[goggin]

I had a Kindle PaperWhite that I started carrying around without a case. I don't know how I did it, but after a few months I noticed I had a small "ding" on the screen in the lower right. It was not a crack. It appeared more as a very small (about 0.1 mm dia) bright spot that I could only see when the PW was turned off and holding the screen nearly parallel to my line of sight such that the room light was reflecting off the screen in a certain way. It appeared as if there were a coating of some type of the screen that had been knocked off in this one spot. It reflected the light differently than the rest of the screen. I'm positive it wasn't there when I got the PW and although I know about when it happened, I don't know the specific event that caused it. I'd been tossing the Kindle PW about pretty much the way I do my cell phone - counting on the Gorilla Glass to take the licking and keep on ticking.

This blemish *really* bugged me.

Not because it affected my reading. It was hard to see under any circumstance and virtually impossible to see when I turned the PW on - using it's built in light at normal reading levels. The blemish virtually disappeared when the Kindle light was on.

I don't know why this bothered me so much. Perhaps that the Kindle is such a big part of my life I was very upset to learn that (a) the screen could be "scratched" even in this minor way, and (b) that I had put a blemish on my "little precious." (that's a joke!)

I now have a Kindle Voyage and always carry it in it's case. At night when I read in bed, I take it out of the case so I can hold it overhead with ease. But I'm careful to lay it face down on the case on my nightstand before going to sleep.

That's my experience. You could take this story to mean that the Kindle screen is very robust and extremely difficult to damage in any way that actually affects your reading. Or, like me, you can always carry it in its case.