Kindle (2019 release) - Now with a Built-in Front Light - White

I made the mistake of replacing my 2012 Paperwhite with the latest generation and every night I felt like throwing it into the wall and splintering it into a thousand pieces. The user interface was horrible and with no raised border I was always drifting a finger over the edge of the screen and fanning through the pages. I finally had enough and returned it for the basic Kindle.That reader arrived today and it feels just like home again. The basic Kindle has all the features of the 2012 model with the addition of being able to pinch to zoom the text. The "print" quality is just fine. I don't read any graphic novels, magazines, or newspapers on my Kindle so I don't need the higher resolution to be able to see illustrations in higher quality. The LED lighting is every bit as good as the original Paperwhite. The only feature I really appreciated on the latest generation Paperwhite was the ability to display the current time at the top of the screen. I am a late-night reader and having the time handy keeps me from reading until dawn. I know I can still crank my neck around to look at a clock, but it was a nice treat to be able to just glance at the top of the screen.The other advantage of the basic Kindle is during the initial setup, it syncs up your library and doesn't give you that two-part option of seeing you entire library or what has been downloaded to the reader.I read through the negative reviews and don't find a single one valid. I think that the folks that are experiencing low battery life are probably not putting it in the Airplane mode. The Paperwhite has a longer battery life but if it is not put in the Airplane mode it will die pretty fast as well.As far as the memory space goes, I had one of the very first Kindles with either 2 or 4 gigs of memory and even with my large library, I never got close to filling it. And by the way, if it does start getting too full, just remove the books you have already read. They will just revert back to the online Amazon cloud for storage and you can retrieve them anytime you want to read them again.The bottom line...this is a budget-friendly basic reader that has all the advantages of the Paperwhite with none of the aggregation. Maybe it's not waterproof, but having owned Kindles since they first came out, I have never once gotten one so wet that it caused a problem. Don't pay for more Ereader than you need.EDIT 5/15/2020 Two nights of reading on the basic Kindle reader and I don't notice any difference between it and the Gen 7 Paperwhite. The battery life seems to be comparable and the best of the updates to the latest generation of the Paperwhite have been incorporated into this new basic model. I don't notice any difference in the screen resolution. I guess if I had compared both with a magnifying glass it might be noticeable...who knows.It took hours to incorporate my library into the Paperwhite since there were two pages you had to flip between. One page displayed all the books in your library. If you wanted one of the books in your library you had to select it and then it would transfer over to the Downloaded page. The basic Kindle shows the library and if you click on a book it just downloads it and highlights it on the same page. Everything that has been completed shows up as Read.So far I haven't found a single thing that I dislike about the basic reader and it doesn't have a single thing on it I hated about the latest Paperwhite. If you feel like you just have to have a Paperwhite then I would suggest you search Amazon for the Gen 7 or Gen 8. If you can't find them there you can still get Gen 8 Paperwhites listed as in NEW condition from Ebay.UPDATE Aug. 3, 2020: My Kindle reader is still functioning perfectly and I still love it, however, over the last day or so the mysterious crack in the case seen in the photos has materialized. I can't figure how how it happened since the reader is constantly kept in the case and spends most of the time in a nightstand by the bed. I read it for a hour or more every evening and naturally connect it to the charger when needed. It has NEVER been dropped or handled roughly so I have absolutely no idea what caused the case to crack.Has anyone else experienced something like this with your reader?

It's now 2025 and this kindle is going strong. I've had no issues with it. It's small enough to go into my bag, hold with one hand to read, and even has a dyslexia font that makes it easier for me. Downloading books is at the push of a button. Won't upgrade until I have to and that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon.

Love my Kindles. This is my purse kindle. Perfect size. Not heavy and works wherever I need it. Love being able to adjust the print and backlighting. Nothing compares to size and weight of the kindle.

The media could not be loaded. This is my first kindle. I've been a "love the feeling of the page turning" kind of gal forever. But lately I've noticed I'm reading less and it's because transporting books is difficult. They're big/heavy, so you have to limit your selections. Whichever one I pick to bring somewhere often ends up being the one I don't want to read and instead I wish I brought the other ones. My love of reading surpasses my love of feeling the page turning. So I began thinking about an e-reader.During prime day, these go on sale so I got this model, the cheapest and most basic one, just to try it out. I'll say that the kindle subscription is actually fairly nice, and when setting up the kindle, take advantage of the free trial (whether or not you choose to continue it, it's nice to have for free). My trial is 3 months long, but I believe this varies depending on the current deals. I also got a month free for audible with two book credits, even though I'm not a new member to audible. I thought this was really cool, and all these free trials/books nearly offset the cost of the kindle.So far I love this kindle. It's REALLY lightweight, which I appreciate. It's responsive. When the kindle is in sleep mode, you can choose to have the book you're currently reading as the sleep mode Lock Screen, which is a thoughtful touch and makes it feel more book-like.The screen is truly anti-glare. I live in Alaska and it's summer so the sun is about 10ft away from me around 4pm. And still no glare. The anti-glare screen also does have a nice feel, reminiscent of paper.Turning the kindle on takes no more than a few seconds. It's not instant like most devices now, but it's by no means slow.Also while reading you can look up words, which is a nice feature to have while reading more difficult texts and expanding your vocabulary.Lastly a pro that has to be mentioned is that you can borrow library ebooks/audiobooks from the app libby, and send them to your kindle. These books are free and will return on their own once your reservation period is up. There's wait times for some so leave notifications on so you don't miss the books you've waited months for.All of this is in other reviews so I'll skip to the downsides of this basic model.1) there's no dark mode. I didn't even think about this not being a feature when I ordered. I wrongfully assumed that by now, all new devices would have dark mode. But this device does not. There will only be white page with black text. I've read about dark mode with e-readers and overall even devices with the dark mode feature leave the user wanting more. I guess the anti-glare screen technology makes it difficult to also have a crisp/clear dark mode? But I'm no expert, this is just what I've seen in my research.Now although there's no dark mode, I do find that I can read this at night in bed in the dark. The brightness levels can be turned down so low that it's not straining on the eyes. The lower brightness settings also seem to have a warmer tone to the white background which is helpful when reading at night also.2) if you do anything but read, the navigation is fairly slow and not intuitive. this device is great as an e-reader, that's what it was built for is to only load a page once in a while. loading web graphics quickly? not so much. the video I've attached shows a reference of the navigation while reading & turning pages.TL;DR this is a very simple e-reader but has all the things to make it a great one.