My Kindle Paperwhite second generation arrived today so I decided to take a moment to share my thoughts.  My initial reaction is that this second generation of Amazon’s popular eInk eReader is more evolutionary than revolutionary.  The improvements to the screen and processor, while noticeable, are not overwhelmingly so.  I, personally, was not particularly bothered by some light shading at the bottom of the screen, but I know that many people are sensitive to this.  That is improved considerably on the second generation of Paperwhite.

Here are some screenshots:

The new Kindle is on the right.  The new version does seem to have a warmer sense about it.

and with the new Kobo Aura

The new combined Dictionary/X-Ray/Wikipedia screen seems really useful:

(Note – the shading at the top of that screenshot is not a faulty screen – it’s decorative shading on the book itself)

Probably the most useful is the new page scrolling function – you can now move about easily within a book with a new navigation tool.  

The feature that I am most excited about, GoodReads integration, isn’t yet here – it is “coming soon” via software update.  This takes me back a few years when we were all anxiously awaiting the update that brought Collections to our eInk Kindles! I’m curious though.  Amazon’s Paperwhite info page says Cloud Collections is also coming soon – I thought we already had that on the Paperwhites? I wonder if they’re doing something new or if it’s referring to the Kindle Fires.

All in all the new Paperwhite is a very nice device – I’m not 100% certain that it’s worth upgrading from the original Paperwhite, which was already excellent, especially if it also gets a software update to allow GoodReads integration and the other new features.  As a first eReader though, it’s hard to beat.