Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition review: The upgrade is worth the money

The The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, despite the fancy name, is a simple device. It’s exactly the same as the new, fifth-generation Kindle Paperwhite, but costs $50 more and has four upgrades: 32GB of memory (up from 8GB), wireless charging, an auto-adjusting front light, and no ads.

Since we’ve already established that the standard Paperwhite is an excellent e-reader, the focus of this review is simple: To see if these four improvements are worth the extra money.

A very good e-reader

My colleague Alex Perry reviewed the regular fifth-generation Paperwhite, but here are my basic impressions (coming from someone whose primary e-reader before now was a second-generation Paperwhite).

The new Paperwhite is just the right size and fit perfectly in my hand. It’s also beach-ready, with an IPX8 rating, which is a big deal to me, especially compared to my iPad mini, which officially isn’t waterproof at all.

I only have one beef with the design of the device and that is the fact that Amazon moved the power button to the bottom from the top, which took some getting used to. (It’s worth noting that this change happened in a previous iteration of the Paperwhite.)

The new Paperwhite is much faster than my old model, but it could be even faster, especially when navigating menus. The battery lasts forever and having a USB-C port instead of the old microUSB connector is a blessing.

So what do you get for that extra $50?

One thing you won’t get on this Kindle is ads. Compared to ads on some other devices, ads on Kindle aren’t that annoying, but I still prefer zero ads on something I paid for. You can remove the ads from the base Kindle model for an extra $20, but the price difference between the two is just $30, which means you should really consider the other extras you get with the Signature Edition.

You know what they say about memory: More is always better. That said, unless you’re a voracious reader or constantly send a stack of magazines to your Kindle, you won’t need more than 8GB. The Kindle Paperwhite SE has 32GB, which is overkill, but it’s comforting to know you’ll never have to worry about storage.

Whether you’ll find wireless charging worthwhile depends entirely on whether you routinely use it in other scenarios. All Kindles have long battery life, so you won’t be charging them very often. I have wireless chargers in my car and scattered around the house, so being able to throw my Kindle on top of them and charge it is a nice, if marginal, improvement.

Fun fact: I tried charging the Kindle Paperwhite SE using Apple’s MagSafe magnetic charger for iPhone, and not only does it work, but the charger sticks (albeit just barely) to the Kindle like it does to the iPhone. Pretty great.

The screen, automated

The last big improvement to the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is the screen.

The 6.8-inch, 300 ppi screen is crisp, sharp, beautiful and won’t tire your eyes even after long reading sessions. The bezels on the sides and top of the device are much smaller than on the previous iteration, but there’s still enough room to rest your fingers without accidentally turning the page.

Now for the big difference between the regular and SE versions of the Paperwhite: Automatic front light adjustment. The best way to explain the importance of this feature is to think about smartphones: Literally every modern smartphone has this feature. You don’t think much about it, but if someone removed the feature, you’d definitely notice.

It’s similar on the Paperwhite. The display automatically adjusts the brightness according to the amount of light in your environment. I like to read in very low light and the Kindle adjusts the screen brightness pretty much as I would. The device supports dark mode (light text on a dark background) and if I switched to it, it would readjust the brightness accordingly. I love the feature, and while I could live without it, I’d be slightly annoyed at having to manually adjust the brightness again.

Cheap upgrades

This may be because I’ve started looking at a few Apple devices – Apple charges an arm and a leg for upgrades and extra features – but I think the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is worth it.

For $50, you get no ads ($20 value), wireless charging, 32GB, and an improved display. None of this is necessary, but you feel like you’re getting decent value for your money.