A few months ago the charging port on my Kindle Paperwhite 3, which is about five years old, started to get loose, making it hard to charge it. In early November, just after Amazon announced the Kindle Paperwhite 4, it reached the point where I couldn't charge it at all, so I ordered one of the new Kindles. What follows are some thoughts on the Paperwhite 4 after using it for a month. It's not a full review; for that you can see this post on the eBook Reader blog.
First, this is very much an incremental upgrade over the Paperwhite 3. It's almost the same size, the screen is a bit brighter and more evenly lit, and it's a bit lighter. The screen is one piece of glass, flush with the bezels, which are smaller. It's waterproof and has Bluetooh so you can listen to Audible audiobooks (although sadly, there is no text to speech capability).
There is a new home screen format, which I don't like, and I have gone back to the old format. Books bought from Amazon have new typesetting controls, including variable boldness, and justification can be turned off (if the publisher supports that). The screen is now 300 dpi, but I haven't noticed any real difference from the older Kindle.
I have found the new reader to be a bit harder to hold, because the case I got (one of Amazon's) is more slippery than the old one. The narrower bezels mean that it's easier to turn the page by mistake. Other than that, there's not much difference from the Paperwhite 3.
If you're happy with your earlier Kindle, the Paperwhite 4 doesn't offer any compelling reasons to upgrade, nor does it offer anything much over the current Kobo ereaders. Amazon is spinning its wheels with this update. It's a perfectly adequate device, but it could have been more.
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