Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2024 review: Easily the best Paperwhite yet

Amazon has updated all of its Kindle models, introducing the new Kindle Colorsoft and retiring the greatest Kindle of all time, the Kindle Oasis. While I’m licking my wounds about the loss of the Oasis, the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite has stepped into my life, giving me some of that top-tier performance.

At the launch of this new Kindle in New York, Amazon told me that Paperwhite was their biggest seller and the model that everyone goes for. It’s easy to see why, when Amazon has successively improved the Paperwhite’s offering little by little. It’s not quite the Oasis, but it’s the closest you’ll get and I’m happy with that.

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The Disconnekt Downlow

The Kindle Paperwhite has slowly gone from strength to strength, though always in the shadow of the superior Kindle Oasis. But with a move to a 7-inch display, the only thing that’s missing now is the buttons. If you’ve long been a Kindle fan, then the Paperwhite is the best reading experience that you’ll find on a current Kindle.

The display is nicer and the page turns are the fastest of any Kindle  – with the Signature Edition adding a few extra luxuries. But if you already own a Kindle Paperwhite that’s working just fine, there’s no real need to rush out and buy a new model, as the differences are minor. The user interface remains the same, the Kindle Store experience is the same. If you’re a newcomer to Kindle, however, you’re in for a treat.

Buy from £159.99 on Amazon

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The reasons you should choose the Kindle Paperwhite

Over the past couple of years, the Kindle Paperwhite has added new features, and all for one reason: to enhance the reading experience. In 2018, the Paperwhite added waterproofing, in 2021 it added a warm front light on a new 6.8-inch display. On this latest model in 2024, the Paperwhite moves to a 7-inch display, while focusing on page turn speeds.

While Amazon will tell you that this is the fastest page turn yet on a Kindle, I’m not totally sold on the necessity for faster page turns. That’s probably because I read the page, then tap or swipe for the next one, and it’s there without me pausing to think about there being a delay. So in general reading, in my experience, faster page turns don’t make a huge difference.

However, I’ve also found that the new Kindle Paperwhite is generally just faster at doing everything than the old Paperwhite. It’s faster around the menus, it’s faster through the Kindle Store, it’s faster when making tweaks in the settings, it’s faster when you press and hold on a word to access the dictionary.

The increase in screen size comes with a slight increase in the overall size of this device: it’s fractionally wider and taller, but only by a couple of millimetres. But I generally find that the larger display is better for reading – and that’s one of the reasons why I liked the old Oasis so much.

The bezels are pretty much as they were before, but I have no problem with that, because in a touchscreen device, any touch on the surface could result in a page turn, so you need somewhere to grip the device. The change in colour around the back of the Kindle, however, is appreciated: there has previously been a denim blue, but generally speaking the Kindle was black. Now my Jade Kindle really pops – and the Raspberry is nice, vibrant, and very pink.

As for the reading experience, we’ll that’s as it always was. The illumination is nice and even on the 2024 version of the Paperwhite, while that anti-reflective display is as good as ever, meaning you can read in all conditions, be that in full sunshine or in the darkest of nights. You can pinch to resize the text, change the font, margins, spacing or switch it over to dark mode with a couple of taps.

Amazon has also hugely improved the setup experience for a Kindle. Now you do most of the setup on your phone, so it’s a lot faster than signing into your account on the device itself, which was the case last time I setup a new Kindle.

Finally you have battery life. Admittedly, I’ve not been through the full cycle of the battery on the new Kindle. I’m happy to update when I have, but when it’s rated at 12 weeks, you’d be waiting until after Christmas before I managed to publish this review. Charging via USB-C, we know that Kindle battery life is excellent and that’s exactly what you need when you head off to the beach for a couple of weeks to relax.

What the Kindle Paperwhite could do better

So if you’re a fan of the Kindle, then it’s clear that everything you love is still here (except buttons if you’re coming from the Oasis) and that the reading experience does make this the best Kindle Paperwhite yet. But in that, everything that you didn’t like is probably still there.

While the hardware has been refreshed and the display has changed, the lack of buttons for page turns still irks me. I just find that tap or swipe isn’t as comfortable or natural as a gentle press on a button: the now defunct Kindle Oasis still holds that mantle and forever will, it seems.

There are also no changes to the user interface here at all. The menus are the same, the Kindle Store is the same. Amazon said that it didn’t want to change too much with this new device to avoid unsettling the Kindle community. While I appreciate the sentiment, the problems with the Kindle UI still persist.

Browsing the Kindle Store isn’t the smoothest of experiences, it’s easy to get lost especially when reading series of books – and even more so if you’re reading some on Kindle and some on paper. We’ve all done it, I’m sure, but I’d really love the Kindle to step forward in terms of collection management. Hey Amazon, I’d really love Kindle to be my whole library administrator – online, offline, with books I’ve borrowed. Yes, Goodreads does some of that, but I want to be able to pick up my Kindle and mark that I’ve read the fifteenth book in the Reacher series even though I read it on paper.

Then there’s the situation with lending. Through your Prime Membership (if you have one), you’ll be able to access Prime Reading books, which lets you sort of borrow books rather than buying every title you read. If you have wider reading ambitions, then Kindle Unlimited gives you access to more books, for another monthly cost (£9.49 a month). But you can’t borrow e-books from a library or a friend, in the UK at least, which you can on a Kobo.

Some might also decry the lack of colour here – but there’s now the Kindle Colorsoft if you do want colour. For me personally, I haven’t read any books that needed colour for some time, so it’s not a huge priority.

What about the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition?

Let’s talk about the Signature Edition part of the equation. The Signature Edition has a couple of extras that the regular Paperwhite doesn’t have. If it was a phone, this would definitely have the “Pro” tag appended to it. The Signature Edition gets wireless charging – with a special stand that’s great for your bedside – and it also has 32GB of storage rather than 16GB, so you can carry more books.

Then there’s an auto-adjusting front light sensor, which means that the illumination of your Kindle can adapt to the environment that you’re in. It’s worth noting that this doesn’t work when you’re in dark mode (because it doesn’t really need to), so if you like to read with white text on a black background like I do, auto-brightness makes no difference.

There’s one other detail on the 2024 model that adds appeal and that’s the colour. The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition comes with a metallic finish rather than the flat finish of the normal Paperwhite models. Throughout this review you’ve been looking at the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition in Metallic Jade and it really does look more eye-catching than the regular Kindle models.

It’s also worth noting that Signature Edition comes without ads. Adverts appear on the lockscreen of the device and if I was going to choose a Kindle Paperwhite to buy, it would be the Paperwhite without ads. In that sense, the Signature Edition at £189.99 is then only £20 more, so I’d be tempted just because of the metallic finish.

Should I buy the Kindle Paperwhite 2024?

If you have a recent Kindle Paperwhite then there’s not a huge difference in the experience between the 2021 model and the new 2024. It’s better for sure and if you think that your battery is starting to fade, your screen has been scratched or the back cover is feeling a little sticky as it wears out, then absolutely get the new Paperwhite – you won’t regret it.

Amazon’s challenge really remains to sell people on the ecosystem. Borrowing books from Prime Reading and buying discounted books through the Kindle Store remains a simple route to accessing books and while Kobo offers a more open system, with much wider availability of borrowing from public libraries, it’s not a Kindle – and for many people, it’s a Kindle they want.

I will miss the Kindle Oasis with its buttons, but when I settle down to read with the new Kindle Paperwhite, I appreciate how close this new model comes. It’s the best reading experience you’ll find in a new Kindle.

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