Physically, the new Paperwhite is basically identical to the old one. It's the same size and more or less the same weight, and everything about it feels the same. The only difference is a blockier Amazon logo etched into the back, instead of the Kindle logo from last year. This is a global marketing thing, and give the choice I'd probably prefer the aesthetic of the Kindle logo, but it's not a dealbreaker by any means. Still, the blockier typeface is more eye-catching, and I wonder if it will feel significantly different in your hands over extended use.
The main thing to know is that Amazon isn't screwing around, the screen really does look a lot better. The frontlight has been completely rebuilt, and it's now even more even across the board. Further, the contrast makes the text look actually white when the light is at full brightness, and more pleasant throughout. That contrast comes from the screen itself, not just the light. The E Ink display is an "all new display stack" that has the same 212 PPI pixel density (the old Kindles have 169), but the display itself makes the text appear sharper.
That carries over to page turns, and how sharp the text looks after a bunch. Ereaders typically "flash" to refresh the screen. In between flashes (until now, every five or six page turns), the text would degrade a little bit every time you turned the page; the reason you wouldn't flash on every page is that it's much slower to load, and distracting. The new Kindle software improves that, though. It still has the ghosting you see in empty space on the new page, where there was text on a previous page you were on, but the text itself holds up better over the course of multiple page turns. The processor also flies from page to page now, noticeably faster than last generation. There was virtually no lag as I zoomed through pages at a time. I got about 10 pages or more before I saw a flash in my brief use. Amazon says that the number you get in actual use is dynamic, based on reading speed, pages read, and the temperature of the unit.
Amazon also claims a 19 percent finer touch grid (meaning it will be more accurate as you try to select individual words and sentences), but I didn't notice that nearly as much as the other screen improvements. We'll put it under closer review as we get more time with a unit, though.
(malpensados, guarrillos... )
