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Reviewing Kindles - Standard, Paperwhite, Signature, Oasis

2022-01-27 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 13:31 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech (also: Books and reading) · mode: Review and recommendation · tags: Sponsor segment present

Ali reviews Amazon's four Kindles of early 2022 and recommends the Kindle Paperwhite for most people, the standard Kindle for anyone on a budget, the Paperwhite Signature Edition only for tech nerds who want wireless charging, and no reason to buy the Kindle Oasis.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The four Kindles and the upfront verdict

00:01:17 — Why everyone should have a Kindle

  • ★★ Ali calls the Kindle his single favourite tech purchase of all time, with the AirPods second: both are life-changing pieces of tech. — 00:01:17 · Kindle, AirPods
  • ★★ A Kindle takes all the friction out of reading, Ali says: he carries one in his bag wherever he goes and keeps a second on his bedside table so he can read just before bed. — 00:01:17 · Kindle, friction
  • ★★ A Kindle makes buying books easy, Ali says: when someone recommends a book he buys it on Kindle at once for a few pounds, often cheaper than the physical book, and can read it immediately. — 00:01:47 · Kindle
  • ★ For nonfiction, Ali finds highlighting and taking notes useful, and says a Kindle makes highlighting books very easy. — 00:01:47 · Kindle

00:02:08 — The standard Kindle: price, micro USB, resolution, no warm light

  • ★★ The standard Kindle costs around £49 or $49, often less in sales, and Ali calls it by far the best value-for-money Kindle on the market. — 00:02:16 · Kindle
  • ★ Only the standard Kindle comes in white as well as black; Ali, who prefers white, would have bought a white Kindle Paperwhite or Paperwhite Signature. — 00:02:16 · Kindle
  • ★★ On every Kindle the reading experience is very good, Ali says: the only button is the power button, you tap the screen to turn pages, and it looks like reading on paper. — 00:02:16 · Kindle
  • ★★★ Even for a student on a tight budget, Ali calls the standard Kindle a no-brainer: it costs about as much as four or five takeaways, and the return of reading more books is huge. — 00:02:45 · Kindle
  • ★★ The standard Kindle charges by micro USB rather than USB-C, which Ali calls a nightmare: none of his other devices use micro USB, so finding a cable is hard. — 00:03:19 · Kindle
  • ★ When Ali used the Kindle Oasis, which also charges by micro USB, it now and then ran out of battery and he could not find a cable, and one night he could not get to sleep because he reads before bed. — 00:03:48 · Kindle
  • ★★ The standard Kindle's screen has about half the resolution of the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Oasis: 160 pixels per inch against 300. — 00:03:48 · Kindle
  • ★ Side by side the standard Kindle is a slightly less nice read than the Paperwhite, Ali says, but anyone who has only used the budget Kindle will be completely satisfied with it. — 00:04:17 · Kindle
  • ★★ All current Kindles have a backlight, but the standard Kindle has only a cool, blue light, while the Kindle Oasis and the Paperwhites also have a warm light. — 00:04:46 · Kindle
  • ★★ In his own n-of-one trial Ali has not noticed much difference in his sleep between a warm and a cold reading light, though he says the science apparently favours warm light. (hedged) — 00:05:16 · Kindle
  • ★★ For anyone on a budget who can live with its drawbacks, Ali recommends the standard Kindle 100% without reservation and says they will not regret buying it. — 00:05:16 · Kindle

00:05:40 — The Kindle Paperwhite and whether it is worth twice the price

  • ★★ The Kindle Paperwhite costs £104, basically twice the price of the standard Kindle. — 00:05:45 · Kindle
  • ★★ The Kindle Paperwhite's screen is very slightly bigger than the standard Kindle's and its resolution much better, which Ali counts among his favourite things about it: text looks smoother. — 00:06:06 · Kindle
  • ★★ The Kindle Paperwhite, Paperwhite Signature and Oasis are now all waterproof; waterproofing used to be what justified the much more expensive Kindle Oasis. — 00:06:35 · Kindle
  • ★★★ If £50 or $50 does not make much difference to your life, Ali thinks you will want to upgrade from the standard Kindle to the Paperwhite for its warm light, slightly bigger screen and higher resolution. — 00:07:04 · Kindle
  • ★ The Kindle Paperwhite's battery apparently lasts about 40% longer than the standard Kindle's, but Ali says Kindles are charged only every couple of weeks, so it makes little difference day to day. (hedged) — 00:07:04 · Kindle

00:07:34 — The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition: storage, auto light, wireless charging

  • ★★ Amazon charges an extra £75, or about $90, for the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition over the Paperwhite. (hedged) — 00:07:34 · Kindle, Amazon
  • ★★ The Kindle Paperwhite has 8 GB of storage by default, the Paperwhite Signature 32 GB. — 00:07:34 · Kindle
  • ★★ Extra Kindle storage matters little unless you read comic books or listen to audiobooks on the Kindle, Ali says: you are very unlikely to come close to even 8 GB. — 00:08:03 · Kindle
  • ★ The Paperwhite Signature's auto-adjusting front light is not something you notice, Ali says; adjusting the light by hand is easy, and he has adjusted his normal Paperwhite's light only once, when he first got it. — 00:08:32 · Kindle
  • ★★ Wireless charging is the third difference between the Kindle Paperwhite and the Paperwhite Signature, and the reason Ali bought the Signature. — 00:08:32 · Kindle
  • ★ Ali thinks the wireless charger for the Kindle Paperwhite Signature, made by Anker rather than Amazon, cost about £30 or £40. (hedged) — 00:09:03 · Kindle, Amazon
  • ★★ Ali was happy to pay an extra £75 for the Kindle Paperwhite Signature: his Kindle lives on its wireless charger on his bedside table, so it never runs out of battery, and the charger makes the table look good. — 00:09:03 · Kindle
  • ★★★ Ali would recommend the Kindle Paperwhite Signature only to a massive tech nerd who does not care what they spend on tech: paying twice as much just for wireless charging is probably not worth it when the Paperwhite charges by USB-C. — 00:09:44 · Kindle
  • ★★★ For most people Ali recommends the normal Kindle Paperwhite, or the standard Kindle for anyone on a budget; his own Paperwhite Signature with a wireless charger is not what he would recommend to most people. — 00:10:14 · Kindle

00:10:30 — The Kindle Oasis

  • ★★★ The Kindle Oasis used to be a reasonable option for its warm light and waterproofing, but now that the Paperwhite has both, Ali would not recommend it unless you really like its physical design and buttons. — 00:10:43 · Kindle
  • ★★ Ali used the Kindle Oasis for about a year and genuinely prefers the Paperwhite: he does not like the Oasis design, which is not easier to hold or to read. — 00:10:43 · Kindle
  • ★★ The Kindle Oasis charges only by micro USB, not even USB-C, so Ali finds it genuinely hard to charge. — 00:11:12 · Kindle

00:11:41 — Giving the Kindles to his team, sponsor read and sign-off

  • ★ Ali's Kindle Oasis cost about £230. — 00:11:41 · Kindle
  • ★ Of the five Kindles he has, Ali keeps two and gives three to team members, now that a team helps him with the YouTube channel and the courses his business runs. — 00:11:41 · Kindle

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Asked in a comment whether he ever reviewed the reMarkable tablet, Ali replies that he has one and is not a fan. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Kindle

Also: AirPods · Amazon · Anker

Only in the description or credits: reMarkable 2

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