I own a Kindle Paperwhite (last gen, relative to this new one) and a Kobo Clara BW (purchase in the last 6 months). IMO, the Kindle is the premium e-reader when it comes to look and feel. It's just a fantastic experience. The issue is Amazon and how even if you want to put your own purchased ebooks on it, you have it send it through their servers. That tied with a few other privacy issues over the years led me to also get a Kobo.
The Kobo can run in a fully offline mode (called "side-load mode" or something like that) and I can transfer my ebooks directly via USB. I use the Kobo most of the time now since most of my reading lately has been independently published ebooks, but I still use the Kindle for books I purchase via Amazon directly.
With all that said, I personally think the Kindle Paperwhite is already the perfect size. It fits snuggly in my back pocket and strikes the perfect balance between screen size being large, but not too large to hold for my average male hands. I'd be a bit concerned about the size increase for my personal use case, but Amazon does a great job with the Kindle in general so I'd like to see some reviews.
As for the new Colorsoft, I'd really like to see some reviews. The color Kobos that came out earlier this year got some mixed reviews for colors, but I'm not sure if that's just the nature of color e-ink or not.
> The issue is Amazon and how even if you want to put your own purchased ebooks on it, you have it send it through their servers.
You can sideload your books over USB too, using Calibre for instance.
I own a few Kindle models and a Kobo Forma as well. The Kindles do have some quirks and bugs (e.g., disappearing books, issues with sideloaded fonts…). But my Kobo Forma’s battery completely died after a couple years of usage, and the device became completely unreliable. After that experience, I’ve resigned myself to live with the Kindle’s problems.
Whenever I’ve converted books to mobi in Calibre it seems they fall back to a slightly worse experience - using “location” markers instead of real page numbers as official Kindle books display, cover art is tricky to get working on the lock screen, etc.
Is this a poor Calibre configuration or are there real limitations to reading books side-loaded on Kindles?
You can find Calibre plugins to convert the books to KFX, Amazon’s native format. There’s also a plugin to recover actual page numbers rather than loc markers in the books. It’s not very intuitive, but it’s doable given the options Amazon gives us.
It’s been a few years since I’ve had to do this, but I think that (at least back then) Calibre defaulted to MOBI for the conversion. However, you could manually select KF8 (AZW3), which is essentially EPUB with a different file extension.
Why do you need a few Kindles and also a Kobo? Are you keeping them in different places and don't move them? I only have the first Paperwhite which I carry along, it's 11 years old already and it still does the job. The battery keeps up and I was probably lucky to not have noticed any hiccups.
I read several types of books, multiple hours per day: reflowable fiction books, PDFs, books generated from my Markdown notes… I’ve got a Paperwhite, a Scribe and a Kobo Forma, but I’m still searching for the perfect e-reader.
The Paperwhite is too small for PDFs, but great for fiction and portability. The Scribe is excellent for PDFs, but it makes my books disappear sometimes, and it does not work well with sideloaded fonts. The Forma is a middle ground in terms of portability, but its battery died after a couple years and nowadays I only use it near a power outlet.
I use a combination of a Kindle Paperwhite Signature for novels and mainstream books. THen I use a Remarkable Tablet for PDFs, research papers, my own notes, etc.
I find it to be a good combination. Like you said, the paperwhite is amazing for laying in bed at night (really like the backlight) or on the couch or traveling to read. But it is too small for PDFs or serious notetaking. The Remarkable is perfect for those things. The remarkable also gives you full control over your files to do whatever you want. You can connect it to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc and/or just manage files directly on device (plug it in via usb-c and it shows up as a USB mass storage device).
The two tools compliment themselves nicely. Just my 2 cents.
Similar 2-device story here.
Love my Kindle Oasis for reading books, and rely on my reMarkable 2 tablet for writing / notes -- driven by a hyperpaper-based daily planner (its navigable pdfs are a game-changer).
My wife is a pretty voracious reader and has 3 active Kindles that I believe are mostly segregated out by genre/collection. I wouldn't be surprised if this is as much for convenience as anything else, I don't use it much but Amazon's library management and navigation on the Kindles has never impressed me.
She's also one of those folks who sideloads with Calibre as well as purchasing through Amazon.
I think you just naturally end up with that because the things appear indestructible. The first ever kindle I bought (dunno how long ago, it was before paperwhite, so more than 11 years) still works without issue. Even retains all the music I put on it 14 years ago when it was still an experimental feature.
I think the only thing that has been discontinued is the free 3G internet all over the world that they apparently figured was too expensive.
I _loved_ my Kindle Voyage for its adjusting backlight and glass display.
I wish it were less destructible! I upgraded to a Paperwhite (2021) when the Voyage's power button broke. Water resistance is nice, but having to get the "signature" edition for a light sensor and an easily scratched plastic display is quite disappointing.
My Kindle had this "bug" where my side loaded books randomly disappear. As a workaround, I have to keep it in flight mode at all times. Not a big issue since that’s what I would do anyway, but in case my Kindle would break, I wouldn’t think long to buy an alternative
This happend to my kindle to! After keeping in in flight mode for years I put it online again in order to buy a few new books from the kindle store, poof suddenly my entire library of side loaded books was gone, with progress and everything. I could see random metadata files related to the books on the drive, be books was gone. Super annoying as many of the books I didn't have locally anymore and to loose the "archivement" of finished books sucks big time.
I can see this may be implemented by amazon to counter piracy, but alot of these books was perfectly legal.
So the result of this is that I will never put my kindle online again and just stop buying from the Kindle store.
Same, though I don't think it is going to help Amazon the way they hope it does. I moved books over to my kindle and had it nuke my humble bundle collections when I added a purchase from Amazon. I've not connect it again until I figure out how to backup and restore MY metadata.
Keep mine in Aeroplane mode. Download books I buy on Amazon directly from amazon and drop them into calibre. Amazon doesn't get to touch my Kindle ever.
Thinking hard if I ever want to get another Kindle when Amazon can just screw around with what I put on my Kindle ...
You make an interesting point. Maybe facilitating the usage of sideloaded books is not among Amazon’s priorities. Yet I don’t know how much of that comes from malice rather than simply negligence or lack of interest.
It’s directly against their priority of influencing you to only purchase ebooks through their monopoly. Whether anti-competitive, anti-user practices are malicious or just a consequence of capitalism run wild, I don’t think there’s much of a difference
i'm not really sure what benefit you think they're gaining by breaking the less convenient, less user-friendly way to sideload books.
They're perfectly happy to let you email books to the kindle that you bought at other stores (or stole), as well as sync your progress with those books, backup those books to their servers, and generally have the full reading experience with all the benefits of the kindle ecosystem even if you didn't buy the book through kindle. If they didn't want to encourage the use of third-party files, surely they'd make it more difficult than a bug that randomly deletes books off some people's kindles sometimes.
The benefit (or potential gain) is that some people will just buy the book from the Kindle store to avoid the pain. I've seen that happen first-hand to my wife.
Also by emailing books or loading through their servers, they can still track and get that sweet sweet data/metadata that Amazon thrives on. When you sideload, you don't even have to connect it to the internet, which makes analytics more challenging.
Out of all the devices where having a physical airplane mode switch would be nice, I'd put the kindle pretty high up. Kinda sucks having a battery that lasts ~45 days in airplane mode, and like a week and a half when I forget to turn it off.
Physical switch is less prone to the whims of a capricious, resume-driven product owner who thinks their users may just want to get rid of airplane mode. Most are diving into firmware.
Since the kindles with 3G have disappeared, the need for airplane mode for actual airplane use is a lot less though. Where I am most airlines permit WiFi use and even offer it themselves in flight. Only mobile network connections still have to be switched off.
Airplane mode is mostly a power-saving feature, because WiFi drains the battery pretty hard. As others said, leaving wifi on will kill your kindle in a week or so, whereas it can go on for months without it.
This actually happened to me after connecting to wi-fi but there is a workaround that I found:
Convert your book to .azw3 in Calibre
Instead of sending it to the device in Calibre, locate the azw3 file (Right click -> Open book folder).
Copy the file to your Kindle, but not to the "documents" folder (where Calibre usually puts it) but rather into Downloads->Items
This folder is where books go when you buy them from Amazon or receive them after using the Send to Kindle feature. I have only tried this with azw3 so far but it might also work with .mobi format.
I decided to ditch their devices because of the support I got — or lack thereof. First they refused to talk to me, because, for privacy reasons, my device was unregistered. I ended up registering it, and even so they offered just a 10% discount on the purchase of a new device.
Sadly, Amazon’s support is not far behind, considering its inability to fix certain persistent Kindle bugs. But I’ve never seen the hardware itself fail.
If it makes any difference (although I fully agree it does not excuse past bad behavior), for the current gen devices, Kobo has partnered with iFixit to offer user serviceable parts and guides, including replacing batteries [0]. Although iFixit has had partnerships in the past that have fizzled, as long as user-repair is pretty easy, things like batteries are probably generic enough that they can be sourced even if Kobo doesn't end up sticking with it. If the screen fails though, then yeah, you'd better hope they have committed to maintaining stock of OEM parts, which, even with an iFixit partnership, is in no way guaranteed.
That’s news to me, thanks for the information! I’ve considered replacing my Kobo’s battery, but the issue seems firmware-related, so I never thought it was worth the hassle.
I recently picked up a refurbed Kobo Forma, and I absolutely love the device -- with the caveat that, like you mentioned, the battery has been completely unreliable.
Multiple times I have picked up the device to find it completely dead, while it was at full battery less than a day ago. I haven't quite narrowed down the cause yet -- since I did install KOReader and Nickel right after getting the device, it's not running stock software, so I'm not certain if the issue is hardware or software related.
It definitely seems to be doing something in sleep mode that's draining the battery, even with wifi turned off. This really shouldn't be the case -- I'd expect close to 0 power being used when not actively refreshing a page. I've recently turned to mitigating the issue by setting the device to turn off completely after an hour... which is not ideal, but having to wait for the thing to boot up is definitely preferable to waiting for it to charge.
It's annoying because otherwise this thing is pretty close to perfect for me -- the form factor is excellent, extremely lightweight, and I can connect to my Calibre-web server and download any ebook I have on demand. I'd seriously consider buying an extra one to crack open and install my own battery if I knew that would fix the issue.
Edit: Lastly, I have a sneaking suspicion that "refurbished" does not mean "replaced with a new battery", which, honestly, should probably be illegal to advertise a device that way vs "used".
My biggest problem with the Forma is that, even when completely turned off, the battery dies and refuses to charge for days on end. One day, the device says it is charged to 100%; the following day, it dies without an apparent reason. I’ve calibrated the battery many times, but the issue remains. I agree that if it didn’t happen, the device would be excellent.
Sorry, you're absolutely right. The overhead of it was more than I cared to do (needing to use Calibre instead of a drag and drop of a file), especially since Amazon would then report my newly loaded books back to themselves. That's the part that I really didn't like.
Shame to hear about your Kobo's battery. FWIW, they have great repairability (in newer models at least). That said, the Kindle's battery does smash the Kobo's in my experience as well.
You can drag-drop the file from the file explorer, at least on my Kindle (2022). I think the OP mentioned Calibre because sometimes you need to convert the file for Kindle if you have a bespoke format.
> But my Kobo Forma’s battery completely died after a couple years of usage, and the device became completely unreliable. After that experience, I’ve resigned myself to live with the Kindle’s problems.
> you have [to] send [books] through [Amazon's] servers.
No, you can sideload books using USB mass storage. It's pretty easy. Kindle Paperwhite is still a great experience even without using the Amazon book ecosystem.
You are correct, you can sideload, but as soon as you open them in your Kindle, they get an Amazon-DRM; so you can't read the very same files on another e-reader. And - as soon as you go online with your Kindle - said DRM is checked and all non Amazon books deleted. At least, that was the case 10 years ago: I still own a Paperwhite 1st Gen which is now basically defunct.
I switched to a Poke 5P (Onyx) and was surprised at the tons of features. No ads, no DRM and reads basically all formats. Win.
I downloaded all my Amazon-bought books, so I can still read them on PC, but otherwise I'm done with their product.
I've literally never run into the problems you are describing. It might be true (it seems implausible but I don't know), but it is not a significant factor in day to day ergonomics.
Text crispness, page turning speed, battery life, physical dimensions are all much bigger factors in an ereader IMO.
What you wrote is completely untrue. I have myriad of books on my Kindle which are not on Amazon, and they are not deleted. Neither does anything weird happen to them.
I get my books from different sources than Amazon. I can transfer these to my Kindle by e-mail or Calibre, without any issue. And they stay there on the Kindle and work fine. I also sync these books from my computer to other devices, Android and iOS, and they work fine also.
Use EPUB file format and your books will work on all devices, including Kindle.
It sounds like you are trying to move DRM'd books you bought from Amazon to another Kindle, which is indeed not possible – that is the purpose of DRM. You'd need to strip the DRM for that to work.
But as other commenters noted, if you sideload ebooks which do not already have DRM on them, the Kindle will certainly not add any sort of DRM to the files. This is true both if you sideload via USB or even if you use the "email to Kindle" feature.
Where do you buy DRM Free books from? (I assume that's a requirement for the device to be fully offline, right?) Do you run everything through that DRM-stripper Calibre plugin?
It's usually a small marketplace like Leanpub. Tilted Windmill Press (Michael W Lucas) [0] is another one I've done a good bit of purchasing from in the last six months or so.
Some of the books on the Kobo store are also sold with DRM. They only mention it in small print under eBook Details at the bottom of the page, e.g. Download options: EPUB 3 (Adobe DRM)
I am running a kindle voyage (2014). It is the perfect size for male jeans pocket carry, PPI is above 300 and battery works.
Most important! The yoga cover is great for laying on either side, so I can toss and turn in bed and keep reading. Literally no e-reader I have seen since has a symmetrical stand-cover that can be used sideways both ways.
As for Kobo, I just looked the other day and saw they have some great prices for e-readers that have similar features, plus they advertise being completely repairable! And you're not in the Amazon ecosystem. My only gripe years ago was the don't rendering on side loaded books wasn't as good as Amazon, and that Calibre couldn't De-DRM Kobo books as well as Amazon. I think the game has changed a bit, though, and I haven't tested anything in a while.
If Kobo books are crackable, my next e-reader will likely take me away from Amazon. I want that USB-C in my life.
Yet Amazon has been consistently increasing the size of the Paperwhite models over time, each one a bit larger than the previous one. They remain portable, but no longer fit into one’s pockets, for instance.
I had the exact opposite experience. My kindle battery went wonky after a few years, but my kobo has gone on for a lot longer with no issues. It's made me a little wary of buying a kindle again. Aside, or on top of, not wanting to support Amazon.
I did not. It was a couple years old, and I wanted to get a bigger screen. As to not liking Amazon, they are anti-union, should be broken up, and their main stockholder is a money hoarding ghoul.
Another fully-offline, sideload-only, airplane-mode-forever ebooker here. Plus I didn't even buy it in the first place - a relation had one they said they never looked at, so I asked if I could take it off their hands.
Had a funny experience once with a fellow (who was in his third year of computer science at a reputable university), where we just so happened to get on to the topic of ebooks. I told him how I operate my little machine, which I'd only started using. He was shocked, and stated clearly that he thinks it's unethical towards authors to use a "jailbroken" device like that and not get books through the Amazon store...
As someone who has self-published a book on the Amazon Kindle store once, Amazon's cut is something like 70% + bandwidth fees (author only gets maybe ~25–28% of the selling price).
> IMO, the Kindle is the premium e-reader when it comes to look and feel. It's just a fantastic experience.
Interestingly, I switched from Kindle to Kobo because it was lacking various basic features that made it not feel premium.
* Kobo epubs can show "pages in chapter" progress so I know how much longer there is until a nice stopping point, while Kindle only shows "minutes left in chapter" which is functionally useless.
* Kobo had blue light blocking night shift before Kindle Paperwhite (I think both have it now?)
* Kobo had a convenient feature where you slide your finger along the side of the screen to change brightness, instead of having to go into multiple menus to do this.
It's possible these things have been remedied, but especially the chapter progress thing put such a bad taste in my mouth that I never wanted to touch Kindle again.
> Kindle only shows "minutes left in chapter" which is functionally useless
The kindle recomputes your reading pace as you go, so unless you prefer to do that math in your head and track your own pages-per-minute moving average, I don't see how it's functionally useless
I always find Kindle's "minutes left" too low for some reason, so I have to ignore it. I'd find it simpler - and easier to make progress - if it just showed pages read/remaining within the chapter. Absent that, I am often having to go through the distraction of using the overview feature to figure out where I am in the chapter.
I should probably post on MobileRead with this question instead, but I wondered if you might have insight into this issue I've been having with my Kobo.
I've noticed that when I read on my Kobo I run into issue with ebook files. When I use Calibre to send .epub files I'll have lots of reliability issues; books will freeze up, pages won't turn, whole sections of the book wind up being unreadable, stuff like that. Having Calibre reformat books in the kobo epub format seems to help some, but I still have page turn issues from time to time.
Have you see any of this behavior before? As far as I'm concerned this would be the perfect ereader if it were just more reliable.
I've got the same generation PW and have it jailbroken running KOReader. I've considered trying other readers out, not because of issues but rather shiny new thing reasons. But at least when it comes to KOReader, it seems like the PW are the best if you can jailbreak the version you're on.
(I want / need it to run KOReader because I wrote a small Lua plugin for it that syncs reading stats (words per minute, minutes read per year, etc) to a centralized server.)
Yeah I got the Signature Edition of the Paperwhite 11 with their black leather cover, and it's just brilliant. It was a huge step up from the 10 that went before it in every regard.
The resolution and size just nails it, and my favourite feature is the warm backlighting for reading at night. Battery lasts forever, and I can just put it on my Samsung phone stand for wireless charging once in a blue moon - not once have I run out of battery.
I fall asleep so easily to this, currently on the Eisenhorn 40k Omnibus book - and a 184 week reading streak.
I used to be excited about new Kindle releases, have had one since the mammoth DXG - but no more, I'm good now with this, so don't see myself forking out $400 AUD for the new one (with a leather cover).
Also bought one (also a SE) for my son, with a different colour magnetic leather cover. :-)
The lack of physical page turn buttons is a dealbreaker for me. I switched, begrudgingly at first from my oasis to a kobo libre colour and it’s much better. If you stick koreader on it you can even start a Linux shell from the ui which amuses me :)
Really? I had to make an account to "activate" my Kobo, but it wouldn't let me make one because I already had an old account with one of their partner websites, whose auth servers were malfunctioning, so it took like two hours to be able to "activate" the device.
You can bypass it, but I forget the details(I just did it a year or so ago with my newest Kobo). A web search should get you there though. The mobile read forums are usually the place where trustworthy details are found.
My favorite device right now is a boox Go6, smallish, cheap, android. I don't use many apps on it other than the reader but threw a copy of Kiwix on there, and use it as a writing deck using a bluetooth keyboard, hits a lot of semi-offline use cases for me.
> The issue is Amazon and how even if you want to put your own purchased ebooks on it, you have it send it through their servers.
I managed to jailbreak my "Kindle Oasis 3" and install KOreader [1] and Syncthing on it (the process of achieving this, as described on mobileread.com/forums was quite horrible by the way.)
Very happy with the result though, books are just synced automatically with my Macbook via Syncthing.
Hopefully somehow a similar setup will be possible with the new Kindles, if they can also be jailbroken.
PS. The Kindle Oasis 3 is still great in 2024, it even automatically adjusts brightness with its light sensor.
The color model is uncharacteristically expensive for Kindle at $280, more than the color Kobos which are $220 for the same 7" size (which also has physical buttons and stylus support) or just $150 for the smaller 6" size. Kindles are usually the cheaper option, at the expense of being less amenable to sideloading and jailbreaking than Kobos are.
Yeah, black friday is near. I am thinking older models will be given higher discount via their deal site woot.com. And latest model on Amazon with 20-50 dollars off depending on original price.
All their splash art shows comics. That makes sense, inasmuch as comics are a primary reason you'd want color in a book. But it still strikes me as a bizarre choice, since Amazon is only offering colors in their tiny form factor. They also make a larger device, and if you want color, you can't have it.
Comics are unreadable on a 7" kindle's tiny screen anyway. What's up with the marketing?
This article really buries the lead. It talks about updating monochrome kindles, when they just released their first color Kindle (not counting the Fire). I had to look elsewhere to confirm this was indeed a brand new line of products, and others give it top billing.
> In addition to the monochrome e-readers, Amazon introduced its first color e-reader today. The new Kindle Colorsoft, covered in more detail here, looks almost identical to the new Paperwhite and launches on October 30 for $279.99.
> being less amenable to sideloading and jailbreaking than Kobos are.
jailbreaking sure but what is the issue with sideloading on kindles? You can either email them which is very practical for third party services that support it (I have a digital magazine subscription that supports this for example) or just drag and drop via USB or a manager like calibre.
I have never had any issues getting documents on the Kindle.
I bought a used paperwhite in 2015 and have read many hundreds of books on it. Still works flawlessly and even great battery life despite taking it around the world through -45 and +45 many times.
I don’t love Amazon, but this may be the best device I’ve ever owned. It does one thing really, really well.
I’ve said for the past decade that the device that had the most net positive impact on my life is my Kindle. I went from reading a couple of books a year to 30+. It brings me knowledge, calm, joy, adventure and growth with basically 0 downside.
Maybe other devices have been more life changing but their trade offs have all been greater than the Kindles.
Having a pocket-sized wifi-only kindle is what saves me from doomscrolling. Instead of spending god-only knows how many hours a week on social media, I read. It's an mental health game changer.
I find stuck pixels gradually build up and kill kindles for me, after 4-5 years.
I'm on my third device now, and I have a couple of them which just won't clear. Not the end of the world but eventually there will be so many that reading is just a pain.
I bought a Voyage in 2015 and don't want to give it up. I like it more than any of the newer models I've tried. Battery life is starting to get poor, but even 'poor' gives me about a week of typical reading before I have to charge it again.
I loved my voyage then I lost it for week and splurge bought an 8gb paperwhite that I could read in the hot tub. I just use the paperwhite now. The voyage sits as a backup to the scribe which backs up the paperwhite and goes along for note taking
I haven't done it myself but you can buy replacement batteries online for the Kindle Voyage; last time I checked they were like $30 and replacing it looks easy enough.
I've read on my Voyage almost every day of the last 8 years. One of the best electronic devices I've ever owned. I knew it was too much to hope for it to be reintroduced, but I hoped anyway.
When Amazon decides to cut you off, you’ll know. Example: bought Albums on iTunes over a decade ago. Can’t re-download. Not even for a nominal bandwidth fee.
We have a pretty fundamental disagreement then on what we want from content we've purchased. If I'm buying it then I expect to have it forever. It really blows my mind to think that somebody wouldn't even be upset if some big corp suddenly stole all the content they've purchased over the years.
Ok then, you're probably fine, but you did reply to a comment that specifically said "from Amazon" so I don't think it's unreasonable to assume you meant you had bought them from Amazon.
> You don't really own anything from Amazon. Kindle is good as ashtray.
Saying that the Kindle is as good as an ashtray is like saying cars are useless because we can travel by horse. It's ideologically motivated detachment from reality.
Why is that? I just downloaded a couple albums I bought from iTunes in 2008 as a test. Were they specific ones that were removed from iTunes for license issues? (Not that that’s a good excuse)
I wish they would do a bigger size kindle scribe. I read pdfs all day on my scribe, and often I wish the screen was bigger so the font size would be large.
Then don't. You can find flaws with any and every company, but it gets bizarre that such a nit-pick gets commented here every time that brand is mentioned. Most people don't care about GPL.
If you publish code openly for the world to use, it's not realistic that they'd respect any wishes or demands you make regarding that code. I can make an instructional video available to the public on how to chop wood more efficiently. If I demand that anybody who uses my technique only does it with birchwood, nobody is going to care.
The size is good for PDF reading, but PDFs with huge margins or small font sizes don’t work well.
One way to fix the margins issue is to use the “Send to Kindle” feature, which converts PDFs to the Print Replica format and trims their margins in the process. Sideloaded PDFs actually appear with more margins (thus reduced font sizes) than books sent through Amazon’s servers.
It works fine I would say. In the absence of a bigger screen with proportional DPI (kindle scribe is 300 which is one of the highest in terms of screen size), kindle scribe is one of the better options still IMO.
Still no remote/bluetooth capabilities. That's the only thing that would make me upgrade, the third-party remotes you can buy are all pretty clunky (bulky clip on the side of the Kindle, need to be recharged often, can only flip forward as they just fake a swipe on the right of the screen).
I recommended the PocketBook Era to someone who has an Oasis in a sister comment. It supports Bluetooth remotes, keyboards, probably any Bluetooth HID with buttons. You just map any button press you want to reader actions (including ones beyond just page turn). It doesn't support input from them outside the reader interface, but fully usable without the touchscreen (you can map turning it on and off to the button combos too) when reading with a remote or the built in physical buttons.
I paid $20 for a remote page turner on Amazon and the battery lasts weeks. There’s no Bluetooth involved, it just uses basic radio signals to trigger a pulse that the kindle interprets as haptic input.
It’s one of my favorite purchases, because now I can actually fall asleep while reading the kindle since I’m not activating my arm muscles to turn every page.
This is the item (my kindle is one of the earliest versions, from 2011, if that matters): https://amzn.eu/d/aJaesjd
Life changing isn't it? Coupled with a holder attached to the bed I feel like I read twice as fast when I'm using it rather than holding the kindle, side effect being that I look like the people in WALL-E.
I understand that people would prefer if it were built into the device but in all honesty it isn't really that much of an inconvenience when you're already only using it while it's stationary.
I'm in the same boat. Give me USB-C, page turn buttons, maybe even wireless charging and I'd upgrade almost reflexively. I've been eyeing various Android-based eReaders (like Boox Page) that have Kindle support through an app.
I have a single USB-C to USB-C cable for travel that has a permanently attached USB-A adapter on one side, and lightning and micro adapters (also attached) on the other end. Not as slick as just USB-C, but it’s a single cable that does power and data, along with a single USB-C brick, and since it does data it works in any rental car as well. Check them out!
No update to the Oasis; I guess when I refresh I'll get a Boox or other Android-based device with page turn buttons and run the kindle app on it.
I have a first generation Kindle Oasis, which is a great device, in no small part because of its asymmetric design and page turn buttons. The newer Oasis (still last refreshed in 2022) have better lighting (temperature adjustable) and inverse text mode, which are both nice but have not been enough to get me to upgrade. It lacks the battery cover of the original oasis, which while kind of a pain was nice because it gave a very natural way to hold the device.
I'm sad to see that the Oasis line is not mentioned here. I have little to no interest in using my kindle as a writing device, and honestly would prefer that the touchscreen was as little used as possible -- an unresponsive or slow screen is the worst case for a touchscreen, since the feedback loop is terrible.
I don't know if they'll have an OS update to go along with this. I have found successive updates to be worse and worse -- my pages are all crammed with ads (not actual ads since I paid to have them removed, but "recommended books") and large page covers. I can barely fit five titles from my library on a screen; I would much prefer to have just the title/author/progress and fit twenty on a page.
The integration with the Amazon ecosystem is probably the best selling point, but until somebody shuts down Libby I've switched my habits to be almost entirely rent-based rather than buying books.
Doesn't seem like there's an official announcement since any news articles about it describe it as a "quietly discontinuing" [0]
I'm in the U.S. and a search for "oasis" has nothing but eye drops in its top results. You have to scroll down to find a listing for the "International Version — Kindle Oasis", selling at just $135 [1], but which Amazon refuses to ship if your address is in the U.S.
As with all previous kindles, the only official bit is the removal from the store. There hasn't been a case (so far) of a kindle that was removed from the store and then a later model being released.
I am very, very, very sad to hear this. This does match with my experience of fiddling with various Kindle competitors over the years (nook, kobo), but between generally faster processors and the increasing bloat of kindle OS, I thought maybe the gap would be narrower.
Can confirm. I own a Poke 5P and the ghosting is really more obvious until you've fiddled with the settings enough - and I do mean fiddle here. Might take a while.
Other than that I'm a real fan: latest update delivered dark mode (black background, white text) and like I said above: no ads, no Amazon-DRM, all formats, cloud storage (if you want to), TTS, annotations that are really comfortable to handle, bluetooth.
If you only wanna read normal books, I agree. But I read RSS feeds, mangas and books all on my Boox tablet. Only made possible due to being able to install android apps for RSS and mangas.
I'm in the same situation. I've read some workflows you can do but I really like to just pop open einkbro with my royalroad follow list as the homepage instead of having to run a browser extension to calibre rube goldberg machine every single time a new chapter is released.
I don't love boox but mine hasn't died yet and it's decently competent at my use case.
I have the first Oasis as well. Prior to that I'd pretty much bough every single kindle refresh. Since then I haven't. I'm in the same boat: give me physical buttons.
You should check out the PocketBook Era. It's what I moved to from the Kindle Oasis and I've really enjoyed it. The device isn't as svelte as the Oasis since it isn't subsidized by Amazon, but has an assymetric design and even more physical buttons which you can fully customize the control scheme. Also like the Oasis it gets amazing battery life with it's light weight OS compared to the Android based e-readers.
The PocketBook cloud is just as seamless as the syncing with Amazon if that is something you use. Only time I notice problems is during the weekly maintenance window which just looks like an outage. It has bidirectional sync for your progress as well as syncing new books and has a web interface and a phone app. Also offers the same email endpoint service as Kindle and you can set up Adobe DRM to use with library borrowing as well as other places that distribute ascm. The builtin store probably doesn't have the same availability of titles as Amazon but I haven't used it since I manage my library with Calibre and buy my books from various stores.
Best of all is the customizability. Don't want to use their store or cloud? You can turn off (really just not setup and hide) all the features and integrations individualy to make it an "offline" reader but still bring it online for things like Wikipedia lookup and web searches. You don't even need an account to set it up. You can also load additional dictionaries, fonts, and even applications on it. It has a healthy if small development scene.
There is a new color version but if you don't read things that require color I would get the original; Based on reviews it has the the same downside as Kobo and others that use the Kalaido screen where it's relatively dimmer in ambient light compared to the B/W one and so needs a higher average backlight level to compensate.
Overall I've been really happy with my switch and can't see myself going back to Kindle.
I have a significant library with Amazon -- does this have any support for Kindle books? The Android-based ones let you run a Kindle app, which, while not ideal, at least lets me access the library.
I've considered doing a sweep to download all of my kindle books and de-DRM them so that I have an archive, but this is a tortuous process if your library has over a thousand titles, as mine does.
Not seemlessly because Amazon has their store locked down to Kindle. But you can export all your books from the Amazon web interface or use the desktop Kindle app to download them all. You would then use Calibre with a couple plugins to deDRM them. At that point you have plain ebook files in Amazon's format to do what you want with. Calibre can convert them to any one of the open ebook formats (I personally prefer epub) and sync them to your device(s)). Those ebooks are treated like any others and fully supported by PocketBook cloud if you use it. The convenience of Amazon's store for Kindle is nice, but it's also how they lock you in to their ecosystem and devices so you keep only buying/paying for a subscription with them.
The process is really not bad at all if you use the desktop Kindle app to download your library before importing to Calibre. Each step is fully automated with the only manual parts being setting it up and doing each step in sequence for the whole library but not each individual book.
I haven't been able to find any sort of option to export from the web interface, and poking around at it with dev tools I don't see a non-trivial way to grab whole books. Am I missing something obvious?
The last time I looked into it, you had to have a valid target device or client registered to your account, typically a kindle reader. Then an option to download for transfer with usb would show kn the menu for entries in your library. It will download a kindle format ebook (there are multiple generations and even a new format) that is compatible with that device that and is also DRMd using that devices serial as a key.
So no, I wouldn't say you missed anything obvious, which is a feature not a bug as far as Amazon is concerned.
Amazon's latest file format (KFX, I think) hasn't been cracked. You can't reliably strip DRM from new Amazon books. The tools work on some of the books some of the time, but you can't rely on it working.
The workarounds mostly involve getting Amazon to give you the book in an older format, but then you lose the typography improvements that KFX gets you.
Apple's DRM format (Fairplay?) has never been cracked but I believe Adobe's has. Buying from the Google store of Kobo store is probably the best bet.
The book DRM problem requires a legislative solution.
For exporting a library of books you already own/read there aren't going to be many titles that have any improvements in KFX that you would care about. It certainly doesn't hurt to just try it and see what if any of the titles in the library have issues with being deDRMd.
I second buying from Google Play. Outside of a period of time last year where they had a bug that prevented exporting many titles in their catalog (some error in their backend service), I have never had an issue with purchases from there. I will happily continue getting my books from sources that allow true ownership after purchase regardless of any touted benefits Amazon adds to future DRM schemes, just need the words on the page.
Maybe I'm missing something, but those all sound like things that are display layer and shouldn't be dependent on KFX to be able to accomplish. I do know that that you can run preprocessing on epubs to adjust some of the layouting to your preference. The rest should just be determined by the reader application you are using and any shortfall in customization of those aspects would be addressed by improvements to that application.
Regardless, my point was that: A - most of the books already in the library were likely enjoyed/acquired without knowledge of hypothetical improvements from Amazon rolling out a new ebook format and DRM scheme. And B - even if there is some magic that Amazon had to include in KFX to support the improvements you listed and can't be reproduced without them; I personally would not consider those or most any improvements to be worth losing ownership of books that I purchase.
The most valuable part of an ebook is the text and ownership of a copy of that is what I'm paying for. It is fairly easy for me to be principaled on only buying ebooks that I know I can own a copy of due to the diverse distribution that exists for most titles. Even when I had an Oasis, I didn't purchase anything through Amazon and loaded all my books over USB.
> those all sound like things that are display layer and shouldn't be dependent on KFX to be able to accomplish
Seems like that's how it should work, but it doesn't. Maybe that's by design or maybe it's fallout from poor choices Amazon made earlier in Kindle history. I really don't know.
I bought a Pocketbook Verse Pro last year and it's okay, but has some issues.
There is no PB Cloud support but it uses Dropbox, however that means no syncing progress like with kindle.
It takes a few seconds to start since it's Android and fully turns off.
And highlighting is very clunky.
The software situation with that company is pretty sketchy. From their website both mine and yours are listed as the same OS but seem totally different.
Dropbox syncing is seperate from PocketBook Cloud even though the device calls it Dropbox PocketBook. Your device seems to have gotten all the same recent FW updates as mine on a similar timeframe, so as far as I can tell from release notes and the User Manuals they are running the same firmware and support the same features. Not sure why you have the impression it is running Android, but hopefully you don't have some knockoff?
You do have to setup and login to a PocketBook account to use the cloud synchronization. I have not tried the Dropbox integration, but it only supports a synchronized file folder.
In the user manual for the Verse Pro[1], the setup for PB Cloud starts on page 79 and isn't grouped with the Dropbox sync or email endpoint earlier on in the manual.
The only controversy related to PB Software that I am aware of is that it used to be even more open with a published SDK. It was many years ago that they stopped actively maintaining tne SDK. That doesn't seem to have stopped people from continuing to develop for PB devices, and as far as I'm aware PB have not done anything to prevent this or lock down their devices beyond not continuing public development of the SDK. Certainly theur current lineup of devices allow you to run 3rd party applications and are simple to get root shell access on.
I got that manual from the US support page. What region are you in and have you tried installing the US firmware? Search for"Verse Pro" on the US support page[1] after the device list populates.
I also would have been disappointed with my Era if it didn't have PocketBook Cloud syncronization as advertised since it is functionality I care about. That being said, if it is something locked out of your region you could always install Koreader and setup sync through that.
I'm not trying to solve the issue, just warning people pocketbook is not that good.
The manual on my device also mentions the cloud, but it is just wrong. I think they have regional partners with ebook stores that customize it.
Though I think you are right it isn't Android and I misremembered. I thought thats why it has a dual core cpu and make wonder why it's so slow after boot until it's ready to turn pages.
I can't speak to how their distribution is resulting in selling devices that don't have advertised features enabled. It is weird they would allow this while keeping their branding and same device name (maybe they are working around some trade restrictions?) So that is not good, but I don't know how widespread that issue is. And as I pointed out in my response before the edit, this seems straightforward to resolve if you buy from somewhere that has this issue.
Not to belabor the point, but in my original post I mentioned how PocketBook devices are specifically not Android as an advantage in terms of battery life.
I suspect that what you are experiencing with regards to it being "slow" to resume an in progress book and allow navigation may be due to your settings. The PocketBook has a sleep mode that allows quick resume for reading. How long after it goes to sleep before it powers all the way down is fully configurable from disabling it to waiting your choice of many options between 10 minutes and 48 hours. IMO the cold boot time is acceptable and I did not notice a difference from my 1st Gen Oasis. The power loss if you fully disable its auto power off is still great, although I haven't used it that way much beyond when I first got mine so I don't have a comparison to my Oasis.
That being said, I don't have the same model as you so maybe there is a significant difference between them in performance, but it would be easy enough to check independent reviews if I was trying to decide between them.
If I understand your first point correctly, then I have great news. I guess my wording could have been more clear, but PocketBook devices do NOT run Android.
As for the second, if that is a requirement then at least the Era doesn't have an ambient light sensor. I don't have any issue without it because I just have the front light off entirely by default since it is e-ink. Obviously if I need to use it in the dark I turn it on, but that is easy without having to navigate a screen I can't see since you can configure a hardware shortcut to toggle the front light (it is set to long press on the home button by default). While it does support automatic screen brightness and temperature (individually toggled), these are driven by a schedule based on the set timezones.
Well actually some _do_ run Android, but good to see also some of them (like the Era) do not...
> these are driven by a schedule based on the set timezones
Yea, i don't really like that unfortunately, as it doesn't properly work inside when lighting changes.
I'll patiently wait on a next release, hoping for a non-Android and light sensor included device :-)
> Well actually some _do_ run Android, but good to see also some of them (like the Era) do not...
I was unaware of this. Looks like they have a couple devices that are "e-note" devices, are larger, and support stylus input that are Android devices. Maybe also a couple readers from a long time ago, saw an article mentioning one running KitKat 4.4.
>honestly would prefer that the touchscreen was as little used as possible -- an unresponsive or slow screen is the worst case for a touchscreen, since the feedback loop is terrible.
I agree in principle (slow feedback is the bane of my existence) but I had one of those 10 inch Kindle DX without touch, and it was a pretty bad experience compared to the Paperwhite.
Physical buttons (and possibly the orientation sensor?) were definitely nice to have though.
First I waited for Kindle Voyage refresh, then started thinking about Oasis, but waited for it to have a normal charging port (USB-C) and now the last reader with physical buttons disappears :(
Oh well, at least my Voyage still works and fits in most pockets (and has cool origami cover), the only downside is that if not in airplane mode, it uses up battery in 2-3 days. In airplane mode I can read 2-3 weeks.
The Voyage was a neat device, though its haptic buttons pale in comparison to real buttons. There are a lot of options outside of the Kindle, but if you want to stay in the Amazon ecosystem, you might be in for rough times.
I was hoping they'd revive the Oasis. That form factor is _perfect_ IMO. Scribe is too big for a replacement. I settled for a Libra 2 which is similar to the Oasis but I feel it's a bit sluggish when it comes to chapter turns, highlights and page turns w/ images but I don't have something in the Kindle line-up to compare it to now.
The Kobo Libra 2 and Libra Color look to have a similar form factor to the Oasis. At least having a chunky area on one side with buttons that give a good spot to hold it.
I love the oasis. Specifically the fact that it’s made out aluminum and is water proof. My daughter is an extraordinary reader since a very young age, long before her motor skills have matured, and ended up with my oasis. She does all the things a young kid does like smear food all over it and drop it all the time. I can just wash it off in the sink once a day and we are all good. If it had been less sturdy and not waterproof there’s no way she could have used it.
Finally the physical page turn buttons are great as well as the bevel on the back for holding it with one hand.
If not traveling, getting to read an open paperback, two pages side by side, on Kindle Scribe is super enjoyable, then turn it to portrait to read white papers or textbooks.
Came here just to say this. I've owned an Oasis since 2018 and recently bought the first Scribe model when it went on sale, and naively thought "at this price and 6 years later, it must be a better overall experience" — even as I knew its main selling point was having a writeable interface.
I did know of its drawbacks beforehand — e.g. no physical buttons, not waterproof. The page-turning response/refresh time is noticeably better, but I'm left feeling pretty meh by the overall experience. I haven't had much need to scribble notes so as of now, the Scribe is basically an iPad-sized device with the limited feature set of the Paperwhite.
The size is good for textbook-type material, but not enough to make me pick it over an iPad if I'm traveling. The Oasis is small enough that I can carry it in a coat pocket.
But the buttons really are the killer feature. Being able to disable the touchscreen — especially when I'm anywhere where moisture is an issue (at the beach or gym) — easily makes the Oasis worth bringing even if I could read on my phone. I would have easily gone for a new version of the Oasis but I guess consumers haven't shown enough interest in paying extra for a button interface.
I love mine, and somewhat dread the day when it dies. I've decided I'll probably switch to onyx boox of the same form factor when it dies. I've got the big one from them, which I use for sheet music, and it works nicely. Runs Android too, so you can install the Kindle app and read your old library
Yep. Same. Buttons are a must have for me, along with the waterproofing. It was (is) the perfect device aside from going through three of them (replaced via warranty) due to the waterproofing not being as advertised. I am happy I saved the advertisements of folks using in in baths.
Both are features that complement each other. If I can’t read in the rain I don’t want it. This means disabling the touch screen and using the physical buttons to page turn, otherwise you are using hacks like putting it inside a plastic baggie. Haptic buttons would be fine as well, and likely solve some of the waterproof issues along with an update to USB-C charging.
Pondering having someone mule me the last of the Oasis International editions available for sale for when my current Oasis finally dies. I really don’t want to go back to the dark ages of touchscreen only.
It's not just the physical buttons alone, but the overall design with a fairly large area on one side to easily grip it with one hand (while still having your thumb over the page flip button).
I really wish UX designers for handheld devices optimized for, you know, ergonomics of actually holding it, rather than just trying to minimize the physical size.
Not everything is a conspiracy, sometimes things are just posted at the magic time for them to be noticed. You can always post a link again if you think it needs a second chance right?
Yes. surprising to know that more people are interested in kindle as owners or planning to buy one. Instead of planning to buy mini nuclear plant or its spare parts.
The new Kindle Scribe looks kinda lame compared to the new reMarkable Pro, though significantly cheaper. Maybe the colored ePaper isn't that great, but at least you get some color for highlighting, which is probably a non-insignificant use of these types of devices.
Either way, sad there's no Oasis refresh. I'm not super attached to the physical buttons, but I'd prefer it to not. Oh well.
The Scribe is neat, but it's too small (same goes for the Remarkable devices).
It wish it was A4/Letter size to read PDFs at full size. There are a few devices like that out there (I've heard the Fujitsu Quaderno is nice), but none of them can be used with books purchased at Amazon.
And yes, I know about Calibre and the DeDRM tools. They don't work on KFX files and the workarounds degrade the book (you lose typography improvements that are only in KFX).
I'm also disappointed by the Oasis being discontinued. I wanted to trade mine in for a USB-C version.
It's nothing to write home about, but you know its just "okay".
The best part about the NXTPAPER devices is their price point.
Perhaps NXTPAPER generation 4 will be better?
Color e-ink (both versions) isn't yet fast enough to be used for writing. Boox and Remarkable had to do a lot of hacky things to make the experiences usable on their color e-ink devices. (Boox currently uses the older color technology, Remarkable uses the newer one.)
That makes sense. Another comment pointed out that even the resolution of colored content (150 ppi) is half that of black-and-white content (300 ppi). Trying to take notes with bad refresh rates and lower resolution would not make for a good experience.
Though, the RM Pro has 229 ppi vs. the 300ppi for the scribe. So for black and white text, the scribe still has a small edge. But it would of course be cool, if the scribe eventually gets color at 300ppi.
In practice the resolution doesn't make a huge difference. (I've got both 300ppi and 207ppi BW e-ink devices and the antialiasing/gamma strategy makes more of a difference than the resolution.)
But a bigger difference is that Gallery 3 uses CMYW pigments; there's no black pigment, rather the microcapsules themselves are tinted black on one end, so the black ultimately ends up a little impure. Also there are only 4 shades of grey for antialiasing rather than 16.
I had exactly the other response when compared to my current scribe. I'm not sure they are trying to compete with remarkable on the design front, or that they should.
Remarkable, as a newer, smaller company, needs to seriously differentiate itself. Amazon can play it safer.
Having said that, I think the white bezel and introducing a professional looking colour to the Scribe, is so much better looking than my current Gen 1.
I normally wouldn't care, I didn't feel my scribe was ugly, until I saw the new one. I'm half considering passing mine to my mother, and buying the new version.
I had an original Scribe and while the writing experience was superb, I felt like the software experience was minimal and over the year or so I had it, it didn't really get enhanced any. My review of it was: It's just like paper, only more expensive.
It seemed like if you wanted a large ebook reader AND occasional note taking, it's probably great. For my use, I would have been just as happy with just a spiral notebook, probably happier. I used it every day for work notes and todos.
I sold it on ebay and got an Boox Note Air3, similar cost, and the writing experience is not nearly as good as the Scribe, but it is a much more capable device with many more features in the notebook. However, I've fallen out of the habit of using it, I think just because the writing experience isn't as good.
This is similar to me with my reMarkable 2. The writing experience is strictly worse than even cheap notebook and dramatically worse than a nice one with a nice mechanical pencil + lead.
I have bad hand writing and over scratch paper with pencils... I greatly prefer the e-tablets for writing, so ymmv. I'm 47. I just did 6 months of college classes out of the blue, I did about 50/50 paper/tablet so this is based on about 100 hour recent testing. I had to practice a lot of mec pencil and paper as that's how our exams were.
Anyone with some critical experience also with the ipad pro pen?
I'd really like some comments there. There's a lot that goes into writing and drawing, and all the online reviews I've seen seem just to praise it.
I used most digital writing devices starting from wacom tables (first intuos series), to laptops with foldable screens and currently using the rm2/rm3.
I agree that nothing still has the precision of a real pen or pencil. I can lazily fill and shade even with a micron fineliner when I want, and simply can't replicate the same precision with anything else I tried. I could buy a lifetime supply of the best pens and paper with the cost of the rm3.
Writing is mostly fine, but when drawing I notice immediately the precision just isn't there. But still, at least on the rm (both 2 and pro), the digitizer is well calibrated, and the feel is good, the pen is actually like a pen and not the sucky abomination what wacom like to call "pens" or the tiny unusable styluses of the samsung "note" or lenovo yoga series. The show distance between tip and display is very good, and even though it seems ridicolous, the slighltly shorter one on the rm3 makes a difference. The rm2 is still requires a bit too much pressure for my taste (I have a light touch being used to mechanical pencils, fineliners and tech drawing); the rm3 seems slightly improved.
I can still tell instantly that lines are occasionally wobbly due to the digitizer's grid and pen position.
That being said I got the rm2 at some point, and it's the first e-notebook I actually stuck with because it's effectively "endless paper" and has reached the "good enough" feeling for me. I used to have tons of sheets of paper with notes, now I have somewhat less ;).
I want to upgrade my Kindle but first I need to know where the power button is. My current one has the power button on the bottom and it turns off when I rest it on things - extremely annoying. Can't be certain from the product pictures, but looks like it's on the bottom again.
The last Paperwhite model, for example, did not work upside down, just in landscape mode (and even so, only rotated to one direction). I don’t know whether Amazon finally added a gyroscope to the Paperwhite in order to fix this issue.
I had hope at one point to set up a Kindle with large fonts on a treadmill, but that was just totally hopeless. I tried again with a music stand next to the treadmill, but it was too far away, badly angled, and touching the device to flip pages could still turn it off.
And it's not just the accidental power-off, it's also the accidental power-on. I slip the Kindle into a tight pocket in my backpack, and it sometimes turns on by itself. Further, inserting it into the pocket can sometimes reproduce the swipe motion, so it can be on and active (and sometimes randomly page-flipping) inside my backpack.
My Kindle Keyboard still works. You can't use the shop from the device, but you can push books from the website (although on mobile, only 3? devices are listed and there's no way to choose from more if you have them...)
When e-readers first started, one of the big companies offered a machine that would display an entire page of The New York Times on it large enough to be able to skim the headlines, then you'd tap on the article and it would take you to that part of the page.
Back then, I didn't have the money for it. Now I do, and the only options seem to be too small.
Same, I'm still rocking an older Kindle because it fits in my hip pocket on my cargo pants and so can always be with me whenever I get a quiet moment day-to-day to read.
You might be interested in the Kindle Basic. It's the smallest in the lineup and a comparable size to the first-gen oasis (before they increased the screen size) – my previous daily carry.
It's almost a pocketbook form-factor. I overlooked it initially because who wants a basic model? but the only thing I miss in practice is waterproofing. That, and the Oasis OEM cover which was unexpectedly nice, like a leather-bound pocketbook.
I still might prefer 5" model. Compared to current 7th Gen paperwhite, it is not that much smaller. A bit more would make it even more sensible in size.
Why is no one making higher dpi ebook readers? I've been waiting decades now for an ebook that would actually have the resolution of printed 600 dpi pages. The chunky text simply makes ebooks for me uncomfortable and unpalatable for long reads.
Probably because it's enough for most people. I have a Paperwhite with (I think) 300 dpi and unless I reduce the font size to the minimum and look really close I can't see any issues at any reading distance. It feels like a printed book to me.
My understanding is that e-ink with higher than 300 dpi is very difficult to produce which means it is rather expensive and doesn't look that much better to most people. Additionally, people think of an e-reader as a sub-$200 device so the market for a premium high DPI e-reader is just rather small. People are already complaining about the price of the Kindle Colorsoft, think what they would say if amazon put out a Kindle high DPI and it was in the $400-$500 range.
I've been buying the kids versions because in the past, it was the ad-free version and came with a free case, but the new kids version seems to have ads if not used in kid mode:
"Will my kid see ads while using this device?
Kindle Paperwhite Kids is automatically set up for your kid to enjoy an ad-free experience. However,
if you exit Amazon Kids using a passcode, sponsored screensavers will be displayed on the device's lockscreen."
I can confirm that the new versions have to be placed in a child mode in order to hide the ads. It seems they have closed this admittedly nice loophole
I am so excited for this. I've run into so many books where color would make it ten times better. Also, the Comixology subscription will be so much more valuable with this device. The only thing I have a wish for is that the device is more responsive than the original Kindle. There is nothing more frustrating than tapping a touch screen and waiting 5 seconds for it to respond.
My partner has a Kobo and I'm seriously considering one. My Kindle has done more for my sleep than any other device. I get sleepy reading it, unlike my phone or tablet. I really wish I could my content on either device.
> Also, physical buttons! Such things are only available on the most expensive Kindle
Or the old ones you can get for $10 on eBay :) I use exclusively old models that have physical buttons for Kindles because they're just insanely cheap and still perfectly reliable (the battery too) even a decade later.
Unfortunately I've found the screens on the older ones to be quite fragile (at least the 4th gen)
I went through a phase of buying used 4th gen ones off ebay so that I could have physical buttons to turn the page, but within a couple of months they would always end up up with cracked screens
They would be stored in my bag next to my laptop (and in a case) but at some point I would end up pulling it out to read and find a cracked screen
I think I went through 4 of them before I called it quits, my current paperwhite is still going strong (just no buttons sadly)
I don't think any Kindles still have physical buttons. Kind of a bummer because buttons make it much easier to change the page while holding the Kindle with 1 hand
I don’t know if you’ve used a recent paperwhite but they’ve gotten very responsive.
I have the newest paperwhite (prior to the one announced here) and it is incredibly fast and zippy compared to the kindles of old. And they claim the new one is even 25% faster.
I too have the previous generation Paperwhite and it's a laggy piece of junk. About the only thing it's even remotely zippy at is flicking through pages rapidly when I accidentally brush my wet hand against the stupid touchscreen while I'm in the bath.
Kindle Scribe should show your calendar, news, weather, etc when it's plugged in.
I hope Scribe note sharing is improved from "email yourself a PDF".
And come on, still no physical page turn buttons?
I also want a Kindle Scribe with a scroll display: a high-refresh-rate LCD touchscreen that sits just below the bottom of the eink screen. Use case being: swipe to a bookmark or page very quickly. It would stay off until touched and would be about 2cm tall, with the same width as the eink screen.
The "email yourself a PDF" note taking issue made the Scribe a no-go for me. Basically, if you transfer your PDF over USB, it wouldn't allow you to use certain note taking features. You had to email the PDF to yourself through Amazon's servers.
I hope Kobo releases a new Elipsa. I waited for the new reMarkable, but it is full of subscription garbage.
I adamantly disagree. There are 10,000 devices in this world that will feed you your email if you really need to see it in the second it comes in. You probably have one in your pocket right now and another on your wrist and a third that you are staring at to read this post.
I use a Remarkable tablet (the Scribe's competitor) for the exact reason that it doesn't come with apps for email or web browsing or an app store or a weather app. It writes really really well (the scribe does too) and lets you focus on that. It doesn't try to be the 4th version of a smart device when you already have so many.
My kindle paperwhite is my favorite tech that I own. It has changed by life significantly for the better and allowed me to cut down the time I waste on doom-scrolling social media. I find a book on shadow libraries, convert them into epub format and then send them over to my kindle via USB. Calibre helps in all this. I have read close to a hundred book now--all for no dime.
- the authors are unfairly compensated by amazon and the public libraries due to publisher issues with ebooks already. OP is hardly contributing to this disparity.
- I choose to purchase expensive copies of books I love - but the digital copy is the one I read.
The fact that the situation for authors is already poor hardly makes it better to opt not to compensate them. If you or the OP feel that you’re only playing a small part, that’s between you and your conscience.
And sure, if you’re buying some copy of the book and downloading a convenient second copy, that’s totally different. I was responding to the OP being pleased about not having spent anything at all (except on the kindle itself presumably).
I was thinking about this recently when a friend group argued that someone getting out of paying hospital bills is unethical since doctors are just as much victims of America's bad healthcare system as patients (due to exploitative pay structures I guess). To me this feels like some kind of victim blaming. The writer isn't getting paid (much), the reader is paying too much to a stranger, yet somehow the reader is the bad guy if they opt out of the process.
I get that the idea is "if everyone opted out the writer would get nothing instead of peanuts!" Or maybe the company shafting the writer would go under and direct sales would happen instead?
The difference is that a reader isn’t in any way a victim. They’re choosing to read a book. And if they don’t pay, the writer will often simply be paid less, to the tune of the royalties on that one book. So, yes, that is stiffing someone.
If everyone opted out you could force major change, sure, but in that case you shouldn’t be reading the book. That’s a true boycott. Reading without paying isn’t principled - it’s just cheap. And if you don’t actually organise it achieves nothing - except stiffing the author.
Yeah, there are a lot of things in our political and economic system that are oriented towards making victim blaming, or blaming individuals for systemic problems, the easiest and most natural line of thinking.
Note that purchasing on Amazon and compensating the author are actually separate categories - if you mail the author the RRP in cash, then they get far more than they would have if you'd bought off Amazon.
In fact, if everyone used a shadow library but mailed the author cash, then Amazon would go bankrupt but the authors would be fine (and wouldn't need to use Amazon in the first place).
I think Amazon would be fine because of the money it makes on other products, but I agree paying the author directly is a more principled approach than just paying nobody.
Worth noting though that it’s not just Amazon and the author in the picture - you would be stiffing the publishers in this scenario, and they paid to get the book printed (and edited, and designed, and shipped to physical stores, and maybe some publicity, and probably gave the author an advance).
You might think “who cares?”, but if the author didn’t (traditionally) sell any of the books they published then they wouldn’t ever get another publishing deal, so you’re harming their career. They could self-publish, sure, but worth keeping in mind the author doesn’t necessarily want that, because of the benefits publishers bring (if they didn’t bring any benefits, people wouldn’t use them - they’re not idiots).
It’s very complicated, and I would argue that people using shadow libraries “for authors’ benefit” ought to be speaking to more authors about whether they want that kind of help. But I agree your plan is much more honest than paying nobody, even if it has some potentially negative effects at scale without more coordinated action.
I don't know about the commenter above, but most writers I read have been dead for at least a hundred years. Should I purchase their e-book online for $850 each or should I get it from a shadow library?
You should also try using Libby / Overdrive to see if your local library has the book. I've borrowed 20+ books this year and it's pretty seamless and easy!
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[ 6.3 ms ] story [ 621 ms ] threadThe Kobo can run in a fully offline mode (called "side-load mode" or something like that) and I can transfer my ebooks directly via USB. I use the Kobo most of the time now since most of my reading lately has been independently published ebooks, but I still use the Kindle for books I purchase via Amazon directly.
With all that said, I personally think the Kindle Paperwhite is already the perfect size. It fits snuggly in my back pocket and strikes the perfect balance between screen size being large, but not too large to hold for my average male hands. I'd be a bit concerned about the size increase for my personal use case, but Amazon does a great job with the Kindle in general so I'd like to see some reviews.
As for the new Colorsoft, I'd really like to see some reviews. The color Kobos that came out earlier this year got some mixed reviews for colors, but I'm not sure if that's just the nature of color e-ink or not.
You can sideload your books over USB too, using Calibre for instance.
I own a few Kindle models and a Kobo Forma as well. The Kindles do have some quirks and bugs (e.g., disappearing books, issues with sideloaded fonts…). But my Kobo Forma’s battery completely died after a couple years of usage, and the device became completely unreliable. After that experience, I’ve resigned myself to live with the Kindle’s problems.
Is this a poor Calibre configuration or are there real limitations to reading books side-loaded on Kindles?
The Paperwhite is too small for PDFs, but great for fiction and portability. The Scribe is excellent for PDFs, but it makes my books disappear sometimes, and it does not work well with sideloaded fonts. The Forma is a middle ground in terms of portability, but its battery died after a couple years and nowadays I only use it near a power outlet.
I find it to be a good combination. Like you said, the paperwhite is amazing for laying in bed at night (really like the backlight) or on the couch or traveling to read. But it is too small for PDFs or serious notetaking. The Remarkable is perfect for those things. The remarkable also gives you full control over your files to do whatever you want. You can connect it to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc and/or just manage files directly on device (plug it in via usb-c and it shows up as a USB mass storage device).
The two tools compliment themselves nicely. Just my 2 cents.
She's also one of those folks who sideloads with Calibre as well as purchasing through Amazon.
I think the only thing that has been discontinued is the free 3G internet all over the world that they apparently figured was too expensive.
I wish it were less destructible! I upgraded to a Paperwhite (2021) when the Voyage's power button broke. Water resistance is nice, but having to get the "signature" edition for a light sensor and an easily scratched plastic display is quite disappointing.
Thinking hard if I ever want to get another Kindle when Amazon can just screw around with what I put on my Kindle ...
I find it easier than converting to Kindle format and then copying over USB.
At what point do we stop giving the benefit of the doubt that it's a "bug"?
They're perfectly happy to let you email books to the kindle that you bought at other stores (or stole), as well as sync your progress with those books, backup those books to their servers, and generally have the full reading experience with all the benefits of the kindle ecosystem even if you didn't buy the book through kindle. If they didn't want to encourage the use of third-party files, surely they'd make it more difficult than a bug that randomly deletes books off some people's kindles sometimes.
Also by emailing books or loading through their servers, they can still track and get that sweet sweet data/metadata that Amazon thrives on. When you sideload, you don't even have to connect it to the internet, which makes analytics more challenging.
if they want people to buy books from their store, why do they make it so easy to not buy books from their store?
bugs happen. not every bug is part of jeff bezos' nefarious plan.
Convert your book to .azw3 in Calibre
Instead of sending it to the device in Calibre, locate the azw3 file (Right click -> Open book folder).
Copy the file to your Kindle, but not to the "documents" folder (where Calibre usually puts it) but rather into Downloads->Items
This folder is where books go when you buy them from Amazon or receive them after using the Send to Kindle feature. I have only tried this with azw3 so far but it might also work with .mobi format.
Opted for a pocketbook this time though. Physical buttons and small 6-inch form factor? And respect for your privacy? Count me the fuck in!
Sadly, Amazon’s support is not far behind, considering its inability to fix certain persistent Kindle bugs. But I’ve never seen the hardware itself fail.
[0] https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Kobo
Multiple times I have picked up the device to find it completely dead, while it was at full battery less than a day ago. I haven't quite narrowed down the cause yet -- since I did install KOReader and Nickel right after getting the device, it's not running stock software, so I'm not certain if the issue is hardware or software related.
It definitely seems to be doing something in sleep mode that's draining the battery, even with wifi turned off. This really shouldn't be the case -- I'd expect close to 0 power being used when not actively refreshing a page. I've recently turned to mitigating the issue by setting the device to turn off completely after an hour... which is not ideal, but having to wait for the thing to boot up is definitely preferable to waiting for it to charge.
It's annoying because otherwise this thing is pretty close to perfect for me -- the form factor is excellent, extremely lightweight, and I can connect to my Calibre-web server and download any ebook I have on demand. I'd seriously consider buying an extra one to crack open and install my own battery if I knew that would fix the issue.
Edit: Lastly, I have a sneaking suspicion that "refurbished" does not mean "replaced with a new battery", which, honestly, should probably be illegal to advertise a device that way vs "used".
Shame to hear about your Kobo's battery. FWIW, they have great repairability (in newer models at least). That said, the Kindle's battery does smash the Kobo's in my experience as well.
Funny that I got the exact same issue but with Kindle instead. I swore I would never buy a Kindle again https://x.com/_paulmairo/status/1453485148490674177
Here's a hands-on Kindle Colorsoft review, Amazon's first color Kindle is the e-reader of my dreams,
https://www.tomsguide.com/tablets/e-readers/kindle-colorsoft...
submitted earlier:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41858947
No, you can sideload books using USB mass storage. It's pretty easy. Kindle Paperwhite is still a great experience even without using the Amazon book ecosystem.
I switched to a Poke 5P (Onyx) and was surprised at the tons of features. No ads, no DRM and reads basically all formats. Win.
I downloaded all my Amazon-bought books, so I can still read them on PC, but otherwise I'm done with their product.
Text crispness, page turning speed, battery life, physical dimensions are all much bigger factors in an ereader IMO.
Not true and never has been. The Kindle will make no changes to sideloaded files.
Use EPUB file format and your books will work on all devices, including Kindle.
My Kindle won't open EPUB files, only AZW3. But it is easy to convert with Calibre.
The rest is true in my experience. Loading non-DRM AZW3 books works fine; Kindle doesn't magically add DRM to them nor delete them.
If you're getting books from Amazon with DRM, you don't need to sideload them!
But as other commenters noted, if you sideload ebooks which do not already have DRM on them, the Kindle will certainly not add any sort of DRM to the files. This is true both if you sideload via USB or even if you use the "email to Kindle" feature.
[0] https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/
https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/ebooks
Most important! The yoga cover is great for laying on either side, so I can toss and turn in bed and keep reading. Literally no e-reader I have seen since has a symmetrical stand-cover that can be used sideways both ways.
As for Kobo, I just looked the other day and saw they have some great prices for e-readers that have similar features, plus they advertise being completely repairable! And you're not in the Amazon ecosystem. My only gripe years ago was the don't rendering on side loaded books wasn't as good as Amazon, and that Calibre couldn't De-DRM Kobo books as well as Amazon. I think the game has changed a bit, though, and I haven't tested anything in a while.
If Kobo books are crackable, my next e-reader will likely take me away from Amazon. I want that USB-C in my life.
Paperwhite 5: 124.6 x 174.2 x 8.1 mm
Paperwhite 6: 127.6 x 176.7 x 7.8 mm
Admittedly I have big pockets.
Why don't you want to support Amazon?
And does Jeff Bezos hoard money or wealth? Also not sure how he is ghoulish but you are of course entitled to your opinion.
Had a funny experience once with a fellow (who was in his third year of computer science at a reputable university), where we just so happened to get on to the topic of ebooks. I told him how I operate my little machine, which I'd only started using. He was shocked, and stated clearly that he thinks it's unethical towards authors to use a "jailbroken" device like that and not get books through the Amazon store...
Sigh.
Scale makes it seem pretty straightforward to me.
https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
Interestingly, I switched from Kindle to Kobo because it was lacking various basic features that made it not feel premium.
* Kobo epubs can show "pages in chapter" progress so I know how much longer there is until a nice stopping point, while Kindle only shows "minutes left in chapter" which is functionally useless.
* Kobo had blue light blocking night shift before Kindle Paperwhite (I think both have it now?)
* Kobo had a convenient feature where you slide your finger along the side of the screen to change brightness, instead of having to go into multiple menus to do this.
It's possible these things have been remedied, but especially the chapter progress thing put such a bad taste in my mouth that I never wanted to touch Kindle again.
The ecosystem is amazing and unbeatable.
The software was fine on the original Kindles (well, I had a keyboard), and despite gaining a few features is largely the same since 10+ years ago.
But don’t worry, they added ads to the device that they used to sell you books and they’ve managed not to speed it up one bit!
The kindle recomputes your reading pace as you go, so unless you prefer to do that math in your head and track your own pages-per-minute moving average, I don't see how it's functionally useless
I've noticed that when I read on my Kobo I run into issue with ebook files. When I use Calibre to send .epub files I'll have lots of reliability issues; books will freeze up, pages won't turn, whole sections of the book wind up being unreadable, stuff like that. Having Calibre reformat books in the kobo epub format seems to help some, but I still have page turn issues from time to time.
Have you see any of this behavior before? As far as I'm concerned this would be the perfect ereader if it were just more reliable.
(I want / need it to run KOReader because I wrote a small Lua plugin for it that syncs reading stats (words per minute, minutes read per year, etc) to a centralized server.)
The resolution and size just nails it, and my favourite feature is the warm backlighting for reading at night. Battery lasts forever, and I can just put it on my Samsung phone stand for wireless charging once in a blue moon - not once have I run out of battery.
I fall asleep so easily to this, currently on the Eisenhorn 40k Omnibus book - and a 184 week reading streak.
I used to be excited about new Kindle releases, have had one since the mammoth DXG - but no more, I'm good now with this, so don't see myself forking out $400 AUD for the new one (with a leather cover).
Also bought one (also a SE) for my son, with a different colour magnetic leather cover. :-)
Really? I had to make an account to "activate" my Kobo, but it wouldn't let me make one because I already had an old account with one of their partner websites, whose auth servers were malfunctioning, so it took like two hours to be able to "activate" the device.
Is there a way to bypass that?
I still have a paperwhite which is ok.
My favorite device right now is a boox Go6, smallish, cheap, android. I don't use many apps on it other than the reader but threw a copy of Kiwix on there, and use it as a writing deck using a bluetooth keyboard, hits a lot of semi-offline use cases for me.
I managed to jailbreak my "Kindle Oasis 3" and install KOreader [1] and Syncthing on it (the process of achieving this, as described on mobileread.com/forums was quite horrible by the way.) Very happy with the result though, books are just synced automatically with my Macbook via Syncthing.
Hopefully somehow a similar setup will be possible with the new Kindles, if they can also be jailbroken.
PS. The Kindle Oasis 3 is still great in 2024, it even automatically adjusts brightness with its light sensor.
[1] https://github.com/koreader/koreader
Comics are unreadable on a 7" kindle's tiny screen anyway. What's up with the marketing?
Why advertise a function that you know your device can't fulfill?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/amazons-first-color-...
> In addition to the monochrome e-readers, Amazon introduced its first color e-reader today. The new Kindle Colorsoft, covered in more detail here, looks almost identical to the new Paperwhite and launches on October 30 for $279.99.
jailbreaking sure but what is the issue with sideloading on kindles? You can either email them which is very practical for third party services that support it (I have a digital magazine subscription that supports this for example) or just drag and drop via USB or a manager like calibre.
I have never had any issues getting documents on the Kindle.
https://www.giga.de/artikel/onleihe-mit-amazon-kindle-nutzen...
So the rule of thumb is that Kindles work well with Amazon books and very badly with everything else. Vice versa for non-kindle e-readers
I don’t love Amazon, but this may be the best device I’ve ever owned. It does one thing really, really well.
Maybe other devices have been more life changing but their trade offs have all been greater than the Kindles.
I'm on my third device now, and I have a couple of them which just won't clear. Not the end of the world but eventually there will be so many that reading is just a pain.
> You don't really own anything from Amazon. Kindle is good as ashtray.
I have been considering Boox Air 3C. PDFs are important for me.
Thanks.
One way to fix the margins issue is to use the “Send to Kindle” feature, which converts PDFs to the Print Replica format and trims their margins in the process. Sideloaded PDFs actually appear with more margins (thus reduced font sizes) than books sent through Amazon’s servers.
Connecting a Bluetooth remote to the Paperwhite or using the Scribe's pen to turn pages remotely would be fantastic.
I can't understand why remote page-turning capabilities are not being included.
There are multiple listings on Amazon for the clip on remotes that have 10,000 reviews. The use-case is common.
It’s one of my favorite purchases, because now I can actually fall asleep while reading the kindle since I’m not activating my arm muscles to turn every page.
This is the item (my kindle is one of the earliest versions, from 2011, if that matters): https://amzn.eu/d/aJaesjd
I understand that people would prefer if it were built into the device but in all honesty it isn't really that much of an inconvenience when you're already only using it while it's stationary.
no buttons? no purchase.
Been waiting a long time, I suppose it's time to move to alternatives, as it's a pain to carry around a usb-micro cable just for my kindle.
I have a first generation Kindle Oasis, which is a great device, in no small part because of its asymmetric design and page turn buttons. The newer Oasis (still last refreshed in 2022) have better lighting (temperature adjustable) and inverse text mode, which are both nice but have not been enough to get me to upgrade. It lacks the battery cover of the original oasis, which while kind of a pain was nice because it gave a very natural way to hold the device.
I'm sad to see that the Oasis line is not mentioned here. I have little to no interest in using my kindle as a writing device, and honestly would prefer that the touchscreen was as little used as possible -- an unresponsive or slow screen is the worst case for a touchscreen, since the feedback loop is terrible.
I don't know if they'll have an OS update to go along with this. I have found successive updates to be worse and worse -- my pages are all crammed with ads (not actual ads since I paid to have them removed, but "recommended books") and large page covers. I can barely fit five titles from my library on a screen; I would much prefer to have just the title/author/progress and fit twenty on a page.
The integration with the Amazon ecosystem is probably the best selling point, but until somebody shuts down Libby I've switched my habits to be almost entirely rent-based rather than buying books.
I'm in the U.S. and a search for "oasis" has nothing but eye drops in its top results. You have to scroll down to find a listing for the "International Version — Kindle Oasis", selling at just $135 [1], but which Amazon refuses to ship if your address is in the U.S.
[0] https://www.thestreet.com/retail/amazon-quietly-discontinues...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Oasis-now-with-adjustable-warm...
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24272009/amazon-disconti...
Looks like I've got to build my own.
Other than that I'm a real fan: latest update delivered dark mode (black background, white text) and like I said above: no ads, no Amazon-DRM, all formats, cloud storage (if you want to), TTS, annotations that are really comfortable to handle, bluetooth.
I don't love boox but mine hasn't died yet and it's decently competent at my use case.
The PocketBook cloud is just as seamless as the syncing with Amazon if that is something you use. Only time I notice problems is during the weekly maintenance window which just looks like an outage. It has bidirectional sync for your progress as well as syncing new books and has a web interface and a phone app. Also offers the same email endpoint service as Kindle and you can set up Adobe DRM to use with library borrowing as well as other places that distribute ascm. The builtin store probably doesn't have the same availability of titles as Amazon but I haven't used it since I manage my library with Calibre and buy my books from various stores.
Best of all is the customizability. Don't want to use their store or cloud? You can turn off (really just not setup and hide) all the features and integrations individualy to make it an "offline" reader but still bring it online for things like Wikipedia lookup and web searches. You don't even need an account to set it up. You can also load additional dictionaries, fonts, and even applications on it. It has a healthy if small development scene.
There is a new color version but if you don't read things that require color I would get the original; Based on reviews it has the the same downside as Kobo and others that use the Kalaido screen where it's relatively dimmer in ambient light compared to the B/W one and so needs a higher average backlight level to compensate.
Overall I've been really happy with my switch and can't see myself going back to Kindle.
I've considered doing a sweep to download all of my kindle books and de-DRM them so that I have an archive, but this is a tortuous process if your library has over a thousand titles, as mine does.
The process is really not bad at all if you use the desktop Kindle app to download your library before importing to Calibre. Each step is fully automated with the only manual parts being setting it up and doing each step in sequence for the whole library but not each individual book.
So no, I wouldn't say you missed anything obvious, which is a feature not a bug as far as Amazon is concerned.
The workarounds mostly involve getting Amazon to give you the book in an older format, but then you lose the typography improvements that KFX gets you.
Apple's DRM format (Fairplay?) has never been cracked but I believe Adobe's has. Buying from the Google store of Kobo store is probably the best bet.
The book DRM problem requires a legislative solution.
I second buying from Google Play. Outside of a period of time last year where they had a bug that prevented exporting many titles in their catalog (some error in their backend service), I have never had an issue with purchases from there. I will happily continue getting my books from sources that allow true ownership after purchase regardless of any touted benefits Amazon adds to future DRM schemes, just need the words on the page.
For me, the kerning, hyphenation, and spacing improvements in KFX are pretty big. I also like that I can choose justified or ragged right.
https://www.reddit.com/r/kindle/comments/viqxjj/heres_the_fo...
Regardless, my point was that: A - most of the books already in the library were likely enjoyed/acquired without knowledge of hypothetical improvements from Amazon rolling out a new ebook format and DRM scheme. And B - even if there is some magic that Amazon had to include in KFX to support the improvements you listed and can't be reproduced without them; I personally would not consider those or most any improvements to be worth losing ownership of books that I purchase. The most valuable part of an ebook is the text and ownership of a copy of that is what I'm paying for. It is fairly easy for me to be principaled on only buying ebooks that I know I can own a copy of due to the diverse distribution that exists for most titles. Even when I had an Oasis, I didn't purchase anything through Amazon and loaded all my books over USB.
Seems like that's how it should work, but it doesn't. Maybe that's by design or maybe it's fallout from poor choices Amazon made earlier in Kindle history. I really don't know.
There is no PB Cloud support but it uses Dropbox, however that means no syncing progress like with kindle.
It takes a few seconds to start since it's Android and fully turns off.
And highlighting is very clunky.
The software situation with that company is pretty sketchy. From their website both mine and yours are listed as the same OS but seem totally different.
You do have to setup and login to a PocketBook account to use the cloud synchronization. I have not tried the Dropbox integration, but it only supports a synchronized file folder.
In the user manual for the Verse Pro[1], the setup for PB Cloud starts on page 79 and isn't grouped with the Dropbox sync or email endpoint earlier on in the manual.
The only controversy related to PB Software that I am aware of is that it used to be even more open with a published SDK. It was many years ago that they stopped actively maintaining tne SDK. That doesn't seem to have stopped people from continuing to develop for PB devices, and as far as I'm aware PB have not done anything to prevent this or lock down their devices beyond not continuing public development of the SDK. Certainly theur current lineup of devices allow you to run 3rd party applications and are simple to get root shell access on.
[1]https://support.pocketbook-int.com/fw/634/u/6.8.3796/manual/...
Maybe it's a regional thing.
I also would have been disappointed with my Era if it didn't have PocketBook Cloud syncronization as advertised since it is functionality I care about. That being said, if it is something locked out of your region you could always install Koreader and setup sync through that.
[1] https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/support
The manual on my device also mentions the cloud, but it is just wrong. I think they have regional partners with ebook stores that customize it.
Though I think you are right it isn't Android and I misremembered. I thought thats why it has a dual core cpu and make wonder why it's so slow after boot until it's ready to turn pages.
You're entitled to your opinion, but it seems easily solvable based on a 3 second Google search: https://old.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/1dvwnb8/pocketbook...
I can't speak to how their distribution is resulting in selling devices that don't have advertised features enabled. It is weird they would allow this while keeping their branding and same device name (maybe they are working around some trade restrictions?) So that is not good, but I don't know how widespread that issue is. And as I pointed out in my response before the edit, this seems straightforward to resolve if you buy from somewhere that has this issue.
Not to belabor the point, but in my original post I mentioned how PocketBook devices are specifically not Android as an advantage in terms of battery life.
I suspect that what you are experiencing with regards to it being "slow" to resume an in progress book and allow navigation may be due to your settings. The PocketBook has a sleep mode that allows quick resume for reading. How long after it goes to sleep before it powers all the way down is fully configurable from disabling it to waiting your choice of many options between 10 minutes and 48 hours. IMO the cold boot time is acceptable and I did not notice a difference from my 1st Gen Oasis. The power loss if you fully disable its auto power off is still great, although I haven't used it that way much beyond when I first got mine so I don't have a comparison to my Oasis.
That being said, I don't have the same model as you so maybe there is a significant difference between them in performance, but it would be easy enough to check independent reviews if I was trying to decide between them.
1. Android (privacy...)
2. No light sensor to automatically adjust screen brightness to surroundings
(i currently have the Kindle Oasis 3, jailbroken, running KOreader.)
As for the second, if that is a requirement then at least the Era doesn't have an ambient light sensor. I don't have any issue without it because I just have the front light off entirely by default since it is e-ink. Obviously if I need to use it in the dark I turn it on, but that is easy without having to navigate a screen I can't see since you can configure a hardware shortcut to toggle the front light (it is set to long press on the home button by default). While it does support automatic screen brightness and temperature (individually toggled), these are driven by a schedule based on the set timezones.
> PocketBook devices do NOT run Android
Well actually some _do_ run Android, but good to see also some of them (like the Era) do not...
> these are driven by a schedule based on the set timezones Yea, i don't really like that unfortunately, as it doesn't properly work inside when lighting changes.
I'll patiently wait on a next release, hoping for a non-Android and light sensor included device :-)
I was unaware of this. Looks like they have a couple devices that are "e-note" devices, are larger, and support stylus input that are Android devices. Maybe also a couple readers from a long time ago, saw an article mentioning one running KitKat 4.4.
Thanks for letting me know!
I agree in principle (slow feedback is the bane of my existence) but I had one of those 10 inch Kindle DX without touch, and it was a pretty bad experience compared to the Paperwhite.
Physical buttons (and possibly the orientation sensor?) were definitely nice to have though.
Oh well, at least my Voyage still works and fits in most pockets (and has cool origami cover), the only downside is that if not in airplane mode, it uses up battery in 2-3 days. In airplane mode I can read 2-3 weeks.
Finally the physical page turn buttons are great as well as the bevel on the back for holding it with one hand.
If not traveling, getting to read an open paperback, two pages side by side, on Kindle Scribe is super enjoyable, then turn it to portrait to read white papers or textbooks.
I did know of its drawbacks beforehand — e.g. no physical buttons, not waterproof. The page-turning response/refresh time is noticeably better, but I'm left feeling pretty meh by the overall experience. I haven't had much need to scribble notes so as of now, the Scribe is basically an iPad-sized device with the limited feature set of the Paperwhite.
The size is good for textbook-type material, but not enough to make me pick it over an iPad if I'm traveling. The Oasis is small enough that I can carry it in a coat pocket.
But the buttons really are the killer feature. Being able to disable the touchscreen — especially when I'm anywhere where moisture is an issue (at the beach or gym) — easily makes the Oasis worth bringing even if I could read on my phone. I would have easily gone for a new version of the Oasis but I guess consumers haven't shown enough interest in paying extra for a button interface.
Both are features that complement each other. If I can’t read in the rain I don’t want it. This means disabling the touch screen and using the physical buttons to page turn, otherwise you are using hacks like putting it inside a plastic baggie. Haptic buttons would be fine as well, and likely solve some of the waterproof issues along with an update to USB-C charging.
Pondering having someone mule me the last of the Oasis International editions available for sale for when my current Oasis finally dies. I really don’t want to go back to the dark ages of touchscreen only.
I really wish UX designers for handheld devices optimized for, you know, ergonomics of actually holding it, rather than just trying to minimize the physical size.
Maybe people are more interesting in Kindles and upvoting this story instead?
Not everything is a conspiracy.
Either way, sad there's no Oasis refresh. I'm not super attached to the physical buttons, but I'd prefer it to not. Oh well.
It wish it was A4/Letter size to read PDFs at full size. There are a few devices like that out there (I've heard the Fujitsu Quaderno is nice), but none of them can be used with books purchased at Amazon.
And yes, I know about Calibre and the DeDRM tools. They don't work on KFX files and the workarounds degrade the book (you lose typography improvements that are only in KFX).
I'm also disappointed by the Oasis being discontinued. I wanted to trade mine in for a USB-C version.
I'd like to see one because I'm a little skeptical about the screen. Is it as readable in sunlight as the Kindle?
But a bigger difference is that Gallery 3 uses CMYW pigments; there's no black pigment, rather the microcapsules themselves are tinted black on one end, so the black ultimately ends up a little impure. Also there are only 4 shades of grey for antialiasing rather than 16.
Remarkable, as a newer, smaller company, needs to seriously differentiate itself. Amazon can play it safer.
Having said that, I think the white bezel and introducing a professional looking colour to the Scribe, is so much better looking than my current Gen 1.
I normally wouldn't care, I didn't feel my scribe was ugly, until I saw the new one. I'm half considering passing mine to my mother, and buying the new version.
It seemed like if you wanted a large ebook reader AND occasional note taking, it's probably great. For my use, I would have been just as happy with just a spiral notebook, probably happier. I used it every day for work notes and todos.
I sold it on ebay and got an Boox Note Air3, similar cost, and the writing experience is not nearly as good as the Scribe, but it is a much more capable device with many more features in the notebook. However, I've fallen out of the habit of using it, I think just because the writing experience isn't as good.
It's fine for reading PDFs, I guess.
I'd really like some comments there. There's a lot that goes into writing and drawing, and all the online reviews I've seen seem just to praise it.
I used most digital writing devices starting from wacom tables (first intuos series), to laptops with foldable screens and currently using the rm2/rm3.
I agree that nothing still has the precision of a real pen or pencil. I can lazily fill and shade even with a micron fineliner when I want, and simply can't replicate the same precision with anything else I tried. I could buy a lifetime supply of the best pens and paper with the cost of the rm3.
Writing is mostly fine, but when drawing I notice immediately the precision just isn't there. But still, at least on the rm (both 2 and pro), the digitizer is well calibrated, and the feel is good, the pen is actually like a pen and not the sucky abomination what wacom like to call "pens" or the tiny unusable styluses of the samsung "note" or lenovo yoga series. The show distance between tip and display is very good, and even though it seems ridicolous, the slighltly shorter one on the rm3 makes a difference. The rm2 is still requires a bit too much pressure for my taste (I have a light touch being used to mechanical pencils, fineliners and tech drawing); the rm3 seems slightly improved.
I can still tell instantly that lines are occasionally wobbly due to the digitizer's grid and pen position.
That being said I got the rm2 at some point, and it's the first e-notebook I actually stuck with because it's effectively "endless paper" and has reached the "good enough" feeling for me. I used to have tons of sheets of paper with notes, now I have somewhat less ;).
I had hope at one point to set up a Kindle with large fonts on a treadmill, but that was just totally hopeless. I tried again with a music stand next to the treadmill, but it was too far away, badly angled, and touching the device to flip pages could still turn it off.
And it's not just the accidental power-off, it's also the accidental power-on. I slip the Kindle into a tight pocket in my backpack, and it sometimes turns on by itself. Further, inserting it into the pocket can sometimes reproduce the swipe motion, so it can be on and active (and sometimes randomly page-flipping) inside my backpack.
Funny, because I'd like a larger one.
When e-readers first started, one of the big companies offered a machine that would display an entire page of The New York Times on it large enough to be able to skim the headlines, then you'd tap on the article and it would take you to that part of the page.
Back then, I didn't have the money for it. Now I do, and the only options seem to be too small.
It's almost a pocketbook form-factor. I overlooked it initially because who wants a basic model? but the only thing I miss in practice is waterproofing. That, and the Oasis OEM cover which was unexpectedly nice, like a leather-bound pocketbook.
"Will my kid see ads while using this device? Kindle Paperwhite Kids is automatically set up for your kid to enjoy an ad-free experience. However, if you exit Amazon Kids using a passcode, sponsored screensavers will be displayed on the device's lockscreen."
I bought a colour Kobo. Super responsive by comparison. The colour isn't wonderful, I like that it's there.
Also, physical buttons! Such things are only available on the most expensive Kindle, I didn't realize how much I'd missed them.
Or the old ones you can get for $10 on eBay :) I use exclusively old models that have physical buttons for Kindles because they're just insanely cheap and still perfectly reliable (the battery too) even a decade later.
I went through a phase of buying used 4th gen ones off ebay so that I could have physical buttons to turn the page, but within a couple of months they would always end up up with cracked screens
They would be stored in my bag next to my laptop (and in a case) but at some point I would end up pulling it out to read and find a cracked screen
I think I went through 4 of them before I called it quits, my current paperwhite is still going strong (just no buttons sadly)
I have the newest paperwhite (prior to the one announced here) and it is incredibly fast and zippy compared to the kindles of old. And they claim the new one is even 25% faster.
I hope Scribe note sharing is improved from "email yourself a PDF".
And come on, still no physical page turn buttons?
I also want a Kindle Scribe with a scroll display: a high-refresh-rate LCD touchscreen that sits just below the bottom of the eink screen. Use case being: swipe to a bookmark or page very quickly. It would stay off until touched and would be about 2cm tall, with the same width as the eink screen.
I hope Kobo releases a new Elipsa. I waited for the new reMarkable, but it is full of subscription garbage.
I use a Remarkable tablet (the Scribe's competitor) for the exact reason that it doesn't come with apps for email or web browsing or an app store or a weather app. It writes really really well (the scribe does too) and lets you focus on that. It doesn't try to be the 4th version of a smart device when you already have so many.
The simplicity of it is a feature not a bug.
- the authors are unfairly compensated by amazon and the public libraries due to publisher issues with ebooks already. OP is hardly contributing to this disparity.
- I choose to purchase expensive copies of books I love - but the digital copy is the one I read.
And sure, if you’re buying some copy of the book and downloading a convenient second copy, that’s totally different. I was responding to the OP being pleased about not having spent anything at all (except on the kindle itself presumably).
I get that the idea is "if everyone opted out the writer would get nothing instead of peanuts!" Or maybe the company shafting the writer would go under and direct sales would happen instead?
If everyone opted out you could force major change, sure, but in that case you shouldn’t be reading the book. That’s a true boycott. Reading without paying isn’t principled - it’s just cheap. And if you don’t actually organise it achieves nothing - except stiffing the author.
In fact, if everyone used a shadow library but mailed the author cash, then Amazon would go bankrupt but the authors would be fine (and wouldn't need to use Amazon in the first place).
Worth noting though that it’s not just Amazon and the author in the picture - you would be stiffing the publishers in this scenario, and they paid to get the book printed (and edited, and designed, and shipped to physical stores, and maybe some publicity, and probably gave the author an advance).
You might think “who cares?”, but if the author didn’t (traditionally) sell any of the books they published then they wouldn’t ever get another publishing deal, so you’re harming their career. They could self-publish, sure, but worth keeping in mind the author doesn’t necessarily want that, because of the benefits publishers bring (if they didn’t bring any benefits, people wouldn’t use them - they’re not idiots).
It’s very complicated, and I would argue that people using shadow libraries “for authors’ benefit” ought to be speaking to more authors about whether they want that kind of help. But I agree your plan is much more honest than paying nobody, even if it has some potentially negative effects at scale without more coordinated action.