Amazon Kindle Paperwhite: First Impressions + Photos

I’ll be reviewing the new Kindle Paperwhite in the next week, but I wanted to provide a few first impressions and photos first. Long story short, it looks like Amazon has fixed the problems I had with this device’s predecessor, the Kindle Touch, though a few bright spots on the Paperwhite’s screen have me concerned.

I’ll spend some serious time with the Paperwhite through the weekend, and I’m particularly interested in how the built-in light works in bed in the dark, since this is a key usage scenario for the device, and a weak link for reading with a traditional tablet like the Kindle Fire HD or iPad.

In just some short testing, however, I’m not super happy by what are clearly extra-bright spots on the bottom part of the Paperwhite’s screen. They’re very noticeable, and it’s not clear yet whether they will detract from the reading experience.

Performance of the device’s touch screen is surprisingly excellent. The home screen has been changed to be somewhat like that of the Kindle Fire HD, with a “recommendations” area eating up onscreen real estate that I feel should be dedicated to your own content. I’d like to be able to pay to remove that little feature.

More soon. In the meantime, here are some initial photos.