Amazon Kindle Review (2022)

Amazon introduced the new Kindle in mid-September 2022. What’s new? The new Amazon Kindle (2022) with a 6-inch diagonal and a touchscreen offers an increased pixel density of 300 ppi. Text should therefore appear much sharper than in older generations. For comparison, the 2019 Kindle only achieved 167 ppi. In addition, the storage capacity increases to 16 GB. I have taken a closer look at the new e-book reader for you.

Read my Kindle Newcomer Report: In fact, the Amazon Kindle (2022) is the first e-book reader I’ve had at home in a long time. Of course, I briefly tried various other devices, but never used them permanently. So I mainly approach the new Kindle (2022) with fresh eyes. The e-book reader is modernly charged via USB-C. Amazon claims the new model is the “lightest and most compact Kindle” ever. This translates to a weight of just 158g – lighter than most smartphones.

The price of the new Amazon Kindle (2022) is 99.99 euros. Battery life can last up to six weeks depending on usage. There’s also a dark mode and dimmable front light on board. Too bad: you can adjust the brightness of the light, but not the color temperature. You also have to live with the lock screen advertising for the mentioned price. If you want to avoid this, there is a supplement of 10 euros.

Basic processing and functions of the Amazon Kindle (2022)

Due to its low weight and fairly cheap-looking polycarbonate, the new Kindle looks a bit “cheap”. At least I was sober when I first touched it. But it’s a plus when you’re on the go, as the e-book reader can be easily accommodated in almost any handbag/backpack. Amazon relies on matte plastic, so not all fingerprints are immediately visible.

The frame around the e-ink touchscreen is very wide, especially on the “chin”, which seems a bit outdated when compared to current smartphones and tablets. Incidentally, Amazon uses four LEDs for the lighting and, as I mentioned before, doesn’t offer any adjustment options apart from brightness. So the Kindle Paperwhite is still significantly superior. In general, the color temperature is quite cold, which I do not like. If you’re using the Kindle (2022) in good enough ambient light, you don’t need the LEDs and it feels like you’re looking at very light gray paper.

Please note: while the Kindle Paperwhite is IPX8 water resistant, the regular Kindle is not. Reading in the rain or by the pool is therefore not recommended. You can shovel e-books on the Kindle in different ways. You can send your own files to the device’s email, which you can see in your Amazon account under “My Content and Devices”. If that’s too tedious for you, you can of course use the well-known caliber to fill the memory.

The Amazon Kindle (2022) can handle EPUB, DOC, DOCX, MOBI (unprotected), PDF, RTF, GIF, JPG, and PNG file formats. If your e-books are in a different format, I advise you to convert them using calibre. I think you will get 99% of all e-books on the Kindle.

Of course, Amazon would rather sell you e-books itself, so the digital store is integrated fairly centrally into the home screen and bombards you with recommendations. Are you Prime subscribers? Then you’ll also find titles included through your Prime subscription, which are highlighted on the home screen. The interface was a little too cluttered for me and aimed to push me into buying e-books. After all, your own library is always at the top. It contains both titles you purchased from Amazon and those you transferred yourself.

practical test

Let’s stay with the central element: the library. Here you have the option to sort by “Title”, “Last read”, “Author” or “Published date” and choose ascending or descending order. There are also different display options: grid, list or as collections. If you have a lot of titles you’ll probably prefer to choose a list, if you want it “pretty” you’ll prefer to use the grid with tiles. Stupid: in the list view, titles are usually cut off.

But in fact, you want one thing above all else on the Amazon Kindle (2022): to read books. It’s very simple: open the book and tap or swipe on the right edge of the screen to scroll back and forth on the left edge. Swiping up takes you to a new view, which you can use to go directly to a selected page if you want to skip passages. A swipe down opens the device’s quick settings for things like brightness, airplane mode, Bluetooth, dark mode, and more.

It’s also possible to long-press on passages in e-books, then add notes, share a quote, request a translation, or look up something on Wikipedia. Do you want to close a book, you press the top of the screen. Then you not only have the option to return to the library, but you can also search the book, set notes and bookmarks, or call a vocabulary trainer. If you later reopen the same eBook, you’ll end up where you last left off reading.

I have already mentioned Bluetooth: it is possible to connect headphones to listen to audio books. However, smartphones may be better suited for this on the go. The Kindle (2022) is of course much more suitable for reading than any phone or tablet, because due to the deep contrasts one quickly forgets that one is even looking at a screen. The only downside to e-ink technology is slow response times. Don’t expect a smooth menu like on other devices. Instead of smooth transitions, everything shifts “in spurts”.

The Amazon Kindle (2022) benefits hugely from the increased pixel density, so text is really sharp. But I’m so half sold on the lighting. At high levels the image looks very uneven, as there are only four LEDs on board. So if you want to rely on light often, you should keep looking at Paperwhite models. However, the given light is okay at lower levels.

Otherwise, reading with the new Kindle is really fun, and you can take hundreds of books with you in your pocket without towing around. As I like to read comics and manga, the latter being usually black and white anyway, I also put the Kindle to the test with this. For comics, I found the screen a bit too small. So if you have ambitions in this regard, then it is better to choose a larger reader.

Conclusion

Amazon’s new Kindle (2022) is a no-frills e-book reader on which you can flex your own e-books. I liked the comfort features, but I’m sure some expert readers who’ve had the experience of multiple generations and other competing models still have wishes. Amazon could still improve the LED lighting, which has a rather cold color temperature and looks too uneven at high levels. You probably don’t want to cut the wind from the sails of the Paperwhite models.

On the other hand, the e-ink display with 300 ppi is significantly sharper than in previous models and leaves little to be desired in this respect. With 16GB, you can also shovel a lot of playback material onto the device. Sure, Amazon still wants to aggressively lure you into its home screen store and subscriptions, but it’s a little easier to ignore that than on Fire tablets, for example. Because your own library is always on top.

So if you are looking for a compact reader and you prefer classic books, not necessarily want to read comics / manga, I can certainly recommend the Amazon Kindle (2022) at its price of 99.99 euros.

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