Kindle - With a Built-in Front Light - Black
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Dear Amazon. It’s 2019 and it’s sad that you sell a gadget without a power adapter just so you can sell it separately at a cost. So technically, the advertised price looks cheaper but the buyer can’t use the device without spending more to buy a power adapter. That’s really greedy and deceitful. It’s like selling a brand new car without a battery.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-4 review-rating', 'review_body': 'November 8, 2020 update:\nI still really like this Kindle, and I stand by my review\'s pros and cons as I discussed below. I\'ve read over 50 books on it since I purchased it and I\'m a happy camper.\n\nApril 15, 2019 (Original review):\nI had a Kindle touch years ago and had stopped using it. But I want to be able to focus on reading and not pop-ups from other apps so I bought this new Kindle to avoid the distractions of reading on my phone.\n\nThe device is smaller than both my original Kindle touch and my husband\'s Kindle Paperwhite. I was able to quickly get connect to the internet and begin downloading Kindle books I checked out via Overdrive. The device can be held in one hand comfortably, and it\'s lightweight enough to feel quite portable without appearing flimsy.\n\nThis Kindle has some buggy-feeling holdovers from previous generations: occasional leftover pixels during page/screen pages. However, I find the touch screen to be responsive without being jumpy. The bottom/power button sometimes takes an extra push to activate, or perhaps just needs me to focus a bit more. I don\'t mind the "special offers" and generally ignore them completely, yes, this is a generally annoying feature, but I\'d rather spend that $20 on books. The backlight can be adjusted to read outdoors or in your bedroom in the dark (handy if your partner nags about keeping a booklight on).\n\nAnother reviewer commented on the PPI. Personally, as I don\'t use the device for pictures/illustrations/detailed charts, I frankly don\'t care. The images that appear in the special offers are clear enough, and the default sized print is crisp and clean and I have no issues reading without my glasses. If you frequently read books that are illustration/graphic-heavy, you may prefer a Paperwhite or other device.\n\nI\'ll adjust my review if my sentiments change but for now I am very happy with my new Kindle.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'This is the first Kindle I have ever owned or used for more than a couple seconds. My current employer actually told me to pick one up, and I could have chosen any Kindle I wanted. After reviewing the choices I decided to purchase this one, despite it being the cheapest. Honestly, I’m quite thankful.\n\nI wanted something of a small size, and a device that would be comfortable and easy to hold with both or either individual hand. I do not need to store a million books, nor do I plan to read in a river, or while taking a shower. If that changes, then I’ll update you on the water resistance of this device ;)\n\nAs far as the actual devices goes, it is a nice size, capable of shoving into a small pocket in a bag, and is easy for me to palm and hold in a variety of ways. It is extremely light, and I could easily hold this for hours. The touch screen is responsive and flipping pages is easier and faster than I anticipated, while also avoidable when just holding the Kindle to read. I was hesitant about the lack of physical buttons, and although I still wished they were present (e.g. on the sides), I lack no confidence that they will soon be forgotten. Since I read a good bit of technical books, and like to take notes, I was wondering how well this would function. Although typing up paragraphs would be challenging, I was pleasantly surprised with the responsiveness. I will probably leave shorter notes and markers on my Kindle and elaborate more when on a computer or tablet. Although it is certainly not a smartphone or computer, it superseded my expectations.\n\nI do not have experiences to compare against, being my first Kindle, nonetheless the screen itself is bright and clear, whites being a light gray, and blacks being… well, dark. I did not find an option to invert the colors (font white, background black), which was unfortunate. I also find it odd the power button is on the bottom. I definitely foresee this being bumped while resting against a surface. At this point, I am also a bit disappointed this does not use USB-C. I am guessing Amazon is saving this for a newer, more expensive device, but honestly, I feel all devices like this moving forward really should have this.\n\nHaving freedom in my choice here, I am thankful I chose this Kindle variant, and given the price point, I am doubtful anyone would complain once they held it in their hands. Any shortcomings I do have, and minor and I am doubtful they will be an ongoing annoyance. Definitely recommend.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': "Amazon has done a dreadful job implementing collections. Apparently the people in their eBook development lab have never actually owned books. There isn't one single avid reader alive who piles his books in a random pile, alphabetizes by title or author only, or uses date of acquisition as their category of choice-- yet those are the categorization methods you're supposed to use with this thing. Most people organize by author, then series, and then series order. THE KINDLE CAN'T EVEN DO THAT! Items within a collection are organized by author's name or title of book, NOT series order. It's like these people don't even own books!\n\nTHIS IS A TENTH GENERATION EBOOK READER AND THIS PROBLEM HAS EXISTED SINCE THE FIRST GENERATION!\n\nThat is not an exaggeration. My very first review of the Kindle DX in 2009 complained about the inability to easily organize books. At the time I figured it was a function of the screen and firmware, since e-ink was new technology and the Kindle itself was only a year or two old. But after ten years of the same repeated blunders, Amazon is obviously trying to pass off a BUG as a FEATURE.\n\nWith the Kindle 3 (Kindle Keyboard) I was able to simply use Calibre, reboot my Kindle, and there were my 547 ebooks neatly arranged by author and series. Terry Pratchett published over seventy books in his lifetime. Piers Anthony has over thirty in the Xanth series ALONE. This is CRITICAL for anyone who reads more than one author. For crying out loud it's critical for anyone who reads more than one BOOK!\n\nI just got this thing and spent two hours using Calibre to organize my eBooks into 34 categories. According to Calibre, everything is on the Kindle right where it's supposed to be-- not one category transferred to the Kindle. Not. A. Single. One. The only categories on my Kindle are those I created on the Kindle app on my iPad-- and those only contain books I have purchased from Amazon. Apparently they altered the firmware so that the only way to add collections via third party is to jailbreak the reader, and I am not willing to do that.\n\nIt's bad enough that Amazon pushed that heap of junk Fire tablet out that is the worst of both worlds: a terrible eBook reader with the same screen glare and battery life issues as the (much cheaper and more versatile) iPad, AND a terrible tablet that doesn't allow 90% of the Android Market to be installed on it including necessary apps like Dropbox and Notepad, but removing the ability of readers to organize their eBooks efficiently is unconscionable.\n\nLet me say that again, AMAZON HAD TO REMOVE THIS FEATURE! THE KINDLE 3 (KINDLE KEYBOARD) HAD IT, AND NOW THE KINDLE FIRMWARE WON'T ALLOW IT IN THE 10TH GENERATION KINDLE!\n\nIt is going to take me DAYS to manually create collections and put every book in my library into them; A TASK THAT SHOULD BE AUTOMATED IN THE YEAR 2019! A task that WAS automated in 2012 when I bought my Kindle Keyboard (for forty bucks less than this one, I might add).\n\nAmazon is doing this to transparently only support collections of books THEY sell. Fine. Since the majority of my eBooks didn't come from Amazon, it sounds like it would be easier for me to find another reader and stop buying books from them at all.\n\nOne star is a gift, and one you don't deserve."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': "Going to try this again, since Amazon refused to post my first review. There are two major problems with this Kindle. First, the swipe function that allows you to turn pages--basically the single most important function of the device--works when it feels like it, and it feels like it about 80% of the time. It's incredibly annoying. Overall it feels like a much cheaper, less responsive, low quality version of the Paperwhite I bought this to replace. Secondly, there are annoying banner ads when you open it, and every time you access the library. Want to get rid of them? Pay Amazon more money. I admit this is in part my fault for not more carefully reading the product description, but it's just a really annoying practice. I expect that kind of thing on a free to play mobile game or app, not from a company like Amazon on one of its flagship products. If my old Kindle were functional at all, I would return this thing. Sadly, it's not. If you have an older version that still works, keep using it until it literally explodes rather than buying one of these."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': 'This is one of the most reviewed products at Amazon and the chances of anyone actually reading more than the first handful of comments is almost zero, after all what new can you say? Unfortunately those old reviews were likely posted but diehard fans who preordered one the moment it was launched and had their review written in their minds before ever seeing it. It is said that most reviewing is done within the first hour or two of receiving a product, hardly much time to really get to know it. I won’t rehash the same old things over and over, everybody knows what this thing does and it is rare that someone even needs to read a review to know if they want one or not. So I will focus on one thing – comparing it to my first Kindle that I bought in 2010 for almost two-hundred bucks, it was called the Keyboard model for obvious reasons. The screen was six inches and there were no lights, front or back. It was a nice convenience item to be able to read books on the plane, in waiting rooms and other places but the screen was in no way remotely similar to reading a real book.\n\nFAST FORWARD\n\nOkay now it is 2022, twelve years later and every year there have been breathless announcements about how this reader has improved. There was a treasure truck deal that brought it to fifty bucks so I decided it was time to retire the old keyboard model which now had a permanently dead battery with something that was lightyears more improved. I eagerly opened it and turned it on and adjusted the screen and built-in lighting to my usual preference for reading. I was disappointed, no matter what the ads say the screen is identical to the original third generation model. It is still dark gray text on a background that is a far fetch from looking like a real book. Forget about spec that push the concept that it is brighter, that’s not important, brighter doesn’t make it easier to read. The reality is when I put them side-by-side and took this picture of them twelve years of technology didn’t make one bit of difference in making it easy to read.\n\nWHAT DO I DO\n\nI am going to pop for the Signature Edition model and see if it really does have darker text on a book page white background. I might be happier with that one. I have a suspicion that it really won’t be as satisfying as using a Fire or an iPad with the app, both of which have text that’s lightyears easier to read than eInk and have the undeniable advantage that color photos and text look like they should, not grainy gray images.\n\nYES OR NO\n\nI expected something noticeably improved after twelve years and was disappointed. I sent it back. I’m hoping the day will come that they offer a basic fifty buck model that is actually improved from their first model.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': "The technology this device uses is super old, which isn't really a bad thing since it's the correct display type to use for a dedicated reader. HOWEVER, it does not need to be $100! This thing should be selling for half that, or even less. Overall it is sluggish and slow. Interacting with the store is frustrating, and entering text reminds me of phones a decade ago. Again, I get that this is dedicated to a single task and it does that well, it's just the price tag for such old hardware that really gets me..."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Well it\'s a bummer. This is not Amazon experience at all. The device feels very "plasticky", the screen touch is super sensitive (which could be a good thing for reading, but not great for initial typing and set-up). Even despite we are replacing an existing Kindle reader on our account, it does not come pre-set. This is our 4th Kindle reading device (all different types and generations), but by far the worst experience right out of the box...\n\nUPDATE 3rd day in... It\'s a "budget" kindle. More "budget" than previous generations. If you are looking for a budget device this is it. I\'m returning as it originally was intended to replace wife\'s Kindle Voyage (300ppi and beautiful backlight) that has a challenge with charging connector. It\'s actually surprisingly better and cheaper to re-solder the charging connector on the Voyage, than to replace it with this one...'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'After 6 months in the hospital I have ended up in a beautiful nursing home for the rest of my life. However, my entire book collection could not go with me. What a joy it was to find the Kindle! It was the perfect tool, size and gave me a lifetime of books to read. I can use it in bed (I’m bedridden), outside, just about anywhere. I have MS and books are really to awkward or heavy to hold. Oh! And the long battery life would be so helpful.\n\nLong battery life? Where? The battery drains so fast. I can actually see the battery draining like an old gas guzzler. THIS KINDLE WAS TO BECOME A CENTER POINT OF MY LIFE, providing escapism, stimulating my mind, and reading is a great distraction when the pain gets bad.\n\nHELP! And the charger being extra was a really greedy thing to do. I’m an old lady living in a nursing home and on a budget of $70 a month. I saved for the Kindle but feel ripped off because of the battery life and how hard it is to navigate. I am a very intelligent person and couldn’t figure a lot out. Even my brother who has a Masters in Computer Science had problems.\n\nPlease consider the people who are going to use your product. Others in my building will see the Kindle and ask about it, perhaps hoping it will bring some joy into their lives. What am I to tell them?'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I made the mistake of replacing my 2012 Paperwhite with the latest generation and every night I felt like throwing it into the wall and splintering it into a thousand pieces. The user interface was horrible and with no raised border I was always drifting a finger over the edge of the screen and fanning through the pages. I finally had enough and returned it for the basic Kindle.\n\nThat reader arrived today and it feels just like home again. The basic Kindle has all the features of the 2012 model with the addition of being able to pinch to zoom the text. The "print" quality is just fine. I don\'t read any graphic novels, magazines, or newspapers on my Kindle so I don\'t need the higher resolution to be able to see illustrations in higher quality. The LED lighting is every bit as good as the original Paperwhite. The only feature I really appreciated on the latest generation Paperwhite was the ability to display the current time at the top of the screen. I am a late-night reader and having the time handy keeps me from reading until dawn. I know I can still crank my neck around to look at a clock, but it was a nice treat to be able to just glance at the top of the screen.\n\nThe other advantage of the basic Kindle is during the initial setup, it syncs up your library and doesn\'t give you that two-part option of seeing you entire library or what has been downloaded to the reader.\n\nI read through the negative reviews and don\'t find a single one valid. I think that the folks that are experiencing low battery life are probably not putting it in the Airplane mode. The Paperwhite has a longer battery life but if it is not put in the Airplane mode it will die pretty fast as well.\n\nAs far as the memory space goes, I had one of the very first Kindles with either 2 or 4 gigs of memory and even with my large library, I never got close to filling it. And by the way, if it does start getting too full, just remove the books you have already read. They will just revert back to the online Amazon cloud for storage and you can retrieve them anytime you want to read them again.\n\nThe bottom line...this is a budget-friendly basic reader that has all the advantages of the Paperwhite with none of the aggregation. Maybe it\'s not waterproof, but having owned Kindles since they first came out, I have never once gotten one so wet that it caused a problem. Don\'t pay for more Ereader than you need.\n\nEDIT 5/15/2020 Two nights of reading on the basic Kindle reader and I don\'t notice any difference between it and the Gen 7 Paperwhite. The battery life seems to be comparable and the best of the updates to the latest generation of the Paperwhite have been incorporated into this new basic model. I don\'t notice any difference in the screen resolution. I guess if I had compared both with a magnifying glass it might be noticeable...who knows.\n\nIt took hours to incorporate my library into the Paperwhite since there were two pages you had to flip between. One page displayed all the books in your library. If you wanted one of the books in your library you had to select it and then it would transfer over to the Downloaded page. The basic Kindle shows the library and if you click on a book it just downloads it and highlights it on the same page. Everything that has been completed shows up as Read.\n\nSo far I haven\'t found a single thing that I dislike about the basic reader and it doesn\'t have a single thing on it I hated about the latest Paperwhite. If you feel like you just have to have a Paperwhite then I would suggest you search Amazon for the Gen 7 or Gen 8. If you can\'t find them there you can still get Gen 8 Paperwhites listed as in NEW condition from Ebay.\n\nUPDATE Aug. 3, 2020: My Kindle reader is still functioning perfectly and I still love it, however, over the last day or so the mysterious crack in the case seen in the photos has materialized. I can\'t figure how how it happened since the reader is constantly kept in the case and spends most of the time in a nightstand by the bed. I read it for a hour or more every evening and naturally connect it to the charger when needed. It has NEVER been dropped or handled roughly so I have absolutely no idea what caused the case to crack.\n\nHas anyone else experienced something like this with your reader?'}]