Amazon almost perfects the e-Ink e-reader with the Kindle Paperwhite



When Amazon.com introduced its first Kindle e-reader, it was far from elegant. The original Kindle was bulky, with a shape like a paperback book with its cover folded back on itself. Its e-Ink display grainy and slow to refresh. It was also fairly expensive.

Over time, Amazon has refined its e-Ink Kindles. They’ve gotten smaller, lighter, with better displays and lower price tags. But the Kindle has always felt to me as though it was an incomplete product. Something was missing.

It turns out, that something was light. The e-Ink display, like paper, is illuminated by the light around you. That makes it more comfortable to read than a backlit LCD or LED tablet, except in situations where there isn’t much light.

On Tuesday Monday, Amazon will ship the Kindle Paperwhite, a new e-Ink Kindle that has its own light source. Like the Barnes & Noble Nook SimpleTouch with GlowLight, it has a soft, white light that spreads across the screen. This makes the display look even more like real paper.

The Kindle Paperwhite is small, at 6.7-by-4.6 inches, with a six-inch display. My initial reaction was that it would be too small for reading, and that frequent page turns a small screen requires would be annoying. But the Paperwhite uses a touchscreen that allows you to turn pages merely by tapping lightly, so it’s no big deal to go to the next page. The e-Ink page turns are much faster than on the previous Kindle model, though the familiar, flashing black-to-white effect is still present.
 source from: When Amazon.com introduced its first Kindle e-reader, it was far from elegant. The original Kindle was bulky, with a shape like a paperback book with its cover folded back on itself. Its e-Ink display grainy and slow to refresh. It was also fairly expensive.

Over time, Amazon has refined its e-Ink Kindles. They’ve gotten smaller, lighter, with better displays and lower price tags. But the Kindle has always felt to me as though it was an incomplete product. Something was missing.

It turns out, that something was light. The e-Ink display, like paper, is illuminated by the light around you. That makes it more comfortable to read than a backlit LCD or LED tablet, except in situations where there isn’t much light.

On Tuesday Monday, Amazon will ship the Kindle Paperwhite, a new e-Ink Kindle that has its own light source. Like the Barnes & Noble Nook SimpleTouch with GlowLight, it has a soft, white light that spreads across the screen. This makes the display look even more like real paper.

The Kindle Paperwhite is small, at 6.7-by-4.6 inches, with a six-inch display. My initial reaction was that it would be too small for reading, and that frequent page turns a small screen requires would be annoying. But the Paperwhite uses a touchscreen that allows you to turn pages merely by tapping lightly, so it’s no big deal to go to the next page. The e-Ink page turns are much faster than on the previous Kindle model, though the familiar, flashing black-to-white effect is still present. Read More

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

0 comments:

Post a Comment