Truth be told, I’m more of a magazine person than a book person, as you may have already realised if you’re reading this piece offline. But having read my fair share of books over the years, I can safely say that they aren’t the easiest to devour when you’re sharing the bed with someone and it’s time to put the lights out. The Amazon Kindle may be the OG alternative to good old paperback books and the new-for-2023 10th generation version gets the closest to being a digital facsimile of the printed word.
Design
Starting with its compact dimensions that easily fit into your back pocket, the 6in e-Ink display is now powered with only 4 LEDs but it’s so evenly balanced, that you’d never know. A single power on/off button at the bottom is all you get in terms of physical controls but the big change here is the shift to a USB-C charging port. Obviously, no adapter, but Amazon does bundle in a type-C cable in the slim package.
There is also no speaker grille and hence you won’t be able to learn the pronunciation of the words you look up in the dictionary. But the Kindle does support Bluetooth audio devices so its support for audiobooks can be exploited nevertheless. Storage is capped at 16GB which is good enough for thousands of titles, slightly less so if you’re more into audiobooks than self read books. Mind you, the actual storage space available will be around 13GB, but that’s still enough words for a lifetime.
Performance
If you’re coming off the back of a tablet, sure, you’ll find the typing experience laggy and the black and white depiction of graphic novels more than lackluster, but the Kindle is designed for voracious readers. Not dabblers. And its 300ppi screen is brilliant at emulating the feel and look of actual paper. Never hurting the eye like backlit displays and always encouraging you to pick up where you left off by displaying the cover of the last read book, even while in Sleep mode.
Font size, brightness and boldness can be manipulated to suit your style and based on your settings, you may have to tap more often for page flips. There is no Night Mode like on the more expensive models to change the colour temperature but you can choose Dark mode to invert text colour and make it even easier to read in those late-night-like conditions.
The front-lit e-Ink display is the best in the business but the way the pixels refresh every time you turn a page is decidedly 1990s. It doesn’t take long to acclimatise though, but it’s worth considering that the Kindle is for readers with real intent only.
Battery life is claimed to be a massive “up to six weeks”, which of course differs for every use case, including brightness setting, font size (larger the font, more times you turn the page, refreshing the display), Bluetooth and number of hours you use it per day. In my mixed cycle of reading which was about 45 minutes to an hour every day, I never charged it during the entire duration of this review! So even for the most prolific bookworm, the Kindle should serve well on a week long trip without any battery anxiety.
WhisperSync works well at keeping all your books in sync, whether on the Kindle itself or the Kindle app on other devices and tablets. Kindle Unlimited opens up a library of millions of books but is a paid membership whereas your existime Prime membership will let you access bestsellers and classics. Free samples are available for most titles so you can even browse a few pages before you invest.
Conclusion
Not splash proof
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The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, despite the fancy name, is a simple device. It's exactly the same as the new, fifth-generation Kindle Paperwhite, but it costs $50 more and has four upgrades: 32GB of memory (up from 8GB), wireless charging, an automatically adjusting front light, and no ads.
Since we already established that the standard Paperwhite is a great e-reader, the focus of this review is simple: To figure out whether these four improvements are worth the extra money.
A thoroughly great e-reader
My colleague Alex Perry reviewed the regular fifth-gen Paperwhite, but here are my basic impressions (coming from someone whose primary e-reader before now was a second-gen Paperwhite).
The new Paperwhite is just the right size and sat perfectly in my hand. It's also beach ready, with an IPX8 rating, which is a big deal to me, especially when compared to my iPad mini, which officially isn't water resistant at all.
The USB-C charging port on the bottom was a much-needed upgrade from the microUSB port on previous Paperwhites. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
I have only one beef with the device's design, and that's the fact that Amazon moved the power button to the bottom from the top, which took some getting used to. (It's worth noting that this change happened on a previous iteration of the Paperwhite.)
The new Paperwhite is a lot faster than my old model, but it could be faster still, especially when browsing through menus. The battery lasts forever, and having a USB-C port instead of the old microUSB connector is a blessing.
So, what do you get for that extra $50?
Compared to my ancient, 3rd generation Paperwhite, the new one is shaped a bit more like a typical book, which isn't a bad thing. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
One thing you won't get on this Kindle is ads. Compared to ads on certain other devices, advertisements on the Kindle aren't nearly as intrusive, but I still prefer zero ads on something I paid for. You can remove the ads from the base model Kindle for an extra $20, but then the price difference between the two is a mere $30, which means you should really look at the other extras you get with the Signature Edition.
You know what they say about memory: More is always better. That said, unless you're a voracious reader, or you constantly send a bunch of periodicals to your Kindle, you won't need more than 8GB. The Kindle Paperwhite SE has 32GB, which is overkill, but it is comforting to know you'll never have to worry about storage.
Whether wireless charging will be worth it for you depends entirely on whether you normally use it in other scenarios. All Kindles have great battery life, so you won't be charging them very often. I do have wireless chargers in my car and scattered all around the house, so the ability to just toss the Kindle onto them and have it charge is a nice, if marginal, improvement.
The MagSafe isn't the best way to charge your Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, but it works! Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
Fun fact: I tried to charge the Kindle Paperwhite SE using Apple's MagSafe magnetic charger for the iPhone, and not only does it work, but the charger sticks (though just barely) to the Kindle like it does to the iPhone. Pretty great.
The display, automated
The last big improvement on the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is the display.
The 6.8-inch, 300ppi display is sharp, crisp, beautiful to look at, and won't tire your eyes even after long reading sessions. The bezels on the sides and top of device are far smaller than on the previous iteration, but there's still enough room to rest your fingers without accidentally flipping the page.
The display now makes brightness adjustments on its own. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
Now for the big difference between the regular and the SE version of the Paperwhite: Automatically adjusting front light. The best way to explain the importance of this feature is to think of smartphones: Literally every single modern smartphone has this feature. You don't think about it much, but if someone took the feature away, you'd definitely notice.
It's similar on the Paperwhite. The display automatically sets brightness depending on the amount of light in your environment. I like reading in very dim light, and the Kindle set the screen's brightness pretty much as I would do. The device supports dark mode (bright text on dark background), and if I switched to that, it readjusted the brightness accordingly. I love the feature and though I could live without it, I'd be slightly annoyed about having to adjust brightness manually again.
Upgrades on the cheap
This may be because I'm fresh off reviewing some Apple devices – Apple charges an arm and a leg for upgrades and extra features – but I feel like the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is worth it.
For $50, you get no ads (a $20 value), wireless charging, 32GB, and an improved display. None of it is essential, but it does feel like you're getting a decent value for your money.
In testing the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, we considered the following factors:
- Display: The display is sharp and crisp and features an auto-adjusting front light.
- Memory: The Paperwhite Signature Edition has 32GB of storage compared to the standard Kindle Paperwhite's 8B or 16GB.
- Upgrade value: Head to head with the regular Kindle Paperwhite, the Signature Edition has 32GB of memory (up from 8GB), wireless charging, an automatically adjusting front light, and no ads for an additional $50.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
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