Amazon has some really good deals on “like-new” Kindle Paperwhites again, and even the upgraded Signature Edition model is included this time around. Amazon has had the base Paperwhite on sale a couple of times at this price, but this is the first time I’ve seen the Signature Edition priced this low.
For a limited time, Amazon has the Like-New Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition on sale for $126.99. All three colors are available at that price. The SE in new condition normally sells for $199.99 so that’s a pretty significant discount.
Amazon also has the standard Like-New Kindle Paperwhite available for $106.99, and all three colors are available for it as well. This is the third time in the past month and a half Amazon has put these on sale so they must have a lot of them to get rid of.
The Signature Edition is the better deal if you want a Kindle without screensaver ads. It’s ad-free by default and it costs an extra $20 to get rid of the ads on the base Paperwhite so you’re literally getting the upgrades for free at that point. The SE shows either book covers or random images on the sleep screen instead of advertisements. The ad-supported model also forces you to swipe the screen to get past the ad every time you turn your Kindle on, while the ad-free version goes directly back to your book (or wherever you left off).
The SE adds wireless charging, an auto-brightness sensor, and it has double the storage space at 32GB. It also adds the option to advance pages by double-tapping the sides or back of the Kindle, which the base Paperwhite lacks.
These like-new Kindles come with the same 1-year warranty as new Kindles, and Amazon says they fully test them (whatever that means). They used to call these certified refurbished Kindles, but apparently “like-new” sounds better.
The 12th gen Paperwhite is still less than a year old so these refurbished or like-new Kindles are a pretty safe bet. It’s a frontlight lottery with this generation either way, so you might as well spend less for the same product.
Being able to get an SE Paperwhite for $126.99 is a bargain. Amazon is still selling the previous gen SE Kindle Paperwhite for more than that at $169.99 in “like-new” condition, and the standard model is $134.99. Even the current “like-new” basic Kindle is $98.99, which is only $11 less than a new one. The standard Paperwhite is a much better deal at $106.99.
One interesting thing about this is I’ve yet to see Amazon selling like-new Kindles Colorsofts. The Colorsoft was released at the same time as the Paperwhite. What are they doing with all the returned Colorsofts?
In my head cannon Amazon was sending back defective units for a screen swap and sending them back out when people placed a request for a replacement. Another reason I could think is a possibility is that the Amazon colorsoft screen has had a hardware improvement since the yellow bottom issue and is in limited stock so it’s been allocated to newly made units not old ones they’d repair and sell as refurbs.
I also don’t believe the initial yellow bottom issue could be “fixed” with just software. It was something in the hardware stack that was defective too.
If the Colorsoft is just a Paperwhite with a color screen filter, is it possible to remove the filter and repackage it as a Paperwhite? I do think it’s a hardware issue as the newer Colorsoft models have hardware revisions, but maybe without the color screen, the yellow bar wouldn’t be noticeable? Maybe the bar would now just be a mild shadow, explained away by lighting differences between models.