Kindle Paperwhite for Dummies (8 page)

Off:
To turn off the Kindle Paperwhite, press and hold down the power button for 5–7 seconds, until the charge indicator light (located next to the power button) blinks and the screen goes blank.

The only time you
must
turn off your Kindle Paperwhite is when you’re on a plane during takeoff and landing and anytime the plane is flying at less than 10,000 feet.

You can easily tell the difference between sleep and off modes by the presence (or absence) of a screensaver. A Kindle Paperwhite that is asleep has something displayed on the screen. When turned off, the screen is blank.

The Kindle Paperwhite uses its battery power only for page turns, so there’s no difference in battery usage between putting the device in sleep mode and turning it off. In general, it’s best to simply put the device in sleep mode instead of turning it off. (The device goes into sleep mode automatically after ten minutes of inactivity.)

If you want to turn off your Kindle Paperwhite while reading a book, do so from the Home screen. Otherwise, the device may lose your place. This problem doesn’t occur when you use sleep mode, which is another reason why this mode is preferred over completely turning off your Kindle Paperwhite.

Charging Your Device

On the bottom of the Kindle Paperwhite is a micro-USB port for the charging cable (refer to Figure 2-1). The cable has a micro-USB plug on one end and a standard USB plug on the other. Insert the micro-USB plug into the Kindle and the standard USB plug into your computer or into a plug adapter, which is then plugged into an electrical wall socket.

The Kindle Paperwhite doesn’t ship with a plug adapter. If you want to use a plug adapter, you must purchase one or use a compatible plug adapter, such as the one that comes with the Kindle 2, Kindle Keyboard, or iPhone. In addition, the charger that comes with the Kindle Fire also works with the Kindle Paperwhite.

When the Kindle Paperwhite is plugged into a power source and charging, the charge indicator light (located next to the power button) glows amber. When the device is fully charged, the light turns green.

The first time you charge your Kindle Paperwhite, the process will take about four hours. After that, charging through the USB cable and a computer takes about three hours and charging through the plug adapter takes one to two hours.

The battery charge meter is in the upper-right corner of the Home screen. We recommend recharging the battery when it has about a quarter of a charge remaining. You don’t need to top off the battery on a daily or weekly basis.

You can read and use your Kindle Paperwhite while it charges. When the Kindle Paperwhite is plugged into an electrical socket, the display doesn’t change and you can keep reading. However, when the device is plugged into the USB port on a computer, you see the following message:

If you want to read or shop on your Kindle while continuing to charge over USB, please keep the USB cable attached, but eject your Kindle from your computer.

If you want to read on your Kindle Paperwhite while it’s connected to your computer, leave it physically connected (or plugged in) to the USB port but “eject” the device through the operating system. To “eject” your Kindle Paperwhite:

In Windows 8:
When you connect the Kindle Paperwhite to your computer, a menu showing the Paperwhite as an external drive appears. Right-click the Paperwhite drive icon and choose Eject from the menu that appears. A notification that it is safe to remove the Paperwhite from the computer appears on your computer screen; ignore this message. Your Kindle Paperwhite will blink and display the last screen viewed.

In Windows 7, Vista, and XP:
Either left- or right-click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the lower-right corner of the taskbar and choose Eject Amazon Kindle. The screen blinks and returns to whatever was open previously.

In Mac OS X:
Press
-E. You can also drag the Kindle icon from the desktop to the trash can, or choose File⇒Eject.

Updating Firmware

At the core of your Kindle Paperwhite is a small computer, complete with hardware, software, and a built-in network platform. The software that runs the Kindle Paperwhite is its firmware.
Firmware
is the core that controls how the device works — everything the Kindle Paperwhite does is controlled by the firmware.

Amazon periodically updates the firmware for the device. Generally, firmware updates fix minor bugs and glitches that may not be apparent to the casual user. However, occasionally a major upgrade or new feature is added. For example, with firmware update 2.5, Amazon added the capability to sort e-books into collections, a feature that had been repeatedly requested by users.