I have owned the original Paperwhite since it came out, and I love it - can't recommend it highly enough. The frontlighting is wonderful.

However, I really wish that this newer one had physical buttons on the side for turning the pages, like some of the other Kindle models. I find the touchscreen rather irritating when reading. It's much easier to have buttons on the side that you can press without moving your hand/finger.

If they had included this, I would easily have laid down $120 for an upgrade immediately.

Amazing to see this reach #4 rank. Good luck with the affiliate profit.

How is this different from the last Paperwhite model? I see "improved screen" and "faster processor". It seems like there's also some new software features, but that's just software. Is that all that's new?

I just got a paperwhite a month ago as a present, having owned the last pre-paperwhite model - it's fabulous. This "All New" model seems to be... almost exactly the same?

Anyone know how software updates tend to apply to older kindles? as a lot of the "Features" seem to be minor software tweaks....

Got a DX size? Nope? Not interested.

Seriously. It's 2013. Make something that feels and has the space of a full-sized book. It's not that hard. Hell, use it as a loss-leader if you can't make the numbers work.

Non-affiliate link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AWH595M/

I would have wished for more details - or rather, more features. When they talk about a better light, this is hopefully a more even light across the surface. For the "old" Paperwhite, the LEDs at the screen's bottom had a visible "aura" (no pun intended). The first production series were notorious for their color-shaded light (rather than being pure white). There seems to be room for improvement.

A 25% faster CPU is probably fine, however: what this device needs is a tad bit more RAM.

Otherwise, this doesn't make a great improvement. What that "better contrast" means remains to be seen.

As a Kindle hacker, I'm interested in what they did with the bootloader part. The Paperwhite is the first device since the Kindle DX(G) that cannot be put into "USB downloader" mode where you can re-flash the software. Given that even the original software is buggy and prone to get corrupted, that seems to be quite bad design - they can't easily refurbish units. Maybe today's pricing margins don't allow this anyway, though.

As for competing with the Kobo flagships, this is not an impressive new device.

Showstoppers:

- Only 1.25GB of storage for books. I have many more than this on my K3.

- As others have observed, the lack of mechanical buttons for page flipping.

Oh well. I'll just keep replacing batteries on my K3s as long as I can.

I'll be testing this out tomorrow... but personally, I'm holding out for a larger device with higher resolution. The Kobo Aura HD is calling my name, actually.

A referral link, interesting.

For those that have the original, does it have a black background option? I find that in the dark the white screen hurts to read after a while (iPad Mini) so I switch between dark and light for night/dim and day outside.

The hardware upgrade doesn't look that impressive - I'm happy with the current papewhite. The pageflip UI looks like it could be useful, as that's one of the few UI complaints I have with the kindle.

Personally I find the FreeTime feature to be the most interesting, or maybe amusing. They're gamifying reading, but I suppose parents were doing that already (read X books, get Y).

Now if only they'd fix hyphenation and justification, or make it easy to enable ragged right text I'd be happy. Currently I have to reformat everything in calibre before I read it.

Does anyone know how good the Kindle translation dictionaries are (e.g. Spanish-English, French-English, etc, dictionaries that you can bring up by selecting a word)?

Sony apparently has the reputation for having the best dictionaries, but the PRS-T1 I bought is so buggy it's nearly unusable - if I press a word, it has a one-in-three chance of freezing up for several minutes, and updating the firmware didn't help - so I'm thinking of switching to Kobo or Kindle, but I don't know if they're any better.

Hmm, do you think the new pricing of the Kindle DX on this page is just a typo ($139 as of visiting)? http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000739811

If Amazon lowered it to that over the next few days, I would actually consider purchasing the (3+ year-old) DX.

The actual product page still says $239.

Do any HNers have recommendations for large eInk readers suitable for viewing pdfs/textbooks? I mostly read textbooks these days.

Give me the last non-touch-screen model with the Paperwhite backlight and the page turn buttons on the sides, and I'll be in heaven.

Will be interesting to see if they've fixed the "uneven backlighting at the bottom" problem on this model. I was very disappointed when I first got my Paperwhite, after all the hyping they did about working to make the backlight even.

I see this product having multiple life cycles. In about five years it can easily be re-branded into the Paperweight.

Why don't they make the 'Papergold' or 'Paperpale?'

An e-ink reader is supposed to be easy on your eyes, yet a stark white background honestly creates just as much stress as reading against a screen. And High-Contrast mode is even worse for most people.

I was counting for epub support... kobo aura it is then.

kindles are extremely fragile devices. I broke my first one when it fell down from couple of inches. second time when I kept in car boot well packed inside padded laptop bag in its own cover.

I not buying another one. whole point of having light ereader is to use it lightly, without cover.

It looks like you can't buy an ad-free version anymore :(