Amazon’s best e-reader yet

In recent years, Amazon’s mantra for its tablets and e-readers has been to build “premium products at nonpremium prices.” So it surprised some people when it went ahead and built a premium e-reader, the Kindle Voyage, for a pretty premium price. It starts at $199 in the US and £169 in the UK for the Wi-Fi version. (It’s not yet available from Amazon Australia, but that price translates to about AU$227.)

A step-up version with “free” 3G is also available for $269 or £229 (about AU$300). As usual, both models require an additional charge to remove the embedded ads on the home screen and lock screen ($20 in the US, but not currently an option in the UK). The Voyage is available for preorder now, and ships the week of November 23 in the US, and November 4 in the UK.

The Voyage isn’t a huge upgrade over the existing Kindle Paperwhite ($119, £109 and AU$151 for the Wi-Fi version), which remains on sale with a bump from 2GB to 4GB of memory. But it’s a little slimmer, measuring 7.6mm thick and weighing less than 181 grams (the Paperweight weighs 206 grams). It also has an improved lighting system, and its higher resolution screen is a little sharper, with better contrast.

Kindle Voyage product photos
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Simply put, the Voyage is the best Kindle I’ve used to date. But is it worth the $80 or £60 premium over the Paperwhite?

If you’re already a satisfied Paperwhite owner — of if you only use an e-reader sparingly — the answer is probably no. But if you’re an avid everyday reader, check the yes box — and know that you’re getting the latest and greatest e-reader, bar none.

Design changes

The Voyage is the first Kindle e-ink reader to feature a flush glass front and magnesium back. It uses a new 6-inch Carta E Ink HD touchscreen display, with 300 pixels per inch (ppi) density. Like the Paperwhite, the Voyage uses capacitive touch technology, not the older infrared-based touch technology of the entry-level Kindle 2014.

Its display stack uses “chemically strengthened glass” too, which Amazon says is designed to resist scratches. On top of that, Amazon says the cover glass is micro-etched to diffuse light and reduce glare, which sounds pretty high-tech. From my time using the Voyage both indoors and in direct sunlight, the micro-etching does seem to help, but that doesn’t mean you won’t encounter some glare.

In some ways the Voyage resembles the Kobo Aura, which weighs 174 grams and also has a flush glass front and similar specs (1GHz processor, 4GB of memory, built-in light). There’s also the new $180/£140
Kobo Aura H2O
— a 6.8-inch waterproof e-reader that sports a similar Carta E Ink HD touchscreen to the Voyage (in this case with 1,430×1,080 resolution, at 265 ppi) and has expandable storage, too. But the Voyage is sleeker. And, of course, it has access to Amazon’s extensive e-book ecosystem, while the Kobo can use “open” epub files.

Thanks to the flush-glass design, the Voyage’s touchscreen is allegedly a tad more responsive than the Paperwhite’s, but I didn’t notice a significant difference. When you compare the screens side by side, however, you can see that the Voyage’s screen is a little sharper — it’s easy to spot in book covers but is also noticeable in text, particularly small text — and the contrast is a little better, with blacks appearing more black than dark gray.

The light at its highest setting is clearly brighter — Amazon says 39 percent brighter — and the screen appears whiter. Look closely and you’ll also see that the light splays across the screen more uniformly, though it’s still not absolutely perfect, leaving room from some small improvements in the next model.