A better screen is on the way for owners of a first Kindle alongside more storage and battery life.
Even though many of us still read physical books, you might be considering a lightweight alternative to keep you reading.
You can read off phones, but it’s not always the same, and tablets can deliver a similar experience. The screens are good, but bright and shiny, and so they mightn’t deliver quite the same never-ending battery life as a real book.
Alternatively, there’s the eReader, which is kind of like a middle ground position. The screen used on an eReader is known as “electronic ink” because it emulates the look of printing on paper, and doesn’t offer the vibrant colour and shine of a phone or tablet screen. That screen tech is also nicer on batteries, measured in days not hours, a huge difference in design.
But they can also be expensive, especially compared with the price of a book.
It’s one reason why eBook makers tend to make entry-level options, and one of those is even being updated for this year.
Amazon’s entry level Kindle is seeing a change, around a year after the mid-range Paperwhite model saw an update, which saw warm lighting introduced and if you opted for the Signature Edition, wireless charging as well.
In the 2022 Kindle — that’s what the entry level is simply called, the “Kindle” — Amazon is bringing the screen resolution in-line with the Paperwhite, jumping from 167 pixels per inch to a much sharper 300 pixels per inch. You won’t see warm lighting control like on the Paperwhite or its more premium sibling in the Kindle Oasis (where warm lighting was introduced), but it will support front lighting and a dark mode, making it usable in low light all the same.
New to the design is support for the USB Type C standard, meaning the 2022 Kindle the way almost every phone does, and the standard the EU wants for all devices from 2024 onwards. It even supports 16GB storage, doubling what previously was found on the entry-level Kindle.
The battery life is the other critical point, with Amazon talking up to six weeks of charge from the Kindle, which last saw an update back in 2019, still arriving with a 6 inch screen.
Priced at $179, it’s worth noting that it seems the 2022 Kindle is not a total replacement for the entry-level $139 Kindle launched in 2019. Amazon still lists that model, and with a lower res screen (167ppi), half the storage (8GB), and the microUSB port, leaving it at its price point gives customers more choice when it comes to picking a Kindle at various price points.
Availability, however, isn’t set until October, with the new Kindle range launching in Australia from mid-October.
