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Amazon Kindle |OT| of eInk superiority

Guys, it's probably not the best thread but does anyone here knows now the $70 kindle fares against the simple nook touch(also $70)
And oh, do you guys think amazon or bn will be updating their e-readers in the next 2-3 months ? i can wait for a while to get a better product
 

Helmholtz

Member
So I've been thinking of buying the cheapest version of the kindle (about €80 I think) anything I should really know before I commit?
I have the newest $69 kindle with ads. I like it a lot. I'd recommend getting some kind of case if you're traveling around with it a lot, I got a cheap one off Ebay. I really don't care about having a built in light, so this one works great for me. I use it primarily on my bus/subway commute to school and it makes the commute feel a lot shorter. The ads are pretty unobtrusive btw if you want to save $20; you see them as a screensaver and at the bottom of the menu screen which you'll rarely go to. And if you disconnect the Kindle from the internet for a while the ads will go away and just tell you to reconnect to the internet if you want ads again.
So I'm looking into a Kindle, because I want to regain my love of reading. Did anyone find that they began reading more once they got their Kindle? And would you guys recommend the Paperwhite or the original Kindle?
I began reading more primarily due to the fact that the Kindle allows me to read more easily/comfortably during my daily commutes to school. I had been reading A Dance With Dragons, and the hardcover version is simply way too big to lug around, and I always worry about damaging my books by cramming them into my backpack. It hasn't really changed my reading habits at home, which are pretty inconsistent, however sometimes after reading on my Kindle during commutes I continue reading when I get home, if they book is engrossing.
 

vazel

Banned
I'm happy Amazon did away with the groupon ads. I haven't seen one of those in a long time. I'm seeing ads for fantasy books lately and that's gotten me interested in two of them. Now that's something relevant to a Kindle user.
i have to say, my Paperwhite has froze much more often than my Kindle 3 ever did.
That's odd. None of my Kindles have ever frozen. I wonder what kind of conditions bring that on. Are you dumping thousands of books into your Kindle? If so maybe it's all the background indexing that's causing the freezes.
 

coopolon

Member
My kindle keyboard froze occasionally and now my paper white keeps rebooting after popping up some warning message every other time I turn it on. It is very annoying, but doing a hard reset makes it go away for a few weeks so I haven't been compelled to return it. I really should return it soon though, I just love it so much I don't want to have to go back to the keyboard while I wait for them to ship me a new one.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
I had the same thing happen with my paperwhite. The message was something about "Collecting information..." followed by a reboot. A hard reset has fixed it as well. Are you saying that the reset is only a temporary fix? Searching around has revealed precious little about this issue.
 

UltimaKilo

Gold Member
Alright so I jailbroke my paperwhite, but can I add custom wallpapers like we did with the K3? Furthermore, what else can I do with the JB?
 

bangai-o

Banned
I
That's odd. None of my Kindles have ever frozen. I wonder what kind of conditions bring that on. Are you dumping thousands of books into your Kindle? If so maybe it's all the background indexing that's causing the freezes.

i might have come to realization of the problem. Back when I was using K3, I would send my documents from google docs using "email as attachment" which is default as HTML. I never had any problems with it in that way. But the Paperwhite is not the same for some reason, and HTML doesn't seem to work smoothly, and I cannot use the basic text settings on the Kindle. It would freeze constantly.
I tried sending as a .txt. It works perfectly. No freezes. Not slow at all, and the text settings can be customized again.

So now, i just need to delete all the old docs and resend them as .txt instead.
 

saelz8

Member
So I'm looking into a Kindle, because I want to regain my love of reading. Did anyone find that they began reading more once they got their Kindle? And would you guys recommend the Paperwhite or the original Kindle?

I've been reading a lot more with my Kindle's.

As for which Kindle? I can only speak for myself. I had the Paperwhite, but I replaced it with a Kindle 4. I didn't find the light spread as even as I had hoped, but more than that, I realized I didn't like a light screen as a whole. Many people love it, but I prefer ambient lighting. I also like holding the Kindle however I want, without fear of accidentally changing pages.

Some things I miss from the Kindle 3.

Bigger Page-Turn Buttons
Sliding Power Button
 

wilflare

Member
I've been reading a lot more with my Kindle's.

As for which Kindle? I can only speak for myself. I had the Paperwhite, but I replaced it with a Kindle 4. I didn't find the light spread as even as I had hoped, but more than that, I realized I didn't like a light screen as a whole. Many people love it, but I prefer ambient lighting. I also like holding the Kindle however I want, without fear of accidentally changing pages.

Some things I miss from the Kindle 3.

Bigger Page-Turn Buttons
Sliding Power Button

and here I am trying to sell my Kindle 3 Keyboard.
but I do miss those Big Page-turn buttons
 
I've been reading The Savage Detectives in paperback (no Kindle version) and how I miss reading on a Kindle. It's awkward to try to read in bed and book lights are terrible. There is zero reason to complain about the Paperwhite lighting, I don't care about color blobs or how uneven it looks, every bad paperwhite I've seen is a vast improvement over a book light. Book lights especially are terrible on paperbacks where they have nothing solid hold onto and the bendiness of the book makes the light even more uneven.
 
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Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
I was 'lucky' enough that my kindle keyboard screen died while I was on vacation in the USA.

promptly signed up for amazon prime, had the paperwhite delivered and cancelled amazon prime again (it's not worth it if you're not US living)

was pissed at amazon as I've had my kindle less than 2 years and I'm a euro person so I should have a 2 year warrantee on all hardware but they said 'no way, you purchased it from USA' (which is the only way you can purchase a kindle). So I had to fork out for the full price of a new one.

irritating, but I love the paper white so hard. Already chewed through a couple books on it, one question though, I purchased the ad supported one and the ads aren't worth shit to me, because I can't buy those titles in NL, so I'd like to jailbreak it to ditch ads. Is there a method to do this for the paperwhite?
 
We won't see new Kindles until late August.

I think we are pretty close to a new e-ink Nook, though, which could give us a preview of what to expect from Amazon.
 

sgossard

Member
Of course there will be new kindles this year. But what do you think the new features will be? I honestly can't think of a good reason to upgrade from the PW.
 

NysGAF

Member
Who doesn't?

I don't. I requested my RMA last night. The light makes reading worse for me in every condition. I'd rather use my iPad or I would consider an e-ink device without a built-in light. I also found it very uncomfortable to hold in my hands and the bezel is too thin. My fingers would slip off and change pages at least once every reading session. Then it was a guessing game as to which way the page turned because there are no page numbers!
 

sgossard

Member
I don't. I requested my RMA last night. The light makes reading worse for me in every condition. I'd rather use my iPad or I would consider an e-ink device without a built-in light. I also found it very uncomfortable to hold in my hands and the bezel is too thin. My fingers would slip off and change pages at least once every reading session. Then it was a guessing game as to which way the page turned because there are no page numbers!

Sorry to hear that.
 
Of course there will be new kindles this year. But what do you think the new features will be? I honestly can't think of a good reason to upgrade from the PW.

I can't see upgrading for years, I love my PW. It's better than my K2 in every way.

But, I imagine the lighting tech will be improved and they'll probably add back in audio features. Eventually we'll see another increase in DPI because they have made 300 DPI screens. Color is the holy grail for e-ink it seems. And e-ink is now on Triton 2 tech, but it still doesn't look worth it.
 
Of course there will be new kindles this year. But what do you think the new features will be? I honestly can't think of a good reason to upgrade from the PW.

Cheaper price, lighter build, a few cosmetic details touched up. There hasn't been a lot of technological advances in eInk, but there's still work to be done. Better contrast, higher resolution, faster refresh, color, combining eInk with LCD, and so on.

That's not to say any of these features matter, but it's not the end of the line yet. I bet Amazon will be the first to push the eReader as a cheap disposable commodity. They're doing their best to get there.
 
I bet Amazon will be the first to push the eReader as a cheap disposable commodity. They're doing their best to get there.

Absolutely, I see a future where you subscribe to Prime and get a Kindle (ad-supported of course). Or you buy 10 ebooks, or spend a certain amount in the Kindle store at one time, and get a Kindle. Amazon knows Kindle owners buy more books in general, digital and physical. So get the product in the consumers hands at a reasonable loss and the book sales will more than make up for it.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
I purchased the ad supported one and the ads aren't worth shit to me, because I can't buy those titles in NL, so I'd like to jailbreak it to ditch ads. Is there a method to do this for the paperwhite?

repost from last page.
 

frontovik

Banned
I've been thinking about purchasing a Kindle Paperwhite, but I'm curious to know what are the chances it will freeze up with a blank screen or become unresponsive (it tends to happen with the Kobo Touch)
 

flippedb

Banned
Can I change the blank margin Paperwhite leaves on PDFs? Right by the edge of the screen you have blank bars. It's lost space that could come in handy!
 

coopolon

Member
So my Kindle Paperwhite has always had an annoying bug where after turning it on, it would give a message something like "collecting information, will restart when finished." It would then work fine for a minute or two, and then it would restart. And it would be fine until the next time I turned it off, and then it would do it again when I would turn it on again. (and by off and on I'm just talking pressing the power button once to go into sleep or whatever.)

REading around online it wasn't very common but a few other people have had the issue. The only solution seemed to be doing a forced restart by holding the power button down for 20 seconds and then letting it reboot. In my case, that would work for about a week or two, and then it would start doing it again.

Today it did it and I did a force restart and I guess that just killed my kindle. Now it won't go past the start screen, just shows the guy reading under the tree and the circle icon turning underneath him. Charging it did not fix the problem.

So I contacted Kindle support and in my very first message said, "My kindle is not responsive. I have tried holding the power button down for 20 seconds and charging it and neither fixed the problem." The support lady said, "Sorry to hear that, I'll send you a new kindle." Obviously I am well within warranty so that was expected, but I did appreciate they didn't make me go through a bunch of bullshit troubleshooting steps which I had already done.

Anyway, hope to have better luck with the next one. I love the device and am not looking forward to having to use the keyboard for a few days while waiting for it.
 

bangai-o

Banned
Of course there will be new kindles this year. But what do you think the new features will be? I honestly can't think of a good reason to upgrade from the PW.

the return of being able to play music. stream from Amazon Cloud Player maybe?

edit

and I still cant argue for color, if there is no content that is going to take advantage of color.
 

MasLegio

Banned
the return of being able to play music. stream from Amazon Cloud Player maybe?

edit

and I still cant argue for color, if there is no content that is going to take advantage of color.

textbooks, magazines, childrens books, non-fiction, photo books, comics, graphic novels, art books etc. etc.
 

Rootbeer

Banned
Do you guys update your paperwhite's firmware? I thought it was supposed to automatically download new versions when wi-fi is enabled but mine has never notified me of any updates, I've been doing it manually. I thought that maybe I don't leave the wi-fi on often enough, but I forget to turn it off all the time.

I noticed there's a new firmware, 5.3.4, for Paperwhite. Thought it might interest some of you. Who knows what it changes, but these things can sometimes improve battery life or add new features.

Firmwares for other Kindle models can be located on the same page, via the Topic list on the left-hand side.
 

injurai

Banned
hows the battery on the paperwhite? It says 8 weeks but that has to be with the backlight off correct?

If you turn down the light all the way is the screen also just the same as any other Kindle?
 

bangai-o

Banned
hows the battery on the paperwhite? It says 8 weeks but that has to be with the backlight off correct?

If you turn down the light all the way is the screen also just the same as any other Kindle?
the battery lasts more than a month regardless of the light being on. having the 3g on does take away more juice though.

yes to your second question.
 

vazel

Banned
The Way of Kings is $2.99. Brandon Sanderson and GRRM are the best fantasy writers right now in my opinion.
I would like to see a lower input delay on the screen. Coming from an iPad, using the Kindle seemed sluggish in comparison
What annoys me about the input lag is it can be inconsistent. It usually takes about half a second for the Kindle to recognize your input, while other times less frequently it can take as long as 2 seconds.
 

dLMN8R

Member
hows the battery on the paperwhite? It says 8 weeks but that has to be with the backlight off correct?

If you turn down the light all the way is the screen also just the same as any other Kindle?

I haven't charged mine for over a month and use it for many hours each week. The light's always on.
 

Gigglepoo

Member
I've got two quick questions. I own a Kindle now (the model called just "Kindle) and want to buy another one for my wife. If I put my Amazon account on it, will we have any problems sharing books? Also, she enjoys the Enconomist so it'd be great to have it on an easy-to-read device. Is there a non-table Kindle that's particularly good for magazines? I'm not sure how the Paperwhite screen compares to the E Ink.

Thanks!
 
Is their a folder system or something for the paperwhite? I have about 99 books on my currently and going through them is a major pain in the fucking ass. Is there a way to sort them that I'm not aware of?
 

jayb

Member
I've got two quick questions. I own a Kindle now (the model called just "Kindle) and want to buy another one for my wife. If I put my Amazon account on it, will we have any problems sharing books?

You'll just have to turn off page syncing if you're both reading the same book at the same time. You should be ok otherwise.
 
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