Hands-on with the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (image gallery)

The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite retail package is also the shipping package that comes with a cool pull tab to unpack.

The Quick Start Guide is found at the top while the Kindle Paperwhite appears in a formed area.

Note that I purchased the Paperwhite with ads and the ad you can see on the lock screen is for $5 in free Amazon MP3 music.

There is no charger included, but you do get a USB cable. You can charge via a computer or A/C USB adapter you may already have. Amazon also sells an A/C adapter for $10.

There is no home button below the display like we see on the Kindle Touch.

A microUSB port and the only button (power) appears on the bottom of the Kindle Paperwhite.

The back of the Kindle Paperwhite is covered in soft touch and feels great in your hand.

Here you can see the Kindle Paperwhite next to the Kindle Touch.

The Kindle Paperwhite is slightly shorter and narrower than the previous Kindle Touch.

The home screen shows some books in your library, ads, and a quick link to the Kindle Store.

From the Home screen this is the menu you see in the upper right corner.

Reading is a joy in light and dark conditions.

There are quite a few font options so you can customize your reading experience.

The right side of the Time to Read feature shows how much time it should take you to finish the book.

You can share your reading experience with friends on Facebook and Twitter.

The brightness controls let you choose an intensity from 0 to 24. A 0 setting does not completely turn off the backlight.

You can read in landscape orientation through a setting in the menu.

There is plenty of content available in the Kindle Store.

The Kindle Paperwhite has an experimental web browser, which I find pretty useless and unnecessary.

Tapping and holding on a word will open up the dictionary. You can also then highlight the word or select More and add notes.

There is an option to view popular highlights from Amazon Kindle users.

The More option lets you choose from one of these four options.

This is the settings page accessible from the Home screen.

Here are the detailed Device Options settings.

This shot shows the Reading Options settings.

You can view your library in List mode as well as book cover mode.

These are the current special offers on my Kindle Paperwhite.