Amazon Kindle (2012) review

This Kindle review is for the 2012 edition of the device, which is controlled by a small number of buttons. The newest basic ‘Kindle’ is redesigned with a touchscreen. We’ll be reviewing that new Kindle in a few days time, hopefully, but for now see our Kindle vs Kindle Paperwhite vs Kindle Voyage to compare all the current models in the line up. Of course if you’re looking to pick up the – still rather good – old model secondhand somewhere then read on.

When Amazon introduced its current entry-level eReader a year ago (also called simply the Kindle), it took a minimal approach, removing the keyboard and leaving just a handful of buttons to navigate the menus and turn pages. This didn’t really matter, though, as most Kindle users we know buy almost all their books through the website, rather than via the Kindle itself. The new 2012 model continues the same tried and tested formula, but has a swanky new dark grey finish and, according to Amazon, improved contrast and page turn speeds.

SCREEN

Underneath it’s essentially the same 6in E ink Pearl screen with an 800×600 resolution. This is a slightly lower resolution than the 1,024×768 screen used in the new Kindle Paperwhite, so text isn’t quite as sharp. It’s a small difference though and the Kindle’s screen is very easy to read and text is clearly legible.

The new Kindle has the same E Ink Pearl screen we’ve seen before, but contrast has been boosted

Claims of improved contrast are certainly accurate and text looked noticeably darker compared to its predecessor. In fact, it was noticeably darker than the same screens used on other eReaders, too. Amazon claims to have sped up page turns by 15 per cent, but we couldn’t notice any practical improvement head-to-head. There are still a pair of page-turn buttons on either side of the screen. These are neatly integrated into the bevelled edges and cantilever out slightly as you press them, giving excellent feedback.

Cantilevered buttons on the side of the screen make turning pages easy and comfortable

By default the eReader is set to perform only a full page refresh after around every six page turns. This increases general speed and helps improve battery life. If you look carefully at the screen you can see that over a few page turns there’s a slight build-up of ghost text where it hasn’t been fully refreshed. However, this is more noticeable moving from one book to another, rather than staying in the same book. For most normal reading situations you’d be hard pressed to notice it.

INTERFACE

With buttons instead of a touchscreen, the Kindle misses out on the smarter interface of the Kindle Paperwhite. There’s no cover view of your books, but just a text list of titles. It’s easy enough to navigate, though, and as most of your time will be spent in a book, you won’t need to go back to the home screen much.

You can access the full Kindle store to buy books and there’s a dedicated button to bring up the on-screen keyboard. It’s a little fiddly to use, as you need to use the cursor pad to navigate round the keys and press the button to ‘type’ them. As such, this Kindle is best used if you’re going to buy your books via a browser, which most people do, and for the occasional searching of text.

There’s less control over the on-screen fonts, too. There’s a choice of eight font sizes, but only three typefaces (regular, condensed and sans serif). You can also change the line spacing, but you don’t get the full control that you do with the new Paperwhite. That’s not to say that the Kindle presents text badly (it doesn’t), but just that it runs a different version of the OS.

FORMAT SUPPORT

Format support has remained the same since previous Kindles, with the new model supporting AZW3, AZW, TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI and PRC natively, while HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP have to be converted first. There’s still no ePUB support, so you can’t buy books from other stores. However, you can convert DRM-free ePUB files to a supported format, such as those from Project Gutenberg.

PDF support is basic at best, and you can’t reflow or scale the pages to easily view them. The best you get is the chance to scroll round each page, but it’s not particularly fast or well handled.

For some people the restriction of having to buy books through Amazon may prove to be too much, but we don’t see it as so much of a problem. Amazon’s book store is well stocked and the pricing is very competitive. It’s hard to disassociate the Kindle from its store, as it’s the entire experience that has proven to be so popular and it’s still one of the product’s biggest attractions.

We like the way you can use a variety of different methods, from the Kindle’s built-in store to a web browser on your computer, to buy new books and have them delivered automatically to your device. Your books also synchronise with Amazon’s servers, so you can switch reading device, say from your Kindle to the iPad app, and continue reading where you left off.

Amazon is also introducing a new feature that lets people with Amazon Prime accounts borrow one book per month for free. There are no restrictions or time limits on this, with the service costing £49 per year – for free one-day delivery on everything ordered by post.

STORAGE

Amazon has cut down the storage on the Kindle, so that you get 2GB, rather than the 4GB of some of the older Kindle models. We don’t think it’s that big a problem, though, as this is enough for around 1,100 books, which should keep you going for a while. In addition, all books that you buy through Amazon’s store are stored for free online, so you don’t have to clutter your device with books and worry about filling your storage.

WIRELESS

Amazon sells the Kindle as a Wi-Fi version only. This isn’t too much of a problem, as it’s generally easier to fill an eReader before you go away. Besides, most places now have easily-accessible hotspots if you do need to buy a book in a hurry.

As on other Kindles leaving the wireless turned on tends to drain the battery fairly rapidly; in fact, Amazon quotes battery life with wireless turned off. It’s a bit annoying, then, that you can’t disable wireless from the standard menu when reading a book, as you could with the previous model. Instead, you have to back to the main menu, go to Settings from there and select Aeroplane mode. Admittedly, it’s a minor annoyance, but the Kindle Keyboard used to have the wireless option directly in the menu accessible from the reading view.

BUILD QUALITY AND HARDWARE

Build quality is excellent and the Kindle feels very tough and robust. At just 170g, its light, too, and is very easy to carry around. We have to say that we prefer the light grey case of the previous generation, as the black version doesn’t look as nice and picks up fingerprints more easily, but we’ve generally got no complaints.

The contacts on the back mean you can use the Kindle Lighted Cover if you want a handy reading light

Remaining from last year’s model are the contacts for the lighted case, which has a pull-out reading light for when it’s too dark to see the screen.

CONCLUSION

There’s no doubting that the Kindle Paperwhite is the king of eBook readers. Its high resolution and lit touchscreen make it a pleasure to use. However, if you just want to read and don’t want to spend that much money, there’s no denying that this Kindle is still excellent value. It wins a Best Buy award.