Physical books are heavy, there’s no getting around that. In fact, many books weigh more than a Kindle Paperwhite by themselves. Of course, you can carry more books with you on a Kindle than you could in a backpack. But how many more is it? And what would it weigh?
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How Big Is an eBook?
The first question we have to ask is how big is an eBook? How much storage space does a single eBook take up? Physical books come in many different sizes and the same applies to eBooks.
A short book that’s only around 100 pages will only take up 1-2MB of storage. Meanwhile, something like a textbook could be up to 1GB. There are a huge range of sizes to consider.
Those massive 1GB eBooks are not very common, though. The vast majority of books are under 500 pages, which puts most eBooks in the 1-5MB range. We’ll be using a figure of 2MB per eBook to estimate how many eBooks can fit on a Kindle.
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How Much Storage Does a Kindle Have?
The next question to consider is how much storage do Kindle eReaders have? Well, that depends on your model.
There are five Kindle eReader models and each one has a base storage of 8GB. The Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Oasis also have 32GB versions. We also have to consider that around 2GB of storage is taken up by the Kindle operating system.
In short, your 8GB Kindle actually has around 6GB of storage, while the 32GB Kindle has around 30GB.
So, How Many Books Can I Download?
Alright, let’s do some math. 1GB equals 1,000MB. If we divide that by 2MB—the average size of an eBook—you’re looking at around 500 eBooks per GB of storage. That means an 8GB Kindle Paperwhite—which actually has 6GB of storage—can hold around 3,000 eBooks.
Not enough for you? The 32GB Kindle Oasis—which actually has around 30GB of storage—can hold a whopping 15,000 eBooks. That’s plenty of room for a few massive textbooks and Stephen King’s “The Stand.”
Keep in mind that this is not how many books you can have in your Kindle Library. We’re only talking about eBooks that have actually been downloaded to your Kindle device.
How Much Would it Weigh?
Okay, let’s have a little fun. Imagine you were literally carrying around 3,000 or 15,000 physical books. How much would that weigh? Obviously, books come in a variety of weights.
An average 6×9 paperback novel with 300 pages weighs 15.6 ounces. 3,000 average paperbacks would weigh 2,925 lbs. 15,000 average paperbacks would weigh 14,625 lbs. That’s a bit heavy compared to a 6.1-ounce Kindle.
If you’re worried about filling up your Kindle eReader with books, you probably don’t have to. You can keep thousands of books in your library and only download the ones you’re currently reading. Even an 8GB Kindle Paperwhite has more than enough room for a long road trip.
