One of the changes with the new 6.8″ Kindle Paperwhite that Amazon released in 2021 is improved battery life compared to previous models.
Amazon claims the new Kindle Paperwhite’s battery can last up to 10 weeks on a single charge, based on reading for 30 minutes a day with wireless turned off and the frontlight set to 13.
Based on the same parameters, Amazon’s estimate for the previous generation Kindle Paperwhite 4 was 6 weeks, so a four week increase is rather significant. The Paperwhite 3 was also rated at 6 weeks, but with the light set to 10. The Paperwhite 2’s estimate was 8 weeks with its lower resolution 212 ppi screen.
Since everyone uses their Kindle differently, it would be interesting to hear other people’s take on the new Kindle Paperwhite’s battery life.
How long does your Kindle’s battery last between charges?
To me the new Paperwhite’s battery does indeed seem to last a really long time, but sometimes I have a difficult time judging battery life because I usually jump back and forth between different devices, and with E Ink ereaders there’s just no good way to scientifically measure battery life. I’ve tried keeping track before, reading X amount of minutes per day, but it’s just too time consuming and there are too many variables involved, and I don’t think battery life meters are 100% accurate or linear across the full range.
One thing to note, Kindle batteries will drain a lot faster if you add a bunch of new content all at one time because Kindles index everything for faster searches and that takes a lot of processing power initially until everything gets indexed. Kindles can also sometimes get stuck indexing an ebook and battery life will keep draining quicker than normal.
Probably the biggest complaint against the Kindle Oasis over the years has been its poor battery life. Thankfully Amazon improved battery life on the 6.8″ Kindle Paperwhite.
If you want to get the most out of your Kindle’s battery, see this earlier post with 8 Tips to Extend Battery Life on Kindles.
I am getting really great battery life out of my PW5, I read on average about 4 hours a day. And I can go a month without charging, I don’t turn off the Wifi but I keep the screen at 9 or 10. I also use as much of the screen as possible for text, and I have the bold at 2 with font size of 6.
Seems really good. Especially compared to Oasis.
However, the lat time I charged it up…. it seemed like the first 10% went faster than expected…then slowed down. I could be totally wrong. I may have indexed in that time period…I don’t remember. All in all Very happy with it.
I also use a Voyage that I got used (When I’m not Home)…. And, man! I love that screen. The color gradient isn’t as bad as others that I’ve seen…so, it’s a beautiful display.
Interesting you would mention that because I was just doing a test with the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition and the wireless charging dock that Amazon sells for it, and it charged really fast at first, adding 22% in just 15 minutes, but it started to slow down once the battery hit 80% and then it slowed down even more when it hit 90%. It took 20 minutes to go from 90% to 99%.
Yeah… I’ve noticed that too. Takes forever to go all the way to 100. Supposedly that helps the battery.
I see where my comment was confusing…. I meant, after charging it, the first 10% or so seemed to drain quicker than expected (with normal use)….then slowed down around 89%. I could be totally wrong…but, that was the way it felt, casually. Like I said, I might have downloaded something, and there was indexing going on.
The time from when I initially received the kindle, and charged it…. to when I charged it the second time seemed very long. almost 2 months.
I don’t have the SE and when I have to charge it is over night. But it normally shows 99% and not 100%. And yes it seem the from 99% down to 90% goes faster than from there on.
Thanks for the confirmation.
I mean, this is the typical modern “fast charge” for lithium batteries, most prominently shown with cell phones. I’m glad Amazon has brought this type of battery charging over to Kindles.
It is, and this is a totally scientific measurement: light-years better than my Oasis 2 ever was. Particularly by the end, when my Oasis would discharge 10% if I even looked at it funny.
That’s the reason I decided to buy a PW5, my Oasis kept leaving me without juice to read while on a beach vacation late last year, even though I left it on a charger overnight every night.
I love the PW5. I read at least 30-6o minutes a day on it, and I’ve charged it once since I got it 12/20/21. And that one time was because it had dipped to a whopping 58%.
I’ve got the wireless dock on order and once that arrives and becomes the nightly landing place for the PW5, I honestly don’t expect to ever have to consciously think about charging it until it’s battery starts to well and truly die years from now. Whereas, both of my Oasises (the first and the second gen), I was worrying about battery life even when they were brand-new.
And I feel like the screen looks even better than the Oasis’, even though it’s slightly smaller and has less frontlights. It’s an outstanding screen. And the UI is faster across the board.
It’s really a great device.
PS: The charging slowdown over 80% is absolutely a battery preservation tactic and is on-purpose on Amazon’s behalf.
According to the Wikipedia page on Kindles, the PW5 has a massive 1700 mAh battery compared to the 1000 mAh battery for the Oasis 2. The CPU in both is the same so this pretty much explains the increase in battery life.
Wow! This is the first time I see someone mentioning the mAh capacity of the PW5 battery; I expected a bump (from 1500 mAh) based on the “now 10 weeks of battery life” claims from Amazon and the capacity increase is a welcome one. I hope someone does a teardown of the device and confirms the capacity.
I have an old Voyage and a Forma (1200 mAh), and had been considering the Sage but the battery life complaints (1200 mAh, better CPU) led me to go with PW5.
Lou Sevens here-I am extremely pleased so far with the battery. I will do an analysis of how long it takes to drop 10% and follow up. Of the all the Kindles I have had it is noticeable.
Also I use it with I believe a a Cobat dark bluer case that has a nautica type themed cover- it is a nice contrast for reading.
– I am actually probably going to ubreakifix to process my trade in- for the 2017 oasis and 2018 PW- those will likely be an even wash for another 2021 PW5-
– I had 2 bad PW5 units- I don’t if having it download all 650 of my books in one day hurt the battery/hard drive but it shouldn’t have as the other prior models did this with no problem.
Now I just pull the books off as I need them.
OT- for black friday i did get a 2019 Oasis- i do have a battery improvement over the 2017 one.
I recently bought Kindle Paperwhite 11th Gen 2021. However, when I unboxed it and charged till 95% and started using it. But soon after 2 days of it it dropped to 69% that with less than 1 hour of reading. So approximately 2 hours of reading in 2 days it reduced to 69% from 95%. Power saver is on.
Any suggestions how to improve it or should I get replacement?
See here: Kindle Indexing, Battery Drain, and Tips.