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All-New Kindle Paperwhite

amazon.com

41–50 of 78 posts

Re: All-New Kindle Paperwhite

#41
post #21

Got a DX size? Nope? Not interested. Seriously. It's 2013. Make something that feels and has the space of a full-sized book. It's not that hard. Hell, use it as a loss-leader if you can't make the numbers work.

You can use some other 9-10 inch reader. Onyx has them, pocketbook too.

True, though I had a Pocketbook (902) and it was quite a finicky beast; customer service tried their best to help though. Also, it didn't have a "Pearl" display in those days though that might have changed now. I recall discussions on Mobileread where people had issues with Onyx as well. I wish BN would make a large-form e-ink reader: I have the (rooted) Nook and it is the best e-reader that I have ever owned.

Re: All-New Kindle Paperwhite

#42
post #8

I have owned the original Paperwhite since it came out, and I love it - can't recommend it highly enough. The frontlighting is wonderful. However, I really wish that this newer one had physical buttons on the side for turning the pages, like some of the other Kindle models. I find the touchscreen rather irritating when reading. It's much easier to have buttons on the side that you can press without moving your hand/f…

I checked for 1) buttons, 2) a lighter version. Found none of the above, so I'll stick to my Kindle 3. I don't think Amazon appreciates how important buttons are for reading in non-perfect setups. Sure, if you're on your couch or by the swimming pool, you might not care. But try reading on a subway or a bus. Or with gloves on.

7.3 oz is too heavy for you? That's 1.4 oz lighter than your Kindle 3.

Re: All-New Kindle Paperwhite

#43

Why don't they make the 'Papergold' or 'Paperpale?' An e-ink reader is supposed to be easy on your eyes, yet a stark white background honestly creates just as much stress as reading against a screen. And High-Contrast mode is even worse for most people.

I imagine you have never seen one then? The backlight on the paperwhite is actually a frontlight, so it doesn't strain the eyes, I find it a lot better than any old Kindle, or frankly - than reading an actual book.

Re: All-New Kindle Paperwhite

#44
Does anyone know how good the Kindle translation dictionaries are (e.g. Spanish-English, French-English, etc, dictionaries that you can bring up by selecting a word)?

Sony apparently has the reputation for having the best dictionaries, but the PRS-T1 I bought is so buggy it's nearly unusable - if I press a word, it has a one-in-three chance of freezing up for several minutes, and updating the firmware didn't help - so I'm thinking of switching to Kobo or Kindle, but I don't know if they're any better.

Re: All-New Kindle Paperwhite

#45
post #33

Amazing to see this reach #4 rank. Good luck with the affiliate profit.

Few things disgust me more on sites like reddit or hn than people sneaking in affiliate programs for monetary benefit. Would much appreciate it if mods could clean the url from this.

Even worse is the trend at boingboing, over the last 1.5 to 2 years, of putting in an obvious throwaway article just for the affiliate link.

Here's a recent example:

http://boingboing.net/2013/08/24/flash-gordon-1980.html

Add a little color commentary about how you like the Queen soundtrack, a bit about some related context, and then stick in the affiliate link.

Re: All-New Kindle Paperwhite

#46

I have owned the original Paperwhite since it came out, and I love it - can't recommend it highly enough. The frontlighting is wonderful. However, I really wish that this newer one had physical buttons on the side for turning the pages, like some of the other Kindle models. I find the touchscreen rather irritating when reading. It's much easier to have buttons on the side that you can press without moving your hand/f…

You know, I had a Kindle 2 and I loved the buttons, but after a book or two with the Paperwhite I'm pretty much completely used to using the touchscreen. It felt risky, but I'm kind of glad now that I took the plunge and got one without any buttons at all- the bezel around the screen is so incredibly small now compared to my old K2.

Re: All-New Kindle Paperwhite

#47
post #24

I have owned the original Paperwhite since it came out, and I love it - can't recommend it highly enough. The frontlighting is wonderful. However, I really wish that this newer one had physical buttons on the side for turning the pages, like some of the other Kindle models. I find the touchscreen rather irritating when reading. It's much easier to have buttons on the side that you can press without moving your hand/f…

Did you own a previous Kindle before your Paperwhite? I got a chance to try one earlier this month, and compare it to my 3rd gen Kindle Keyboard. The backlight was nice, but I had a few problems with it. The lack of physical buttons for page changing and the menus drove me nuts. If I'm holding a Paperwhite in my left hand, then to change to a new page I have to move my thumb out far enough, tap, and them bring my thu…

I don't know what the non-paperwhite ones are like, but the paperwhite screen quickly looks like a real mess if you have it set to refresh irregularly.

The paperwhite screen is nice, but whoever signed off on the paperwhite's touch UI exhibited some poor judgement. The onscreen keyboard is fine; the page turning is merely adequate; the book list and web browser scrolling is terrible. (The scrolling uses touch-and-drag, but the software doesn't actually scroll the screen until you release your finger, which makes it very hard to judge what's going on. Touching and dragging requires low latency and a high refresh rate, making it a very bad choice for an e-ink screen.)

A few physical inputs would make this device twice as good. Two buttons and a dpad would do it...

Re: All-New Kindle Paperwhite

#49
post #4

I just got a paperwhite a month ago as a present, having owned the last pre-paperwhite model - it's fabulous. This "All New" model seems to be... almost exactly the same? Anyone know how software updates tend to apply to older kindles? as a lot of the "Features" seem to be minor software tweaks....

Sadly Amazon is notorious for not updating older models. (Owner of a paperwhite and original kindle fire). I guess that is a motivating force to upgrade (new purchase). I'm indifferent on the new hardware, but the software tweaks are really compelling...

Are you sure it's all marketing? I mean, what developer wants to target twenty different platforms?

Re: All-New Kindle Paperwhite

#50
post #44

Does anyone know how good the Kindle translation dictionaries are (e.g. Spanish-English, French-English, etc, dictionaries that you can bring up by selecting a word)? Sony apparently has the reputation for having the best dictionaries, but the PRS-T1 I bought is so buggy it's nearly unusable - if I press a word, it has a one-in-three chance of freezing up for several minutes, and updating the firmware didn't help - s…

This is something I'm working on with my next project. If you're interested, ping me -- my email is in my profile.
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