The New Amazon Kindle Paperwhite E-Reader

Amazon has launched its new Paperwhite e-reader in good time for the festive season gift giving (and gift buying) bonanza. It has also proclaimed it as "the world's most advanced e-reader".

Whilst that may be something of a bold claim, it's just possible that Amazon may be right. The Paperwhite is probably more evolutionary than revolutionary, but it does seem likely to be more than enough to confirm Amazon's number one position in the ebook reader market for the foreseeable future.

The most obvious enhancements are in the area of the display. The Paperwhite has more pixels, for higher contrast and a crisper reading experience. It also has its own on-board light so that Kindle users, in addition to being able to read in bright sunlight, will be able to read in pitch darkness as well.

The Kindle Paperwhite uses low energy light emitting diodes (LEDs), together with a light guide, to shed light only where it is actually needed. This means that, even with the light on, the Paperwhite has a low power requirement and will go for up to 8 weeks on a single battery charge (based upon half an hour's reading as a daily average).

Here are the key characteristics of the Kindle Paperwhite:

• Special light illuminates screen evenly. Read in dimly lit conditions. The light is adjustable to cater for different ambient lighting.
• Improved display resolution thanks to a 62% increase in the number of pixels.
• 25% sharper contrast.
• Paperwhite background for a great reading experience.
• 2GB onboard memory. Enough room to store 1,100 books.
• Free cloud storage for all of your Amazon content.
• Small and portable. Dimensions are 6.7" X 4.6" X 0.36". Weight is just 7.5 oz for the wi-fi model and 7.8 oz for the 3G version.
• 8 weeks between battery charges (even with the light on). that's based upon an average of 30 minutes use each day.
• Access Amazon's huge library of ebooks - including over 1.8 million out-of-copyright books that can be downloaded for free.
• Download a new book in under a minute.
• Additional support for children's books. Allows comics to be read frame by frame.
• Parental controls now included, so that you can be sure your kids are using their Kindle safely.

Amazon has, quite understandably, made quite a fuss about the Paperwhite's new features. However, there are a couple of things missing (or pared down) from the earlier top of the range Kindles.

For example, the ability to play audio files, mp3s and audio books is no longer present. Most users won't miss this - but be aware that it no longer exists.

The memory on the old Kindle Touch was 4GB. The Paperwhite has "only" 2GB. That's still enough for 1,100 books, which should be plenty for 99.99% of Kindle users. In the unlikely event that you need more memory, Amazon provides free cloud storage for all Amazon bought content.