Latest Frontlit Kindle On Sale for $59; Paperwhite Covers on Sale Too

Amazon has put the latest generation Kindle on sale for only $59.99, which ties the all-time lowest price for that particular model.

It’s available in black or white and you can also get 3 months of Kindle Unlimited for free with the purchase of the Kindle.

It’s not very often that Amazon has the base Kindle on sale and not the Kindle Paperwhite, but the Paperwhite is entirely out of stock at the moment so that explains why it’s not on sale too.

However, covers are on sale for the latest Paperwhite model.

The best deal is the Kindle Paperwhite Premium Leather Cover that’s on sale at 39% off the regular price.

Amazon also has the Paperwhite Water-Safe Fabric Cover marked down by 23%.

Gift subscriptions for Kindle Unlimited are still 20%-40% off as well. And Amazon’s 2-months free offer is still active until the end of the month too.

There’s also the Spend $20 on Kindle eBooks, Get $5 eBook Credit deal ongoing for a few more days.

Woot has some refurbished Kindles for cheap again too. The Voyage is $69 and the Paperwhite 3 is $59. Both are better than the current base Kindle if you don’t mind having an older model that’s refurbished instead of new.

Kindle Sale

tired says

May 27, 2020 at 8:00 am

167 ppi despite having a slightly lower number is actually much worse than 212 ppi. When the Kindle Paperwhite launched after having nothing but 167 ppi, the Paperwhite looked revelatory in its 212 ppi crispness. The 265 ppi of the Kobo Aura HD and the 300 ppi of the Kindle Voyage were diminishing returns (but still observably better).

On older Kindles the UI was clearly designed for the lower resolution and it doesn’t look nearly as bad as the current Kindle Basic. The UI was made for the Paperwhite 3-4 and the premium models which all have 300 ppi while the same UI was shoved onto the basic. To be more specific:

1. The text underneath the top icons (home, back, settings etc.) are nearly illegible,
2. The thumbnails on cover view are of very poor quality, and same comment applies to the default homescreen,
3. The progress on the bottom is nearly illegible,
4. Only slab serif and sans serif fonts like Caecilia and Helvetica render correctly on low resolution displays at all font settings, but the default font is Bookerly which is a serif font!
5. The font rendering on Good Reads and Kindle store reviews are exceptionally small perhaps inappropriate for the basic.

If you look at say the Kindle 4 NT instead it has
1. Menus with large easy to read options,
2. Only has list view of books, and the cover view is selected per book where it shows an image larger than a thumbnail,
3. A progress bar on the bottom,
4. Caecilia is the font which was designed and employed by Amazon for low resolution, low contrast screens since it is a slab serif font,
5. I’m not going to pretend that the store experience is better, it is not.

Now some of that is user configurable, but my point still stands. They designed the UI on older Kindles knowing the disadvantage of the screen. On modern Kindles they really don’t care how it looks as long as they don’t have to make and maintain a different UI from the Paperwhite and Oasis models. If you look at a Kindle 4 it looks simple yet elegant. If you look at the Kindle 10 it looks like someone smeared Vaseline all over a Paperwhite 3.

And I can’t imagine they save any money manufacturing these low res screens when Eink creates far more 300 ppi screens. But at least it finally has a frontlight.

Comments

Kevin Burke says

May 26, 2020 at 8:44 am

The refurbished kindles seem like the better deal because 167 PPI is just too crappy for 2020 technology.

I had a Kobo Aura Edition 2 and the PPI was 212 and I can tell the difference with my current 300 PPI Kobo Libra H20 so 167 PPI must be even more crappy, logically.
- tired says
  
  May 27, 2020 at 8:00 am
  
  167 ppi despite having a slightly lower number is actually much worse than 212 ppi. When the Kindle Paperwhite launched after having nothing but 167 ppi, the Paperwhite looked revelatory in its 212 ppi crispness. The 265 ppi of the Kobo Aura HD and the 300 ppi of the Kindle Voyage were diminishing returns (but still observably better).
  
  On older Kindles the UI was clearly designed for the lower resolution and it doesn’t look nearly as bad as the current Kindle Basic. The UI was made for the Paperwhite 3-4 and the premium models which all have 300 ppi while the same UI was shoved onto the basic. To be more specific:
  
  1. The text underneath the top icons (home, back, settings etc.) are nearly illegible,
  2. The thumbnails on cover view are of very poor quality, and same comment applies to the default homescreen,
  3. The progress on the bottom is nearly illegible,
  4. Only slab serif and sans serif fonts like Caecilia and Helvetica render correctly on low resolution displays at all font settings, but the default font is Bookerly which is a serif font!
  5. The font rendering on Good Reads and Kindle store reviews are exceptionally small perhaps inappropriate for the basic.
  
  If you look at say the Kindle 4 NT instead it has
  1. Menus with large easy to read options,
  2. Only has list view of books, and the cover view is selected per book where it shows an image larger than a thumbnail,
  3. A progress bar on the bottom,
  4. Caecilia is the font which was designed and employed by Amazon for low resolution, low contrast screens since it is a slab serif font,
  5. I’m not going to pretend that the store experience is better, it is not.
  
  Now some of that is user configurable, but my point still stands. They designed the UI on older Kindles knowing the disadvantage of the screen. On modern Kindles they really don’t care how it looks as long as they don’t have to make and maintain a different UI from the Paperwhite and Oasis models. If you look at a Kindle 4 it looks simple yet elegant. If you look at the Kindle 10 it looks like someone smeared Vaseline all over a Paperwhite 3.
  
  And I can’t imagine they save any money manufacturing these low res screens when Eink creates far more 300 ppi screens. But at least it finally has a frontlight.
  - D says
    
    May 28, 2020 at 11:24 am
    
    I have a Kinde Touch and the newest Kindle Basic (and some 212 ppi Kobo ereaders). I agree that everything outside of reading an actual (text-only) book looks like hot garbage. I do find personally that serif fonts, in the book-reading and at point 3 and above, look very good so I can see why they stuck with it, assuming these older screens are cheaper to stick in there. The reading is great! The navigating stinks. I still like my basic Kindle quite a bit.

Reader Interactions

Comments