Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 12th Generation e-Reader Review – 2024

October 25, 2024

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The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is the world most popular e-reader and the previous generation model had the most sales and reviews on the Amazon website. The e-commerce giant has just refreshed the Kindle Paperwhite a week ago and it is considered their first 12th generation device. The big selling points are the new E INK screen, which is the cloest you can get to reading a physical book. There is a 25% increase in performance, which primarily applies to page-turn speed and it has a larger screen to fit more text. It also comes in new colours, which makes the new lineup distinctive.

Hardware

The Kindle Paperwhite 12th generation features a 7-inch E INK Carta 1300 e-paper display with a resolution of 1264×1680 with 300 PPI. The new e-paper display uses an oxide thin-film transistor that gives it the highest contrast ratio of any Kindle, so text and images pop on the screen. The device is 25% faster when scrolling through a library or zooming through pages. If you like to read at night, the front-light system has undergone a revision and now has 10 White LEDs and 9 Amber LEDs. If you buy the Signature Edition of this model, it comes with an ambient light sensor that will automatically adjust the brightness of the lights based on your environment. This is similar to the iPhone with its auto brightness. On max brightness you should get around 24 nits.

The Kindle Paperwhite runs a Mediatek dual-core 1GHZ processor, the previous Paperwhite only had a single core processor. Peter and I noticed that this is the fastest Kindle that Amazon has ever made. It has 512MB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The Signature Edition has 32GB of storage. For those who like to read in the bathtub, it is rated IPX8, so it can be submerged in freshwater for up to 60 minutes. If you have it in salt water, it is important to wash it underneath fresh water, such as a tap. It has Bluetooth 5.1 for listening to Audible audiobooks via wireless headphones or earbuds.

The Kindle Paperwhite 12th gen has a revised internet browser as this year. It is more responsive and will load modern websites with ease. The old browser really sucked, but the new one will read news websites, tech blogs and rss feeds. You can buy and read Kindle books and Audible audiobooks right on the device thanks to the WIFi internet access. It officially supports 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz networks with support for WEP, WPA, WPA2, WPA3, and OWE security using password authentication or Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS).

A USB-C port is available for charging; it is powered by a 1,900 mAh battery, suitable for up to 12 weeks of usage. The actual battery life heavily depends on how much you read per day, if the light is on, is WIFI connected etc. The previous generation Kindle Paperwhite had a smaller 1700 mAh battery and was only good for 10 weeks. The dimensions are 5” x 7” x 0.3” (127.6 x 176.7 x 7.8 mm) and weighs 7.4 oz (211g)

The device and packaging is environmentally friendly. The Kindle is made from 29% recycled materials. The internal structural frame is made from 90% recycled magnesium. All new 100% recyclable packaging (shipping packaging not included).

With a recent firmware update for the 11th generation Kindle Paperwhite, this older model is almost as fast as the new one. It is close, but the 12th generation is a bit better in terms of overall performance on a pure hardware level. I always found that the black Paperwhites side by side, look visually identical as previous generations, the only way you know for sure is to visit the device ID, buried in the settings menu. Now, with all of the unique colours for this model and and the Signature Edition, the colour schemes will really tell the older e-readers and the new. This will make it easier to sell on the secondary market.

With a new Kindle Paperwhite, comes an increase in price. The new version is $10 more than the base model and the Signature Edition is close to $30 more than the previous gen. Kindle Paerpwhite 12th Generation comes; Raspberry, Jade, and Black. Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, comes in Metallic Raspberry, Metallic Jade, and Metallic Black.

Software

Amazon has always used Linux as their operating system for the Kindle, every single generation has employed it, and there are a few major reasons why. Linux is super stable and you can get away with using smaller batteries, since there are no background processes and all aspects of the e-reader is efficient at drawing less power. E INK does not generate any power on its own, it only does when the state changes. If you are navigating around the Kindle, going to the settings menu or clicking on Goodreads, power will be consumed, but once you just are reading what is on the screen, no further power is being put to the screen.

If you have an older Kindle e-reader, that is more than 6-7 years old, you might notice that the home screen defaults to your library, which makes opening up books faster. In 2021, most of the newer e-readers got a bit update that changed the home screen experience and this was very polarizing for longtime Kindle users. However, I think most people are used to the new experience, since it does make things easier.

The UI is very simple, you have a home screen which comprises of the last three books you bought or are in the process of reading. There is giant search bar at the top, which can find books in your library or on Amazon. Above the search bar is a downwards tab, this is where you can establish a WIFI connection, adjust screen brightness, turn the device into airplane mode, or sync.

Next to the search bar is a shopping cart icon and clicking on it brings you to the Amazon Bookstore, if you live in a supported country, the bookstore will have two tabs when its opened “Bookstore” and “Audiobook Store.” There are three little dots next the shopping icon, which brings up the settings menu. This is where the Goodreads link is, alongside many other options such as the settings menu, setting up the screen timeout, screensaver, and generation reading settings.

At the bottom of the UI is two options; home and library. Between, is a small piece of cover art of the last book you opened, clicking on it, allows you to jump right into the book, making it easier to jump into a story. The Library menu hasn’t changed much over the years, it lists the books you have on the device. You can sort them and make folder collections for better organization. Some people like cover view, but I like the list view for tons of books in your collection.

I believe Amazon has the most complete and best bookstore in the world. They have direct contracts with all the largest publishers. You will find all the same bestsellers, by well-known authors, that would be promoted in your local Barnes and Noble, Waterstones or Chapters Indigo. There is also a slew of content from small and mid-range publishers who specialize in one genre, such as TOR with fantasy and science fiction. Amazon has their own imprints, where they spend money and signup established and up-in-coming authors and publish the books themselves. There is also Kindle Direct Publishing, which allows anyone to publish and sell books on Amazon. If you like to read a lot, there is the Kindle Unlimited Program, where for a low monthly fee, you can read millions of comics, books, and manga. If you also have a kid that uses your device, there is the Kids+ subscription, which has family friendly content, from publishers like Disney. There is literary something for everyone on the Amazon bookstore and all sorts of optional programs. You will find more content on Amazon, than their rivals, such as Barnes and Noble Nook or Kobo.

Audible is one of Amazons secret weapons and something they have been leveraging on Kindle e-readers, starting with the 10th generation series and moving into the 11th and now 12th. They all had secret Bluetooth functionality and once paired with headphones or a wireless speaker allows you to listen to audiobooks right on the Kindle. The audiobook player is really polished. There are options to connect your Bluetooth device, adjust playback speed, from a wide array of settings. You can skip chapters, view chapters, look for similar audiobooks, see the cover art and more. If you have ever used the Audible app for Android or iOS, it is very similar. So, if you regularly listen on your phone, the same options are on the Kindle.

Reading

The Paperwhite 12th generation, supports books purchased from the bookstore, but with the right software and drivers you can sideload them too. Right out of the box, you need Android drivers on your computer and 3rd party software for the MAC. You can read ebooks in Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion. Audible audio format is (AAX), but you can’t sideload audiobooks on the Kindle, you need to buy them.

There is a profile section of the reading app, where you can save your settings. This includes lines spacing, margins font size, font type. You can share the Kindle with multiple family members and each one can have their custom settings. One of the features I dig about the e-reading experience is the ability to shut off things like time remaining in a chapter or what page you are on. Eliminating the status bar, or just giving the option to shut it off completely is truly excellent. You can configure this in the Aa menu. One of the best new features is the new page turn animation system. You can seamlessly blend pages, when flipping the page to another. This is a nice transitionary process, that is quite different than the Kindle app for Android or IOS, which have peak and turn animations. Speaking of page turns, this model has increased the speed by 20%, so they are even faster than the previous generation Paperwhite.

When reading a book, you can simply pinch and zoom to increase the size of the font. This is useful since you no longer must do this exclusively on the Aa menu. There are some options you can do while reading, such as long-pressing on a specific word or body of text. This will provide options, such as making a note, highlights, or annotations. You can lookup words in the built-in dictionary and checkout what Wikipedia says. The Kindle also uses Bing Translations on all their e-readers, so you can translate a specific word or a body of text from one language to another. If you highlight a block of text or a single word, instead of looking them up you can share them via Facebook, Twitter, GoodReads or Email.

This model has a page turn animation system. It is an option you can turn on, in the Aa menu. It seamlessly transitions each page into the next. It is very interesting way to go about this on an E INK screen. It blends everything really well, and is quite different from the Kindle app on your smartphone or tablet, which has a page curl effect, where you can peak on what’s on the next page. The 25% speed increase really makes this system more robust than ever before.

All Kindle models have a system called X-Ray. If you have never used it before, it basically breaks down people, places, and things. It will tell you all of the major and minor characters in the book and let you know on what page they were referenced and give a quick character biography. The Paperwhite 6 has an option in X-Ray called “Images” which will show you all of the images in a book you are reading. Most books just have cover art, but there are many genres such as autobiographies that have dozens.

The PDF experience is the best out of all the Paperwhites released in the past. When you load PDF files on the device it handles them like a champ. A small mini map with a screenshot of whatever page is displayed will be on the bottom right-hand corner. This will help orientate and display the exact positioning. Page turn speeds are noticeably diminished compared to an ebook, but Kindles really weren’t built to support the format in a meaningful way. Overall, there are a few notable features with PDF support. You can pinch and zoom to a piece of text, and you can highlight it, select specific words or a body of text. There is options to translate it to a foreign language or just lookup the definition from the dictionary. A slider bar will help lighten or darken the document, depending on if it a scanned PDF that might not have the right colour correction. With the 7-inch screen, they do look marginally better than the previous gen.

Sideloading in manga is a mixed bag, since most of the ones downloaded from the internet are CBZ/CBR, which are archives filed with images. Amazon sells manga in their own proprietary format, so the manga will fill the entire screen and does have added settings to increase the size and fonts. Buying manga always looks better on the Kindle than sideloading a scanlation or a janky PDF file.

Wrap Up

The Kindle Paperwhite 12th generation has many things going for it. The screen is a slight 0.2 inches larger than the previous version and this has upped the resolution. The speed is 25% faster, due to the Carta 1300 display panel and increase to the processor. If you are upgrading from the Kindle Paperwhite 11th generation to the 12th generation, the entire experience will not be very pronounced. However, if you don’t upgrade your Kindle with each generation and read on one that doesn’t get updates anymore, you will see a night and day difference.

The lighting system hasn’t really changed, the screen is as bright as ever, a system wide dark mode inverts the text from a white background and black text to a black background and white text. I never read like this, but some people like to. I don’t listen to audiobooks on my Kindle, I mainly just use my smartphone, which is always in my pocket, along with the Apple Airpods Pro 2. I like walking and listening to books I already read, instead of rereading the same book again. I find the audio experience gives me more immersion. I know some people do listen to audio on their Kindles, or else Amazon would just discontinue the entire system, like they have in so many other ways, like their magazine subscription hub.

The Kindle Paperwhite does offer some other benefits from its competitors, Prime Reading, gives you access to a few thousand titles, just for being a Prime subscriber. First Reads provides users with early first looks at new books coming out soon, but most are from Amazons own imprints, not many books or authors you have heard about before. Kindle Unlimited is where all of the digital magazines used to be as a standalone service, but the only way you can read them now is to subscribe. You also get over 100,000 books, comics and other digital content. I think its worth it to do a three month trial when Amazon runs them, since you can really test drive the service and see if its for you, before the defaults back to the normal price.