It's almost like clockwork: September rolls around and Amazon upgrades its Kindle ebook readers. Today, Amazon looks to cement its lead with a new, improved, sixth-generation Kindle Paperwhite.

Keep in mind that the existing Kindle Paperwhite is still our Editors' Choice for E Ink-based ebook readers, even though it's one year old. As can be expected, the new version is clearly an incremental but still welcome improvement. But is it enough to be worth upgrading? We got a chance to spend some time with a Kindle Paperwhite ahead of the announcement—let's find out.

Second Verse, But Better Than the First

At first glance, the new Kindle Paperwhite looks almost exactly like the old one. The dimensions are the same, but at 7.3 ounces, the new model is two-tenths of an ounce lighter. It's still encased in a soft touch black housing that feels comfortable to hold, although the back panel now has a snazzier Amazon logo instead of a Kindle one. The micro USB charging port, LED light, and power button on the bottom edge remain the same.

The display is the single biggest upgrade—and it's a good one. The screen is significantly brighter at the maximum setting. It's also more evenly lit, with little trace of the edge-lit blooming the previous model exhibited along the bottom edge. Fonts are darker once again, thanks to improved contrast. The touch responsiveness is also improved—by 19 percent, according to Amazon—but the old model was already quite good to begin with.

Aside from the backlight, the most visible difference hardware-wise is in speed. This is one fast ebook reader; loading books and turning pages is considerably snappier than those functions were on the first Kindle Paperwhite, at least in the brief time I spent with the device. Amazon has also reduced the frequency of full-page screen refreshes. Before, it was one every six page turns; now, an algorithm will decide when it's necessary in order to preserve font sharpness, but it will always be less often than before.

Software Gets an Upgrade
Amazon has also improved the Kindle's software. Kindle Page Flip lets you scan across the book using a slider near the bottom of the page. You can scan page by page or chapter by chapter; as you do so, a large preview thumbnail shows you what the page you're about to jump to looks like. This should help a lot with a perennial e-reader problem, which is that it's difficult to pick one up and scan through a book for an earlier or later chapter, the way you can easily do with paper books.

You can now navigate between multiple bookmarks in a book, again with preview thumbnails. Tapping on a footnote now shows you the actual footnote itself in a pop-up window. Tap on a word, and you get a single window with Dictionary, X-Ray, and Wikipedia tabs. The X-Ray tab is context sensitive; an Amazon spokesperson demonstrated that by tapping the word "credit," X-Ray knew the full context was "credit default swaps," although the context sensitivity doesn't carry across to the Dictionary and Wikipedia tabs.

A new vocabulary builder keeps track of words you've looked up in the past, and offers to teach them to you with a flash card-style interface. Once you know a word, you can tap "Mark as Mastered," which then removes it from the vocabulary builder.

More Software Updates on the Horizon
We also got a chance to preview some of the new features coming in an over-the-air update a few months from now. The big one is Goodreads integration, following Amazon's Goodreads acquisition back in March. When this is pushed out, you'll be able to access friend Updates, My Shelves, and Friends right from the Kindle Paperwhite. You'll also be able to read Goodreads reviews of books, even if they're for the Nook version of the book, thankfully. This begins to turn on its head the idea that an ebook reader is a distraction-free experience, as compared with a tablet, although it's still you the reader calling the shots—for example, there are no notifications or text messages coming in to disturb your reading.

Another new feature coming soon is Kindle FreeTime. Taking a page from Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets, FreeTime lets you create profiles for each of your kids, set goals for them, and let them track their accomplishments and remaining challenges. It also locks the store and browser access.

Pricing for the new Kindle Paperwhites remains the same as before: $119 for a version with Special Offers, $139 without, and $189 for one with 3G cellular connectivity. Pre-orders begin today, with device shipments beginning a few weeks from now. The 3G version will ship on Nov. 5; Goodreads and KeepTime will also come as an over-the-air update sometime before the end of the year.

Should You Buy In?
The challenge Amazon faces is that the ebook reader market is consolidating, though it's not disappearing despite what you may have read. People aren't ditching E Ink devices left and right for tablets. Right now, there are still four major E Ink players: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Sony, with Sony being the oldest. Kobo just announced its own new mainstream ebook reader, the Kobo Aura, a device which also features smooth, bright edge lighting, plus a flush screen and vastly more font customization options than Amazon, although it lacks Amazon's perfectly tuned software and richer ecosystem.

The people who want tablets instead of ebook readers are already buying them, because they do a lot more than ebook readers. The people who own ebook readers already know how easy on the eyes they are, and will likely keep reading them. The thing is, the folks in the second group probably already own an e-reader, which presents Amazon with a challenge. The new Kindle Paperwhite could be enough of a reason to upgrade, especially if you're not already reading one with edge lighting, but possibly even if you are. Stay tuned for our full review once we get one in.