****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
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.PROS: Well, I REALLY like the 11th Gen over my 7th Gen. I'll do it in 4 points:1-Larger Screen.. Nice2-Color Temp adjustment for the screen. My background is photography so to me the new screen goes from say 8000 degrees Kelvin to about 2500 degrees Kelvin. I'm happy around 4700-50003-LONGER battery life.. like 2 months vs 3 weeks4- USB-C!! YES! (my old microUSB was always getting wobbly.I did not mention the increase from "4"GB to "8"GB..because ..well. in the 7th Gen the 4GB is actually 3.1GB with the rest taken up by the OS on the new one.. it's actually...wait for it.. 6.25GB! Yep the OS went from .9GB to 1.75GB! A bit piggy for me. I made a joke with a few of the Kindle Tech people that they got ideas from Windows Vista!. Most got the joke.CONS: Now onto issues..several which are really for how I use my Kindle:1- ok the not quite 8GB issue. Hey I understand the increase in size..but how about making Audible a CHOICE.. you can add it or make it optional. If you take away Bluetooth support and Audible..maybe we might gain some space back. (Personally I use nice plug-in headphones. I really only see Audible BT when on a long drive in the car..like music. But then again, you can just put it in a format like MP3 and play it thru the car. I have the entire Hitchhiker's Guide Radio Broadcasts like that)2- BIG (to me ) BUG the issue? as in the photograph.. I use Amazon Cloud Collections. I organize my ebooks (most I got before I got the kindles) using Calibre. So when I set up series, I use the Series name, or I use the Author, or Subject as a title for the Collections. sometimes, (as in the case of the Dune series), books are added that happened in-between earlier books that came out. So when that happens I will add the book. And when you have a series of say 11 books, 9 of which came out years ago, I'll add the book as the following: 01-Dune 02-Dune Messiah 03-Children of Dunethen 3 books were added.. Tales of Dune. Paul of Dune, and The Winds of Dune.In my older 7th Gen PW it showed like this: 00-Tales of Dune 01-Dune 01.5-Paul of Dune 02-Dune Messiah 02.5-the Winds of Dune 03-Children of DuneBUT, As the photograph shows, the new 11th Gen PaperWhite has a bug! 00-Tales of Dune 01.5-Paul of Dune 01-Dune 02.5-the Winds of Dune 02-Dune Messiah 03-Children of DuneThis should REALLY be addressed!3-This is not so much a Kindle PW issue, as so much it's an Amazon issue. and it deals with the Amazon Cloud Collections. As I use Calibre, and I have a LOT of books that were originally Epubs, I used Calibre to convert them and organize them into series. And after various different methods, including sideloading from the computer, I decided to use the Cloud Collections. So I sent ALL of my converted epubs (now mobi files) to Amazon and used the website to organize them into the collections. Which went very well ....at first.First..about 2-3 years ago, Amazon removed the ability to send the Collection to Device. So now I HAVE to use the actual PW to get my Collections onto my Kindle. Recently, Amazon changed the display format on the pages on how they show books and doc files. And if you want to add a book or doc to a collection, it's now incredibly tedious! Formally when you did a box would open that would let you start typing the name of the collection, or make a new collection. All in one box. NOW, a box open which shows 2 or 3 collections.. not in any order other than Recent..with a check box! You can't find the collection by typing the title.. you can only scroll..and it only shows 2 collections at a time. That's fine if you have 6 collections.. but I have 49 page of 5 COLLECTIONS EACH!!! PLEASE PLEASE PUT BACK THE OLD WAY OR ADD A SEARCH OPTION!! You've actually found a way that is so much more tedious than the actual Paperwhite!!!!! you can't even make a new one on there.. you have to go back to the collection Tab.. THEN go back to the doc or book tab and start all over! Please go back to the old way !!!4- the new Library Series option. It only works for purchased books, not docs. also, I had to call up because it grouped two books together, in a series..(nice), but then stuck on e of the GRAYED OUT, above the first collection.. only in Download. I found out I had to do a Reboot after turning Library option off. (I ended up putting the two books in a collection.. like I like.Well that's about it. btw I ALWAYS use the LIST vs GRID option.. and using HOME is no longer a nice choice. I prefer when HOME was the same as LIBRARY .. in my case..the first collection, and all the collections after which comes the books in Recent ordernow... waiting for a dark brown cork case.______________________________________Slight update or comment on the software version. My wife and I both upgraded to the 11th Gen. Her's came with her case..Amazon Black Leather, while I wait for the cork. Her 11th gen came with 5.14.1 1, while mine came with 5.14.0 . I was a bit surprised since both were ordered at the same time. And arrived together. But, not a big issue, since eventually all units will be on the latest software. So? What to do? I've read a LOT on here about complaints it's so hard, I know.Since my "update" was grayed out, I just downloaded the latest version and put it on my 11th gen, and rebooted..and BINGO! No problem, I now have the latest software.Now fix the real BUG I addressed and fix the "Manage Your Content" pages regarding using Cloud Collections. Oh, while you're at it, fix the damn Amazon Android App so I can work with Cloud Collections via the App. And not just my tower. Thanks
