use a bare finger or a stylus to use the touchscreen.

The Kindle screen is delicate. Placing heavy objects on top of your Kindle, especially those with sharp edges, can damage the screen. Dropping your Kindle can also break the screen. To protect their investment, many people use covers and screen protectors on their device. (See Chapter 8 for more about covers and other accessories.)

Let your light shine

The Kindle Paperwhite builds on the best of the past and adds a number of new innovations. The improvement that is generating the most buzz is its built-in light.

Until now, readers have had to use an external light source — the sun, a lamp, or a portable reading light. On a Kindle Paperwhite, however, the light is sandwiched between the layers of the screen and shines toward the surface of the e-ink display. As a result, the light does not shine in your eyes as it does with a backlit device, such as a tablet or a smartphone. The result? Less eyestrain for you and an overall even distribution of light on the screen. The screen and light make reading in any lighting condition a pleasure.

You can adjust the light for different lighting conditions by using the Light icon on the toolbar. For details, see Chapter 3.

Figure 1-1 illustrates the components that make up the light, touchscreen, and display. When describing the screen, users note that it seems very white, almost like paper, and the letters look like they’re floating on the display. The contrast of the fonts against the display is darker, too, resulting in a superior reading experience.

The e-ink screen

The Kindle was one of the first widely available commercial e-readers to use e-ink in its screen display. E-ink is fundamentally different from an LCD screen, such as laptop, smartphone, and computer screens.

Figure 1-1:
The light technology of the Kindle Paperwhite.

With e-ink, thousands of microcapsules of ink are held between two layers of polymer. Reversing the electronic charge changes the capsules from positive to negative, which changes the color from light to dark and, ultimately, results in the display on the screen.