Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (16 GB) – Now with a larger display, adjustable warm light, increased battery life, and faster page turns – Agave Green

The battery life of the Kindle is incredible. I use it almost every day, and it lasts for weeks on a single charge. What makes this feature even better is how useful it is when I travel. As an international student, I often have long flights back and forth between my home country and school. With the Kindle, I can easily read for hours during a flight without worrying about my battery running out. For anyone who travels a lot, the Kindle is a must-have. It makes long-distance travel so much more enjoyable and hassle-free. The portability of the Kindle is a game-changer. As someone who travels constantly, packing physical books can be a huge headache. Instead of packing heavy and bulky books in my luggage, I can carry thousands of books in a lightweight device. This not only saves a lot of space in my luggage but also means I do not have to pay extra for overweight luggage when travelling. The Kindle is slim and portable, so it fits easily into most bags. One of the most helpful features of the Kindle is its built-in dictionary tool. What I love about this is that this eliminates the need to pull out my phone to look up the meanings of new words, which can be a distraction. On my phone, I would often get sidetracked by notifications, social media, or random apps. With the Kindle, the dictionary is right at my fingertips, and I can focus entirely on reading. The Kindle has made a big difference in my life as an international student. Its long battery life, portability, and dictionary features make it super practical for reading and travelling. If you are looking for an efficient way to manage your reading, I would highly recommend a Kindle.

So I came into possession of this little guy due to a late night Amazon impulse buy a few days before leaving for vacation. I was going on a weeklong trip with my family and didn't want to have to bring my ipad (what I usually use to read) or any actual books with me on the plane. Let me preface this by saying I am an avid reader, spending the majority of my free time reading...and have been for most of my life. My siblings lament to anyone listening about the horror of summer road trips, riding in the back of our family sedan, fighting for leg room because I always had at least 5-6 books at my feet to read during our travels. You should hear the way my sister grumbles at even the mere mention of a car ride with me (She horribly dramatic) but I digress. I also used to have a nook e-reader, an original model Kindle from way back in the day that no longer works, and have the kindle app on my ipad which I use to read most days. So I am familiar with e-reading. This kindle is quite possibly the best purchase I've ever made. It's basically pocket sized so it was extremely portable. I brought it with me everywhere; On the plane, in the car, in my bag to restaurants...I even managed to fit it in a particularly spacious pocket of an oversized jean jacket I wore on cooler nights. It's amazing. It was comfortable enough to hold in one hand, or two, depending on what I preferred at the time. The various light options on the kindle, including the warm light feature makes it easy to read regardless of where I was and what kind of lighting is available, without eye strain. I shared a room with family for a couple of nights and the dark mode feature barely emits light past my immediate person, so I was able to read into the wee hours of the morning if I wanted to without disturbing my family sleeping in the same room, or sacrificing my precious reading time. ( I get particularly sassy if I'm interrupted in the middle of a discovering a plot twist in a juicy novel, i'm just saying). You are able to customize lots of the settings, such as the fonts, size, spacing and layout, so that the books look however you want them to while reading. (I definitely used that feature to make the font smaller and more compact while I read an embarrassingly cringleworthy, but suprisingly emotional and fantastic, harlequin romance novel while on the plane. It's nobody's business why I was practically sobbing into my complimentary pretzels after the protagonists romantic interest declared his love to her for the first time, thank you very much) I also may, or may not have had a TINY accident in which I spilled my entire 32oz water bottle full of water all over my pants and my kindle. After squealing in alarm at how cold the water was, I was able to get my bearings, wiped the water off the kindle, changed my pants and continued reading. I have noted no damage whatsoever to my kindle and that was at the beginning of my trip well over a week ago now. After reading every day for at least 4-6 hours per day/night for 7 days straight I had 57% battery left over. I think the battery is supposed to last for 2 weeks maybe? IDK. Basically it lasted a long time, long enough for me to be impressed. Also, I downloaded at least 15 new books on there, not to mention the impressive collection of books I already owned and was able to sync to the device, and I still have over 4GB of space available to use. I have since named the kindle Kurt, as I feel emotionally connected to the device after our adventures together these past weeks. If you are a super bookworm like me, or are just trying to finish a whole book for the first time, I highly recommend this device for purchase. I think it was worth the money a thousand times over. And if after reading this you do decide to purchase it, I hope you love it just as much as I do.

As you probably know, the kindle paperwhite is black and white and is used as a dedicated e-reader for books and other reading material. This device acts like printed media rather than a tablet -- once your book is open there are no ads and no distractions, simply fast reading on a comfortable device.I've upgraded to several generations of kindle paperwhites over ten years. This review is for the 11th generation that came out in 2021. The idea of within a minute retrieving any book in my library or getting a brand new book is simply irresistible.The kindle paperwhite is a great e-reader. Note that it frequently goes on sale so try to time your purchase so you can save $$. These are the things I like about it:* PORTABLEThe kindle paperwhite is small and light and fits easily into my purse, even with a cover.By the way if you get a kindle definitely get a cover as well to protect it. As an added bonus, the cover makes the kindle feel like a slim book while you're reading. There are many attractive covers in addition to the official amazon ones.* WATERPROOFThe kindle paperwhite is waterproof. Indispensable for the pool or bathtub.* EASY ON THE EYESThe screen lighting of the kindle paperwhite is adjustable and reading is pleasant. I prefer to read with black background and white letters. (Settings > Accessibility > Invert Black and White). You can change the brightness by swiping down from the top and finding the "Brightness" setting. And don't forget you can change font and text size as well. When your book is open simply touch the top of the screen, select Aa > Font then adjust as you want.Print on the screen is quite clear both in bright sunlight and in a dark room. You can even make the lighting warmer (more yellow) for nighttime reading by swiping down from the top and finding the "Warmth" setting.* READ TO YOU EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE AUDIBLEThe text to speech (TTS) feature is my very favorite :-) I love having my kindle read to me so I can do other things like needlework or driving at the same time.TTS works even if you don't have audible books, alexa, or a phone app. Simply connect your bluetooth device to the kindle (Settings > Wi-Fi & Bluetooth > enable Bluetooth > select your device) then turn it on (Settings > Accessibility > VoiceView Screen Reader). You can adjust the volume and speech rate to your liking.* LONG BATTERY LIFEYes, the battery really lasts for days or weeks. Things like bright screen level, wifi on, and TTS may drain the battery at a faster rate. The kindle uses a C adapter.* PLENTY OF SPACE FOR ALL YOUR BOOKSThe standard kindle paperwhite has 8 GB storage which can store at least 2000 or 3000 ebooks or roughly 35 audible books. You can also get a kindle paperwhite with 16 GB or for even more space for audible books you can get a Signature paperwhite with 32 GB.______As I've gone through several generations of the kindle paperwhite I've noticed that while the physical device continues to get better, I don't like the software as much as previously. Here are three things in particular:* NO GAMESI really really miss the games. These were so fun to play for me and to entertain young ones. Please can we bring supportive software for games back?* KINDLE DEVICE HOME AND LIBRARY SCREENSI hate the Home screen because most of the screen is taken with book recommendations rather than your own library. The top ribbon shows the book covers in order of last opened. You can only see three and a half books so you'll be doing a lot of scrolling if you're looking for a book you read a while ago.The Library screen is a bit better because you can list your books by title or author (three lines at top right screen give you "Sort by" screen), but the listings still include book cover thumbnails that take up room. I admit I'm fussy but I like to have a compact list that I can scan quickly rather than needing to scroll through page after page and/or removing books from my device. (The books are still accessible in the cloud but will need to be reloaded if I want to read them again).* COLLECTIONS IN AMAZON CLOUDSince the beginning until now, Amazon cloud storage uses only one layer of folders. If you have, say, science fiction books and mysteries, you either jumble them together in "Fiction" or else you have to make two separate folders that don't link. Please, Amazon, fix this._____Overall while the kindle paperwhite isn't *perfect* it's pretty darn close and lovely to read for books with plain text and images/photographs. PDFs and more complex images like maps are difficult to see on the small screen and may do better with the Kindle Scribe which is larger. If you want a reader with color and web browser capabilities you may want to consider getting a kindle Fire rather than paperwhite.The kindle paperwhite is a great device for what it is meant to do -- read books -- and for that I will give five stars, although I am keeping my fingers crossed for software updates to make the experience even better.