Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

aboutamazon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 683 posts

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#381

Post by aurea »

technothrasher wrote: post #185
grecy wrote: post #7

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 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 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.

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#382

Post by TeMPOraL »

eloisant wrote: post #362
WalterBright wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally! But what I'd really like is the last page read is the screen saver.

That would be weird, it would make it hard to know if the device is on or off.

The whole point of e-ink screens is that the device only needs to be "on" when redrawing the screen.

In fact, with respect to the e-ink readers, a "screen saver" that turns on automatically is a bad idea that removes useful functionality - being able to keep the same page up for hours without interacting with the device is a feature, as it allows you to use it as a reference, like you'd do with a paper printout.

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#383

Post by fodkodrasz »

wooque wrote: post #200
koyote wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When it started deleting books i had side-loaded via calibre Could you expand on that? I load all my books via calibre but I also have the kindle set to aeroplane mode at all times. Does this happen when syncing?

It deletes all side-loaded books when you connect it to the internet, happened to me as well.

Happened to me also. I will use the device in airplane mode as long as it lasts, but this is my last Kindle.

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#384

Post by toyg »

wkat4242 wrote: post #342
AcerbicZero wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#385

Post by mrweasel »

wackget wrote: post #280

No physical buttons, no purchase.

I still use my Kindle 4, because it's the last version to have buttons, without having a crazy form factor. It was also $100, which is in the absolute max a Kindle should cost.

None of the later version have peeked my interest, because I don't gain anything, compared to my 12 year old Kindle. Prices have gone up, but I've lost the physical button, so I pay more to lose a feature I really like.

Amazon could have more or less stopped Kindle development in 2012 and just worked on reducing the cost ever since and it would still have been a great e-reader.

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#386

Post by tene80i »

komali2 wrote: post #195
tene80i wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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…

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.

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#387

Post by WalterBright »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #382
eloisant wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be weird, it would make it hard to know if the device is on or off.

The whole point of e-ink screens is that the device only needs to be "on" when redrawing the screen. In fact, with respect to the e-ink readers, a "screen saver" that turns on automatically is a bad idea that removes useful functionality - being able to keep the same page up for hours without interacting with the device is a feature , as it allows you to use it as a reference, like you'd do with a paper printout.

Yes, yes!

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#388

Post by Teknomancer »

alok-g wrote: post #69
apwell23 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Boox with android like you described. Quality doesn't compare with kindle though. I still prefer reading on kindle.

I have been considering Boox Air 3C. Could you pls. explain more about the differences you see between Kindle and Boox? Thanks.

Boox suck. Stay away. Horrible android os, low speed, battery and hardware quality issues, and dodgy Chinese practices all around.

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#389

Post by b3kart »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #356
Maxion wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also because it is not really 28 hours of battery life. If you just let it sit without touching it, the battery lasts for several weeks, if not longer. It's a hard class of devices to give any sort of reasonable battery life length. Regardless, the battery on these devices even back in 2012 was already good enough.

With light at 13 it won't last weeks. Not even 3 days.

Why would you leave a Kindle untouched with the light on for 3 days?

Re: Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

#390

Post by TeMPOraL »

eproxus wrote: post #378
chrisandchris wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With these displays, there's not really an "off" because as long as there's no change on the display there's no energy usage. Of course, that dies not account for the OS.

The problem is, once you want to flip page you’ll try to press the touch screen and nothing will happen since you haven’t turned on the device with the power button (you don’t want the touch screen active always since it will drain the battery). I guess they could add some indication on the screen it’s in ”sleep” mode though, like a frame or icon somewhere…

Honestly, I think they should optimize the time it takes a powered off device to boot up and turn the page after the user presses a button[0]. Sure, those readers tend to be full-blown Linux computers with nontrivial boot time, but approximately none of the features this stack provides are needed for simply turning the page.

I'm sure I'm underestimating the complexities of the problem, but the first idea that pops into my head is to add some flash storage that's, say, 5x the size of the framebuffer, and always keep in it the current page + next two and previous two pages (swapping pointers to avoid unnecessary writes), and have an extra microcontroller that would wake on button press, read the appropriate page from the flash buffer, and send it to the display controller. The whole process could take a fraction of the second (+ screen redraw time), all while the main OS wakes up (or boots up) in the background, and the user would experience no delays if all they're trying to do is read their book page by page. Once ready, the OS would update the flash buffer and stay active for a short while, in case the user decides they want to flip pages quickly.

--

[0] - Gosh, I keep forgetting the readers only have touchscreens now. Another reason for superiority of hardware buttons for page turning.

Post reply on HN