It has been 14 years since Amazon made a Kindle e-reader without a touchscreen, and during I certainly don't young female the days of gradually paging through my e-book archive alongside the arrow keys on my Kindle Keyboard, the move to contact navigation did have one unlucky result, at smallest for a small subset of readers: the defeat of bodily page-turn buttons. Once norm on all Kindles, they eventually became a premium characteristic accessible lone on the pricey Kindle Oasis, before being dropped from the lineup entirely whenever that equipment was former in 2024.
While this fall's overhaul of the Kindle lineup introduced upgrades akin a metal element chamber and a flush-front design, Amazon hasn't exactly reintroduced bodily buttons, but the business has launched a new accessory to petition to the approximately 5% of the market (per Kevin Keith, Amazon's vice chairman in accusation of Kindle) that basically turns your new Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition into a Kindle Oasis: the Kindle Page-Turn Cover.
The Page-Turn Cover builds the buttons into the case
Releasing alongside the new flush-front Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, the Page-Turn Cover is made of plant-based leather (in one of three colors to equivalent your Kindle—Graphite, Fig, or Seaglass Green) alongside a magnetic forefront flap, a gentle interior, and a right-hand bezel made of lightly textured synthetic that houses two thin, elongated buttons. When you slot your compatible Kindle into the case, connecting it magnetically and via the built-in pogo pins, it volition automatically brace alongside the device, allowing you to rotate pages alongside a clasp media alternatively of a tap.
By default, the top clasp volition advancement you onward by one page, and the base clasp volition do the reverse, although you can alter which does which in your equipment settings. While the bodily buttons on several Boox and Barnes & Noble Nook devices authorize you to map distinct functions—like skipping an complete division or scrubbing through a publish quickly—to a long-press or double-tap, as of this writing, the Page-Turn Cover volition lone let you rotate one leaf at a time. The buttons additionally lone activity for turning pages; you'll motionless navigate your archive and the equipment menus using the touchscreen.
If you're a lefty, or favor to toggle which hand you use to clasp your e-reader, you can alter up the inclination by turning off Lock Rotation on your device; whenever you flip it complete to clasp in your another hand, the content volition automatically reorient itself, and the buttons volition continue to activity alongside your existing settings.
The Page-Turn Cover makes your Kindle equal faster
You power think that changing pages alongside an accessory would dilatory downward your device, but in my testing, the Page-Turn Cover really seems to rotate pages faster than tapping the touchscreen. Though the new Kindles are fairly speedy, there's motionless a perceptible lag between whenever you tap the display and whenever the display changes to a new page. Not so alongside the Page-Turn Cover attached; although the extremely archetypal leaf rotate following attaching it is a bit laggy, following that it is basically instantaneous. I can't ideate this volition be a game-changer for anyone—the difference is a uncomplicated fraction of a second—but it's value noting all the same.
Physical buttons arrive at a elevated price
While this is Amazon's clever resolution to fulfill the bodily clasp die-hards without overhauling the scheme of its complete lineup, it does arrive at a disbursal to the reader—a literal cost: The Page-Turn Cover is about $80, and it's lone compatible alongside the $250 Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition or the $320 Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, the lone models alongside the metal element backing, pogo pins, and accelerometer necessary for the case to function.
In short, that method if you desire a Kindle alongside bodily buttons, you'll have to casing out at smallest $330, or $80 additional than the third-generation Kindle Oasis disbursal whenever it launched rear in 2019. (For what it's worth, you can get the Oasis-like Boox Go 7, one of my picks for the top non-Kindle e-readers, for about $270).
Why bodily buttons matter on an e-reader
While most group likely don't think twice concerning tapping the display to rotate the page, several folks fair favor the awareness of tactile buttons or would fairly not have to concern concerning holding their equipment incorrect and accidentally jumping onward a division or two.
If you've made do without them so far, you likely aren't missing them, but if you're an old-school e-reader (or fair a particularly tactile person), they are certainly a nice bonus. Are they value an $80 upgrade? That's going to depend on the reader.
Covering e-readers, social media, entertainment, and more.
.png)
