Amazon’s $90 Kindle is out to eat the Kindle Paperwhite’s lunch. Adding front lighting for the first time on the entry-level ereader, the new 10th-generation
Amazon’s $90 Kindle is out to eat the Kindle Paperwhite’s lunch. Adding front lighting for the first time on the entry-level ereader, the new 10th-generation Kindle 2019 snags one of the most common reasons buyers had for opting for the more expensive model. Read on for our full review.
Amazon’s industrial design doesn’t stray too far from what we’ve seen before. The new Kindle is a rectangle of matte plastic – in black or white – measuring 160 x 113 x 8.7 mm. At 174 grams it’s easy to hold in one hand for extended reading sessions.
There’s a power button and a charging port on the bottom edge, but other than that you don’t get any physical controls. The E Ink display is a capacitive touchscreen, and used for navigation. While not as snappy as, say, the flagship Kindle Oasis, moving through the various menus and store pages isn’t tediously slow. It’s only a matter of a few seconds from hitting the power button and getting back to your book.
The old Kindle (aka the Kindle 8) that this new model replaces started at $79.99. This Kindle 2019 (aka the Kindle 10th Generation, or the Kindle 9) comes in at $89.99, ten bucks more.
That $10 difference primarily goes on screen lighting. For the first time on the basic Kindle, there’s now an integrated front light so that you can read in the dark. There’s manual adjustment across 24 levels.
Amazon uses a four LED system to illuminate the 6-inch E Ink display. It runs at the same 167 ppi resolution as the previous generation, but promises better contrast. Text looks good; it’s only when you get to the smallest font sizes that the resolution starts to leave some characters looking a little fuzzy around the edges.
Even with just four LEDs, the front light is impressively consistent. There’s no obvious hotspot or areas of patchy brightness.
As usual, the cheapest version comes with “Special Offers”: basically Amazon’s way of saying it’ll show adverts on the standby screen. If you don’t want the commercials, there’s a Kindle without Special Offers option, costing a $20 premium.
