Physical Page Buttons v. Backlight, a grudge match.

[belleweather]

My poor, beloved Kindle Keyboard just went to that great bookstore in the sky. This was not unexpected, considering it had been slowly failing for about a year, but now I need a new Kindle IMMEDIATELY, if not sooner and I'm still having a hard time deciding whether to buy the normal Kindle with the physical page-turning buttons, or the Paperwhite

Comments

[chibifukurou]

If you have a local Best Buy, you can go there and test out both versions in person.

With the page button kindle, the screen seems to be a little more fragile. I somehow managed to break it without dropping it, leaning on it, or anything.

My sister has the touch screen version and she hasn't had any problems with it breaking, but she has had an issue with putting it down or bumping against it, and causing it to turn pages/jump chapters without meaning to. Which can get pretty annoying.

I like the idea of the new paperwhite, but after reading the reviews and testing it out at Best Buy, I don't love this version of it enough to spend an extra $40 dollars on it.

And of course there is always the option of getting a new kindle keyboard from Amazon.

[belleweather]

Sadly, I live on an island in the caribbean and there's no best buy here and I won't be back in the US until summer. I don't think I can wait that long! ;)

The accidental page turning is totally a concern with the touch, now that you mention it. I'm also not particularly in love with the new file system on the paperwhite... it'd be great if I read a lot of e-books, but most of the stuff on my Kindle is fanfic. I'm leaning toward the e-Ink Kindle myself, as much as I want the lighted screen.

And as much as I loved my Kindle Keyboard when I got it, I wouldn't buy another one again. They're flimsy and the keyboard is a pain in the rear. Even the e-Ink is a trade up!

[mirrani]

Another thing with the touch... Because you've had a push button version... We have both at our house. I prefer the push button, my wife prefers the touch... because I am afraid of turning the pages on my kindle when I pick it up to move to another room, I tend to hold it so that my fingers are on the screen... Whenever I pick up my wife's kindle to move it, I do all kinds of things imaginable because I'm not thinking that I can hold the edge without causing it to turn pages or type. :)

[germankitty]

Agreed on the flimsiness of the KKeyboard -- I'm on my 3rd model, because I managed to break the screen twice after putting it into the seatback pouch on flights. Okay, so once I didn't put it into the sleeve and my knee was pressed inadvertently against the pouch, but the 2nd time it was IN the pretty solid, wallet-like leather sleeve, and it happened yet AGAIN! I was lucky both times that they were still under warranty and got replaced for free.

I gave my husband a paperwhite for Christmas, and he seems quite content. I do envy the backlight, because clipping on a reading light can be a pain, but as I absolutely detest touchscreens on principle (I even exchanged my tablet for a netbook), I'm not particularly tempted to switch models just yet.

[shadowc44]

I've had both versions of the Kindle, and I prefer the paperwhite. I think it's a little bit lighter and smaller for one thing, which is a plus for me. The screen has a different kind of coating on it, so you don't leave fingerprints when you turn the page.

I really like being able to adjust the light level, and it's perfectly possible to read it in bed with the lights off so as not to disturb anyone else.

But if you can go to a store, as was suggested above, and try both side by side, that will probably be a much better way to tell which one you'd prefer.

[belleweather]

I'd love to go to a store, but I live on a small island in the caribbean with no Best Buy, so I'm stuck making decisions from the internet and ordering online. :(

The things I'm a little wary about with the Paperwhite are the touch interface and the file system. I read mostly fanfic and other non-commercial stuff, so most of my books don't have covers, and I need to have them sorted into collections in order to find anything. It sounds like the new file system isn't set up for that as well as the old one was...?

[shadowc44]

You can still create collections with the Paperwhite, but maybe it's not quite the same as the earlier system. I think these are all still designed mainly for books, even though a lot of us use them for fanfic.

I hope you can gather some more opinions, to give you more information to base your decision on. Good luck!

[spatulistic]

I was/am in the same predicament as you. My kindle keyboard broke (which I loved) and I had to choose between the two. If the paperwhite had physical page turn buttons I would have been sold, but alas - it did not

[sineala]

I got a Paperwhite to replace my Kindle 2. I thought I would end up missing the page turn buttons, but it turns out I really, really didn't. The ability to tap for footnotes or dictionary definitions is worth it, especially if you're reading annotated nonfiction or a lot of foreign language material (so much easier! so much easier!), and I love the light. I really love the light. And the whole thing is smaller and lighter, which I promptly made up for by putting it in a big heavy Oberon Designs case. (I think I like my case as much as my Kindle.)

I also read a bunch of fanfic, and it handles that just fine -- you don't have to set it to display covers, you can have it be all text just like the previous Kindles. And it does support collections. The only difference between it and what I was used to is that collections on the home screen (the order they appear in) don't sort by most recent book, they sort alpha by collection name only, and there's no way to change it. But some people probably like this better.

[chaneen]

Regarding the file system: it is basically the same as the kindle keyboard. There is a 'list' view, so you don't have to see all the covers (or the standard cover a million times in the case of most fic), and you can still do collections. The only difference is that the collections are always sorted alphabetically on the home screen, rather than the most recently accessed one being at the top of your list

[belleweather]

That's good to know about 3G. I wasn't going to go for it anyway, since I'm abroad a lot for work and there's never a guarantee that it will work appropriately where I am, but that gives me extra reasons not to do it.

And it's good to hear from someone who got the Paperwhite and was happy with it. I reeeeeeally want the backlight a lot, so that gives me hope. :)

[chaneen]

Yeah, the backlight is really great, especially for reading in dim rooms (no more turning my bedside lamp on if I'm reading in my bedroom on a stormy day!), and I absolutely love the 'time to read' feature that tells you how many minutes are left in a book/chapter, based on prior reading speed. They're the two features that sold me on the paperwhite, tbh.

If it's really something you want, you can always do what I did and buy the paperwhite and try it out. If you hate it, you can return it to amazon (within ~30 days) and get the other version. I know they do free returns in the US, and I'm pretty sure they do that in other countries as well. I ended up loving mine and deciding to keep it, but I know they would've taken it back if I hadn't.