Bigger is better for almost everyone

In sixth grade, I got lunch detention in my Language Arts and Literature class — for reading. Sure, I wasn’t always the most well-behaved kid, but I still stand by the fact that Mr. Doe had it out for me. He was lecturing the class on Call of the Wild, and little did he know, I had already read everything Jack London ever penned back in my California Gold Rush phase. It was one thing to doze off and daydream in class, and it was apparently another to be absolutely locked into Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass on my Kindle Keyboard (AKA Kindle 3) under my desk in 2011, completely ignoring my teacher.

I couldn’t really say “I had other things to do,” when I was caught, but my beloved Kindle 3 was confiscated anyway, and I was summoned to lunch detention with the other kids who stuck gum under the desk or snapped back out of turn. Ironically, our sentence was to read the whole 40 minutes. The other kids groaned, and I confidently walked up to Mr. Doe’s desk and asked for my Kindle, so I could do my time.

Checkmate, Mr. Doe — now, I read and write for a living.

Well over a decade later, I’m sitting here with the brand new, 12th-generation Kindle Paperwhite — a far cry from the keyboard-laden stone tablet that I proudly read tens of thousands of pages on before I even touched a steering wheel. I’ve scoured digital pages on several other iterations of Kindles since then, but I made this upgrade from my trusty hand-me-down 7th-gen Kindle from 2014. Here’s what I think about Amazon’s brand-new e-reader.

Editor’s Choice

Kindle Paperwhite (2024)

$130 $160 Save $30

The newest generation of the Kindle Paperwhite comes in an ultra-thin design with a glare-free screen that’s larger than its predecessors. With up to 12 weeks of battery life, waterproof safety, and free cloud storage, this e-reader can go wherever you do and take your whole library there as well.

Pros

• Impressive click response and page turning
• Very large and clear screen
• Enjoyable to read in every kind of light, especially outside
• Waterproof

Cons

• A bit wide for small hands

Price, specs, and availability

The Kindle Paperwhite (2024) is the 12th generation e-reader from Amazon, starting at $160 for the base model, which comes in three colors: Black, Jade, and Raspberry. It features an ultra-thin design at 5 x 7 x 0.3-inch (127.6 x 176.7 x 7.8mm) and weighs in at 7.4oz (211g). The seven-inch glare-free screen has Amazon’s Paperwhite display technology with built-in light, 300 ppi, and optimized font technology, all at a 16-level grayscale. Arriving in a thin and unassuming box, it comes with a USB-C cord for charging — with which a single charge can provide up to 12 weeks (based on a half-hour per day) of reading power. The only bits of hardware you can interact with are the simple power button and USB-C charging port, which sit side-by-side on the bottom edge.

Storage-wise, the Kindle comes with 16GB of local storage (which can house thousands of books) and unlimited free cloud storage for all Amazon content. It’s fully wireless and doesn’t need a cord or adapter to download content — you simply connect it to your Amazon account and go from there. A single year of warranty and service is included, with the choice of opting into other extended warranty options.

The Kindle Paperwhite (2024) costs $160 on Amazon, Best Buy, and at other major retailers, like Target. A Signature Edition costs $200 and comes with double the storage, 32GB, wireless charging, and auto-brightness support.

What I liked about the Kindle Paperwhite (2024)

Kindle, you will always be famous in my book