Yay for Kindle Paperwhite's new Page Flip feature!

Please note: This post is on the original Page Flip feature which was only available on some Kindles, not the enhanced all-apps and Kindles feature from 2016. For a review of the newer features, see this post from The Digital Reader.

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I own (and love) a Kindle first gen Paperwhite.  One of the things I lost switching from the Kindle Touch to the Paperwhite was the text-to-speech feature. I didn't like giving up TTS, but I knew about that ahead of time, so I was okay with it.

One thing I was not okay with was the original Paperwhite software did not support the next chapter/previous chapter function. The Touch had it; even the Kindle Keyboard (aka the Kindle 3) had it. The K3 used left and right arrow keys to move to the next or previous chapter, and the Touch used an up and down page swipe. When I got the Paperwhite, I was dismayed to find that up and down page swipes had no effect at all.

The Go To menu on the Paperwhite has a list of chapters, but it was annoying to have to invoke that menu when I used to just flip chapters with page swipes.  I had heard the new (2nd gen) Paperwhite had a feature called Page Flip, but I had never seen it.

The other day I started re-reading an old Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile, featuring Hercule Poirot. It was the first Hercule Poirot I read on the Kindle, and one thing that used to annoy me is Christie would have Poirot sling out not only exclamations but whole sentences in French. The Paperwhite will translate highlighted text, but you have to have the wireless on, or (to put it in new Kindle-speak) you have to turn airplane mode off. Usually, I turn the wireless connection on only when I am downloading a book, but because of  Hercule Poirot, I left it on for a couple of days, most of which was spent within range of my home wifi (my Kindles always have 3G, too).

Consequently, my Kindle got the new Paperwhite update! It now has several new features, most importantly, Page Flip. The (slightly fuzz) screenshot above shows what it looks like. It's even more like browsing a print book than the old function was. You invoke it with an upward swipe and it opens a secondary window on the screen.  Within that window you can jump forward and backward chapters or pages and then either go to the new location or return to where you where. It is totally cool!

Merci, Monsieur Poirot!

Kindle finally has web-based collections!

Something interesting has happened. The Kindle currently lets you create "collections" (i.e., you can label your books and see all the books with a given label) but the set of collections you create is specific to that single device. Ergo, if own a Kindle and create collections on it, and then you buy a new Kindle, you have to import all the books you want to appear in collections onto the new Kindle and then import the collections from the first Kindle. This will label all the books currently on that Kindle. But if, after you import the collections, you later send one of your older books to your newer Kindle, it will not arrive with the collection label it had on the first Kindle.  This was tedious!

However, Amazon has announced that you store collections in your Cloud Reader, too, and the Cloud collections can be imported to any Kindle.

The Cloud reader is really just a browser-based app that lets you read all your Kindle books from a PC, but since all your Kindle books (or possibly all your Kindle books from a specific date; I am not certain) go into your cloud reader, it should mean you can label the books once then import them to how every many Kindles you have.

I am very hopeful this will be as handy as it sounds! I had not yet created any collections on my Paperwhite so now I think I will create them in the Cloud and see how this works.

Addendum: Sigh. Not nearly as useful as I had hoped. You still have to create the collection on the Kindle Paperwhite, which means all the books you want to label have to be downloaded to the Paperwhite first.   If you have just bought a Kindle Paperwhite, this is a great feature. If you're on your 5th Kindle, like me, not so much.

My Christmas present to myself

I love my new Paperwhite Kindle! The screen is so fantastic, it's a joy to read on it in any light. When I bought it a few months ago, instead of buying the fancy leather cover, I got a simple slipcase, that was much cheaper, because I figured now that the device itself had its own light, it didn't need the fancy cover. Previous Kindle models solved the problem of the need for light by offering a cover with a light in the top, that the Kindle fit into snugly; this allowed the light to run off the Kindle's battery. It was convenient, but getting the Kindle in and out of the case was a pain, so mostly I read with the Kindle in its case even when I didn't need the built-in light.

One reason I got the slipcase cover was so I could read with just the device in my hand; that lets me take advantage of how incredibly light the Paperwhite is, compared to my old Kindle Touch in its case with the built-in light. And then Amazon sent me a coupon offering 40% off on selected Kindle accessories, and one of them was the Paperwhite magnetic case (sadly, only in black). It was such a good deal, I figured it was time to see if the case was worth the added weight,

It so is! When you open the magnetic case, the Kindle comes awake instantly! It feels more like reading an actual electronic book when the Kindle lights up as soon as you open the cover. Ditto when you finish reading, all you have to do is close the case.  The only downside is, that if you want to take the Paperwhite out of the magnetic case, it is almost as difficult as it was to get the Touch out of the lighted case.

Now if they could just make a dual screen version, it would look a lot the the readers in some of my novels.

My review of the Kindle Paperwhite

I've had the Paperwhite for several days now. I got the 3G model, but of course the first thing I did was connect to my home network. It was pretty easy to set it up, and the bunch of books I had already sent to the Paperwhite downloaded quickly.  I've read on it for a fair bit now, and I'm ready to say what I like and what I don't.

The Good

• The screen: It's fantastic! It really is a noticeably better level of contrast, blacker letters on a whiter page. Black and white photos and drawings look especially crisp and nice. The Paperwhite screen is also more responsive, because it's capacitive instead of infrared, I find that the number of times I advance a page without meaning to is much less than with the Touch. 
• The built-in light: It provides excellent, easy to control, pretty even lighting, and it doesn't seem to drain the battery, either.
• The feel: The Paperwhite is so small and light! I am happy I got a slip case so I can easily take the Kindle out of it and read with just the device in my hand. It makes one-handed reading easier.
• The screen savers: The screen savers (unless you have a KSO* version) are the same as for the Touch, and I was happy not to lose them.
• The Home screen:  The Paperwhite has the option of displaying book covers instead of just titles and authors. As long as it's an option, I'm OK with that. It's nice to have when you want it, but I won't always want to waste that much screen real estate on book covers.  

The Bad 

• No text-to-speech (TTS) or speakers or a headphone jack. Frowny face over that one.
• Ads on the home screen! I did not get a KSO version, but when I have the home screen set to display book covers, it will list a row of books on my Kindle, and then a row of "Editor's Picks," a.k.a. books or Kindle Singles that Amazon wants me to buy. In other words, I'm seeing freakin' ads! Cut it out, Amazon! They might be great books, but they're still books I don't own and you want to sell me. When I want to shop, I'll shop. Luckily, the ads don't show after page 1, or if you're using List mode. Addendum: Amazon now allows you to turn this off! Yay!
• No Home button. The Touch had one physical button (beside the off switch) and that was the button on the bottom of the bezel that you could press from anywhere and it would take you to your Home screen. Now I have to get the menu, and then press the Home icon.  It's not terrible, but it's not as easy.
• No page swipe up and down for next chapter/last chapter. Why the hell did they take this feature away? It was a wonderful way to browse an ebook. I don't care that all the chapter headings are now on the Go To menu, why can't I browse without getting a menu every time? 

The Undecided

• Collections: I haven't imported my collections to this Kindle yet, because I don't have all the books I want copied over yet. Kindle collections are device-specific; if I import my Kindle Touch collections now, it will apply those labels to the books currently on the Paperwhite, but if I send over more books from my Archive (now called The Cloud), then they won't keep the labels they had on the Touch on them when they arrive on the Paperwhite.  Once I get everything set up, I will import my collections and see how it goes. If collections are raddically differnt on the Paperwhite than they are on the Touch, I might do a post on just collections. 
• The timer: The Paperwhite alerts you to how much longer it will take you to finish reading a chapter and even how long for he book as a whole. I haven't decided yet it that's annoying or useful. 
• Airplane mode: Having the wireless off is now referred to as Airplane mode. You even get a little icon of an airplane on the status bar to show you airplane mode is on (and ergo, wireless is off). Maybe it's to encourage the FAA to let people keep their Kindles on during take-off; otherwise, I don't get why they changed the wording of a feature the Kindle has had since Day 1. they also moved the function to the settings menu, so that's an extra step as well as a weird name.

All in all, I love my new Paperwhite. I have had the original Kindle, the Kindle 2, the Kindle 3 (now known as the Kindle Keyboard), and the Kindle Touch. Each new device has offered improvements, but this is the first time when it has felt like there really is not that much to improve, at least in the hardware (except for TTS).

If I were posting this on Amazon, I would have to give it five out of five stars.

* KSO is Kindle with special offers, a cheaper version that shows ads as screen savers and on the home screen.

Amazon to me: We've got good news and bad news

Last week Amazon sent me an email that my Kindle Paperwhite would be a week late. Today they sent me an email that they would issue me a $10 credit on my Amazon account to make up for the inconvenience. Considering they're selling the thing on a very slender (or possibly even nonexistent) profit margin, I call that pretty nice.

I don't say I wouldn't rather have the Paperwhite on time, but if I can't have that then I'll take it late with a consolation prize.