Kindle Paperwhite Comes to the UK – Introducing our Most Advanced E-Reader Ever Constructed

Higher resolution, 62% more pixels, 25% higher-contrast, patented built-in front light, up to 8 weeks battery life and an even slimmer and sleeker design—only £109

New Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi + 3G—the top-of-the-line Kindle with free 3G wireless—only £169

Amazon.co.uk to launch Kindle Owners’ Lending Library for UK readers – with an Amazon Prime membership, Kindle owners can soon choose from over 200,000 books to borrow for free

Kindle is the world’s #1 best-selling e-reader for five years running, millions of UK readers read on Kindle, Amazon.co.uk customers purchase more Kindle books than print books—hardcover and paperback—combined, and Kindle owners in the UK purchase 4 times as many books after they start reading on Kindle as they did in the full year before. Today, Amazon.co.uk is excited to announce that Kindle Paperwhite—our most advanced e-reader ever constructed—is coming to the UK. Kindle Paperwhite offers 62% more pixels and 25% increased contrast, a patented built-in front light for reading in all lighting conditions, up to 8 weeks of battery life, and a thin and light design for just £109. Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi + 3G—the all-new top-of-the-line Kindle e-reader with free 3G wireless—so you never have to pay for or hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot—is just £169. The new Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi + 3G are available for pre-order at www.amazon.co.uk/kindlepaperwhite and will begin shipping on October 25th.

Here’s what reviewers in the US had to say about Kindle Paperwhite:

“Forget Everything Else, This Is the E-Reader You Want.” – Gizmodo
“…the display of the page is more important than any other factor, and that’s where the Kindle Paperwhite shines.” – New York Times
“So, do all of these features add up to the best e-reader out there? In a syllable: yep. Amazon was clearly focused on creating the best possible reading experience with the Paperwhite, and it's delivered.” – Engadget
“The Kindle Paperwhite is a reader’s dream…I’m wildly impressed with the simplicity and beauty of this device.” – TechCrunch
“It’s light, eminently pocketable, and presents the best electronic reading experience.” – Wired
“With an excellent built-in light and Amazon's best-in-class ebook selection, the Kindle Paperwhite rises to the top of the e-reader pack.” – CNet

“The response to Kindle Paperwhite has been fantastic and we’re excited to bring our most advanced e-reader ever to the UK,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “This is the Kindle we have always wanted to build, it has 62% more pixels, 25% higher contrast, built-in front light, perfect for reading in bed and on the beach, even thinner, with 8 weeks of battery life. We know that readers in the UK love reading on Kindle and we think they are going to love Kindle Paperwhite.”

Amazon.co.uk also announced today that the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library will launch in the UK later this month. Kindle owners with Prime will be able to borrow for free from a selection of over 200,000 books - including all seven Harry Potter books and many best-selling fiction and nonfiction titles - as frequently as a book a month, with no waiting and no due dates. No other e-reader or eBookstore offers a service such as Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and it’s the perfect complement to the new Kindle Paperwhite.

Kindle Paperwhite—Our Most Advanced E-Reader Ever Constructed
Our Most Advanced E-Reader Display, 62% More Pixels, 25% More Contrast
Kindle Paperwhite’s display is the most advanced e-reader display we’ve ever constructed. Featuring a 212 ppi display, Kindle Paperwhite has 62% more pixels, making text in books and newspapers crisp and clear at any size. Images are sharper, richer and show even more detail. Kindle Paperwhite’s screen has 25% higher contrast—the blacks are blacker, and the whites are whiter.

Innovative Built-In Light
Backlit LCD displays direct light up through the display into the user’s eyes. Kindle Paperwhite’s patented front-lit display guides light underneath an anti-glare layer and down toward the display, away from the reader’s eyes. This means a reader can read for hours without eye fatigue or strain. The screen brightness is easily adjusted for reading in any light. The Paperwhite display provides an incredible reading experience in the dark and in direct sunlight.

Breakthrough Battery Life
Kindle Paperwhite’s built-in front light is designed to be used at all times—both in daylight and in a dark room—for a clear, crisp reading experience. In order to use the light at all times, Kindle Paperwhite requires exceptional power management to maintain the battery life that customers love about Kindle. Amazon’s light guide technology precisely diffuses the light across the screen and only requires four LEDs to light the entire screen (unlike LCD screens which can use up to 50 LEDs). The light guide is so efficient that Kindle Paperwhite has up to 8 weeks battery life, even with the light on at all times.

Free 3G
Kindle’s free 3G connection means customers never have to hunt for or pay for a Wi-Fi hotspot—they simply download and read books anytime, anywhere in over 80 countries around the world. Amazon pays for the 3G connection on Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi + 3G, so customers pay no monthly fees and sign no annual contracts.

Built-In Wi-Fi
Kindle Paperwhite comes with built-in Wi-Fi, letting readers discover new content at home or on the go.

Books in 60 Seconds
Find a book and start reading in seconds with our fast, free wireless delivery. No computer required to download content.

New Touch Technology
Kindle Paperwhite’s new capacitive touch technology is uniquely integrated into the Paperwhite display, allowing for a thinner form factor for Kindle Paperwhite and even better touch accuracy.

Slim and Sleek Design
At just over 9.1mm thin and weighing 213 grams, Kindle Paperwhite is thinner than a magazine and weighs less than a typical paperback. The bezel height between the side of the device and the display itself is 77% thinner, making it incredibly easy to read with one hand.

Hand-Tuned Fonts
Every font on Kindle Paperwhite is hand-tuned for maximum readability. The Amazon typography team worked at the pixel level to ensure consistency of stroke thickness and shape profiles across all individual glyphs, aligning each size to the specific grid of the new Paperwhite display. This allows for an incredible sharpness of fonts. Kindle Paperwhite’s higher resolution display also allows for new elegant typeface options, such as Baskerville and Palatino, which use thin stems that would not render well on any lower resolution display.

Time to Read
Time to Read is a new feature for Kindle Paperwhite that helps readers know the amount of time it will take them to finish a chapter or a book. This feature is smart—it personalises the time for each customer based on their reading speed and is constantly updated as the reader’s speed and habits change. With Time to Read, it’s never been easier to decide when to start a new chapter or finish the chapter you’re reading.

Explore the “Bones of a Book” with X-Ray
With a single tap, readers can see all passages across a book that mention ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places or topics, as well as more detailed descriptions from Wikipedia and Shelfari, Amazon’s community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers. Amazon built X-Ray using its expertise in language processing and machine learning, access to significant storage and computing resources with Amazon S3 and EC2, and an extensive catalogue of book and character information.

Beautiful Leather Covers with Auto Wake and Sleep
Covers for Kindle Paperwhite feature a premium textured leather exterior and a subtle woven nylon interior to provide our lightest and thinnest form of protection. The integrated magnetic clasp ensures the cover remains closed securely while in a backpack, handbag, or briefcase. The cover wakes Kindle Paperwhite automatically upon opening and puts it to sleep when closed, making it easy to dive right back into the book.

Plus All the Features Customers Love About Kindle
The new Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Paperwhite 3G come with instant access to the features that have made Kindle the #1 best-selling e-reader in the world for five years running:

Top-Rated, World-Class Customer Service
Whenever customers shop on Amazon.co.uk, buy a Kindle, or buy Kindle content, they know that they are also getting Amazon’s world-class customer service. Amazon.co.uk’s customer service ranked number one on the UK Customer Satisfaction Index earlier this year with a score of 92. This marked the first time in the history of the survey that an organisation achieved a score higher than 90. Customers have been shopping on Amazon.co.uk for almost 14 years, and they continue to do so because of the unparalleled, end-to-end customer experience.

World-class Interoperability—“Buy Once, Read Everywhere”
Customers can read their books on the largest number of devices and platforms, including any Kindle as well as through free Kindle Reading Apps for iPhone, iPad, Android devices, Mac, PC and Windows Phone.

Whispersync
Amazon’s Whispersync technology synchronises a customer’s last page read, bookmarks and annotations across all of their devices, so they can always pick up where they left off.

Features Built Just for Readers
Each Kindle offers a variety of font styles and sizes, so customers can easily customise their reading experience. Kindle also comes with a built-in dictionary, instant lookup and translation of words, Real Page Numbers, support for bookmarks and annotations, and more.

Sharing
Customers can share highlighted sections, notes and meaningful quotes on Facebook and Twitter directly from Kindle without leaving the book. Customers can also view the passages frequently highlighted by other Kindle readers to discover interesting and meaningful passages in books using Popular Highlights.

Massive Selection
The Kindle Store at Amazon.co.uk offers customers a vast selection of over one million books, including the most best sellers in the UK, plus subscriptions to hundreds of popular newspapers, magazines and blogs. Over 200,000 titles are exclusive to the Kindle Store, and over 650,000 books are priced at £3.99 or less. In addition, over one million free books, including many of the classics, are also available.

No Setup Required, Simple and Easy-to-Use
Kindle comes pre-registered automatically so customers can start enjoying their existing Kindle library or shop for new content immediately, with no set-up required.

Parental Controls
Parental Controls allow parents to restrict access to the Kindle Store, Cloud Archive and the Experimental Web Browser so they can give their Kindle to a child worry-free.

Worry-Free Cloud Storage
Customers’ Kindle books are automatically backed up in the cloud, so they never need to worry about losing their books. Customers can re-download their books wirelessly anytime for free.

Pricing and Availability
The new Kindle Paperwhite for £109 and Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi + 3G for £169 are available for pre-order and will begin shipping on October 25th. For more information visit: www.amazon.co.uk/kindlepaperwhite and www.amazon.co.uk/kindlepaperwhite3g .
To learn more about Kindle Owners’ Lending Library visit www.amazon.co.uk/kindleownerslendinglibrary.

For high resolution images and video of the all-new Kindle family, visit www.amazon.co.uk/pr/kindle.