It’s been a while since Amazon announced a new Kindle reader. Last night, the company fixed that by revealing its newest, lightest, and smallest device to date. Since it’s 2022, the budget reader now features most of the same features seen in the last Paperwhite.
Kindle your love for reading
For your money — and yes, it’s a little more expensive — you get a 6in 300ppi display. That’s up from 167ppi, so images and text (mostly text, we hope) should look crisper. Default storage climbs from 8GB to 16GB, Amazon’s punting better battery life, and (finally) the 11th-gen Kindle gets USB-C charging. That came to the last Paperwhite and it’s one of its best features. Besides its whole ‘contains the knowledge of the universe’ potential, obviously.
Read More: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2021) review – A bigger focus on reading
There are some advantages to the Paperwhite, obviously. The new 11th-gen Kindle only features four side lights, which don’t quite match the even tone offered by the Paperwhite’s seventeen LEDs. And then there’s waterproofing — it’s not present here. Hey, you need some reason to still shell out for the 32GB Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, don’t you?
South African pricing isn’t known yet, but the American version of the device starts at R1,750 (with ads) or R1,950 (without ads). Since the previous generation (with ads) costs R2,500, expect local pricing to climb somewhat when it gets here.
Also on the cards is the Kindle Kids Edition, which arrives with a subscription to Amazon’s Kids+ service and a kid-friendly cover. It also has an extended warranty, because you know what kids are like. That one might not show up in South Africa. Most of its features are tethered to the States, unfortunately.
