Kindle Paperwhite

Kindle Paperwhite

Kindle Paperwhite with digital book

This is the display of a Kindle Paperwhite showing a page from the "Non-Designer's Handbook". Kindles use e-ink displays that are intended to mimic paper in terms of contrast. They support both type and images, but are limited in the range of grays they can render (16). The display is a bit over 300 ppi, which exceeds some computer displays. As a result, text can render cleanly. Unlike a physical book, the user can change the typeface a book is using. In addition, kindle books use a different indexing system. Books have page numbers, while Kindle books show percentages and "Locations". However, Kindle books do share aspects of books - indices and chapter headings. Some books make full use of the inherent hypertextuality of a kindle book, allowing users to jump to particular chapters from the index in the front of the book, while some do not. Pages can be bookmarked, highlighted and annotated, and these highlights and annotations can be seen separately through Amazon's kindle web site. Page turning in earlier Kindles was through a button, later Kindles like this one use a touch-sensitive display. Because of the screen size, there is not a one-to-one analog in pages between a Kindle and a regular book, which can have impact on page layout. As a result, I do not buy many design books in Kindle format, as the display is inadequate in both size and image color range. The Kindle is expressly designed to be a device for consumption of text-based reading.

Hal Meeks

Hal Meeks

digital image