As has been the case for years, Amazon sloooowwwwly adds new changes and features to the Kindle. This one is no exception. If you've used a Kindle in the past, you're not going to notice much of a change with this one, but since there are some minor upgrades and so forth, I'll briefly go over them:

*** SCREEN ***

The new Kindle is touchscreen and has the typical matte finish with the slightly gray/off-white paper looking background. It's certainly not bright white, but it's also not LCD looking (dark gray.) It does NOT have buttons for page-turning as the older generations do. If you simply must have the page-turning buttons, please search for the older Kindles that offer that. One last thing regarding the screen: this is not a Kindle PaperWhite or Voyage where you have a back-lit screen... this has an unlit, off-white Kindle screen. I will say, the text is noticeably crisper and bolder than I've seen with previous generation Kindles and I believe that's because Amazon is using E-Ink's new "Carta" displays instead of the previously used "Pearl" displays. I love that and have been waiting for years for E-Ink, the Taiwan based company that makes the Kindle screens for Amazon, to improve them. It looks like they're finally getting it!

The new Kindle's screen resolution is 167 ppi which is slightly lower than the Kindle PaperWhite which is 212 ppi, and substantially lower than the Kindle Voyage which boasts an impressive 300 ppi (individual pixels at this density can not be distinguished by the naked eye.) Price-wise though, the base model PaperWhite runs $99 at the time of this review, and the Voyage base model runs $199 so you can see, the more you pay, the better the resolution and features. 167 ppi is fine though... in fact, most webpages are 72 dpi to give you a comparison.

*** SPECIAL OFFERS OR NOT ***

Like other Kindles, you have the choice of purchasing one with "special offers" which is simply a marketing tactic Amazon uses, which, although some people may find annoying, I actually like as it recommends books that I'm actually interested in versus random crap I'd never buy.

*** ON-BOARD STORAGE AND PROCESSOR SPEED ***

One upgrade the new Kindle has is the amount of on-board storage which now allows you to hold thousands of books and of course, it also comes with a slightly faster processor which Amazon claims is 20% faster although honestly, I don't notice the increase in speed. Pages turn quickly and that's all that really matters to me speed-wide. The on-board storage is 4GB, although you also have unlimited access to the Amazon Cloud so there really shouldn't be any worries about storage.

*** BATTERY LIFE ***

Even going back a few years, the Kindle Paper White bragged about a battery that lasted a week versus a day. For very casual reading, that was true with the Paper White although with regular daily use, it was more like 4 days or so, not a week. The new Kindle has a similar claim in that the battery lasts weeks, not days; that appears to be true. You can easily go two weeks with casual reading and most of that is attributed to the fact that there is no on-board light draining the battery.

*** WI-FI CAPABILITY (NOT 3G!)

Books are downloaded quickly through WiFi, usually in less than 30 seconds, and definitely under a minute, unless you have really crappy internet service. THIS IS NOT 3G so you CANNOT download books unless you have access to WiFi. I have never found this a problem as I download my books at home in advance of leaving for a trip or something. Besides, nearly every McDonalds, Starbucks, and hundreds of other retailers and restaurants now offer free WiFi so if you simply must download that book while travelling, go park in a McDonalds parking lot and download the book. It's not worth paying the extra money for the 3G access, especially when it oftentimes raises the product price by $50 or more.

*** DICTIONARY AND HIGHLIGHTING FEATURES ***

Like all new Kindles, the touchscreen has some major advantages, one being that you can click on a word you don't know and pull up the dictionary to learn what it means. Also, you have the option of turning on the "highlight" feature where you can highlight important text AND see what areas of text others have highlighted the most. For someone reading a book for research purposes (writing a paper, review, etc.), this is a nice feature as the parts of the book people find most helpful are usually highlighted, alerting you to its importance.

*** AMAZON PRIME BENEFITS ***

As is the case with all Kindles, subscribing to the Amazon Prime service is going to give you a lot of bang for your buck as you can "borrow" thousands of books for free, and also get special pricing on some items.

*** ACCESS TO YOUR BOOKS ***

Books are stored in the cloud and are accessible by any Kindle device registered to you, as well as from your home computer which gives you plenty of options for reading. Some people use a Kindle PaperWhite or Voyage in bed because of the backlight (as I do) and then have another Kindle that they use for daytime reading. Very rarely do I use my home computer to read the books but it is a nice feature to have for some people.

*** If this review has helped you in any way, please let me know. You can also post comments or ask questions in the comments section below. I try my hardest to include all the important information about the product to help you make an informed purchasing decision and feel comfortable with your purchase. Thank you for taking the time to read my review! ***