Kindle Sale Knocks Kindle Paperwhite Down to $79

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a deal on the Kindle Paperwhite, but Amazon’s flagship ereader is seeing a limited-time discount down to $79 for the refurbished model, which is the cheapest we’ve ever seen the ereader.

Normally, a refurbished Kindle Paperwhite from Amazon is priced at $109, so this is a generous $30 discount for a really nice ereader.

Unfortunately, it seems like a ton of buyers have already taken advantage of the deal, as the tablet is backordered “3 to 5 weeks.”

It’s not mentioned if Amazon’s Special Offers will appear on this specific model, but we’re guessing they will. With Special Offers, you’ll see advertisements here and there, but you certainly can’t beat the price. If you can handle the occasional ad, $79 is a decent price for Amazon’s flagship ereader, and it’s pretty much an instant buy considering you’re only paying that much dough for something that you’ll get a ton of use out of if you read a lot.

The Kindle Paperwhite costs a bit more than Amazon’s entry-level Kindle ereader, but the features are there to justify the higher cost a bit. The device includes a front-lit LED display, which means that the device lights up the screen from the front instead of the back like most LCD panels do. This prevents eye strain when reading at night.

Of course, some of the biggest advantages of an ereader like the Paperwhite is that the battery lasts a long time. Amazon says that a single charge on the Paperwhite can last up to eight weeks (based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless off and the light setting at ten). The same can’t be said for tablets, which usually only last a day or two depending on the amount of usage.

Ereaders also don’t come with any glare in bright sunlight, making them great for reading on the beach. This is thanks to the e-ink display that uses an entirely different type of screen technology than smartphones and tablets, and also uses up way less battery juice, allowing the device to last for weeks on end.

Of course, this isn’t the first time this year that Kindle ereaders have been on sale. Amazon provided a same $20 discount on its ereaders earlier this year, and it also discounted its ereaders and tablets several times last year in December and November for the holiday shopping season, where you could get the entry-level ereader for $49. Overall, the company has never been shy about discounting its own hardware.

You can usually take advantage of Kindle hardware sales throughout the year, so there’s almost no reason to not wait for a good deal on a Kindle ereader, and this certainly won’t be the last time we see a Kindle deal this year, as Black Friday and the general holiday shopping season will be full of Kindle ereader deals.

For the true book reader, there’s nothing quite better than actually handling a real book (and you can’t beat the old book smell), but for those who are more casual with their reading and don’t want the giant bookshelf collection that comes with it, a Kindle Paperwhite could be the perfect companion in your home library.