Yesterday I received my new Kindle Voyage.

I’ve been a first-gen Paperwhite user since shortly after it was released and I have been nothing but pleased with it.  It was miles ahead of the other Kindles we in the household have owned.

The Voyage is another big step forward.  I was expecting an improvement, obviously, why else would I have upgraded?  What I was not expecting was how much of an improvement it is over that first Paperwhite.

The Screen

And what a beautiful screen it is!  Ultimately, the higher resolution screen is what caused me to pull the trigger on the upgrade.  The Voyage is sitting at 300ppi compared to the predecessor’s 212.  This, combined with the much improved screen contrast, makes the screen look like a printed magazine page.  Incredibly crisp and easy to read.  Texted seemed to get a little fuzzy on the smallest font and line sizes on the Paperwhite – not so with the Voyage.

The Voyage comes with a glass screen, something new to Kindles.  I was afraid this would hurt readability due to glare, but with their technology you can’t even tell there is glass on it when you aren’t touching it.  Nicely done.

The Light

Until upgrading, I didn’t realize the faults of the Paperwhite’s screen.  It lit up, making night reading pleasant.  End of story.

Well, the Voyage’s light can get much brighter (adding to that great contrast) and is distributed so much more evenly across the screen that the Paperwhite’s screen looks rather ugly to me now.

The Speed

I didn’t think I cared too much about the processor speed on my Kindle.  Until I fired up this one, that is.  Menus are very responsive, so much so that I’m actually browsing around the Kindle Store and Goodreads on it now.  Overall navigation is much improved by this.

PagePress

No more moving your hands to swipe/tap the screen to go to the next page!  You still can if you want, but they’ve added pressure-sensitive areas to the screen’s bezel for page navigation.  My only minor complaint is that I wish these glowed just a tiny bit for reading in the dark – at least on my first night I found it a little difficult to locate where to press.

Origami Case

The Amazon-recommended case is called the Origami case, named so due to how the case’s cover can fold up and function as a Kindle stand.  I’ll be honest, I thought it was just a gimmick when I ordered it, but I’ve already found myself folding it up to read hands-free.  The other nice surprise is that the entire case is magnetic: the folds are held magnetically; the cover closes magnetically; and the entire case holds onto the Kindle magnetically.

Overall, a fantastic device and well worth the upgrade.