kindle2 - some thoughts on ebook reading

[Numtini]

I got a PW as well. This was an upgrade from a Kindle 2 I bought in 09. I'm very happy with the lighting and find I don't notice it if I'm actually reading--other than the fact I can read without having direct light. Where it shines is in full light, where the combination of screen and lighting really do come off as "paper white." I do not think I could go back to a non-front-lit device.

I agree, I'd prefer buttons to the touchscreen. I also swapped back to a list view from the cover view. The list view is significantly nicer than it was in my K2, title on top, then author below in a smaller font.

On the fonts options, I guess Amazon knows best. After fiddling with them, I ended up going back to their default.

Of the interface features the one I really fell in love with is the time left to finish. The device tracks your reading speed within a book and will give you an ETA to finish either the chapter or the book as a whole. I mostly read before going to bed and if its getting late it's nice to know that it's 5 minutes to finish a chapter and amusing to look at how long it would take to read an entire book: 7 hours and 5 minutes for A Storm of Swords.

I have the ad supported version with a cover. The cover turns the device on when opened, which is really nice, but is killed because you swipe to go past the ad. I suspect I will cough up the $20 and get them removed.

[Quinton]

Yeah, the list view definitely feels less clunky than the title view.  I think one of the reasons I prefer the hard buttons is that I am absolutely certain that I clicked one, which helps compensate for the laggy refresh.  Doing swipe gestures to scroll, I just don't feel as certain about navigation.  One other minor annoyance is if I hold the device with a finger in contact with the display, selection mode starts.

On the plus side, the touch based soft keyboard is nicer than the dpad keyboard.

I also spent some time fiddling with the fonts before settling on the default -- several of the other fonts seemed to have issues, especially at the smaller sizes, where words would appear slightly darker or lighter (assume this is due to however they're doing their anti-aliasing or subpixel drawing).

[naum]

Kindle Paperwhite Quick Review - no-ads, wifi version

The frontlight is definitely nice in low light situations, but there is some shadow effect near the bezel at certain angles and a sort of ghosty blur along the bottom.  Better light distribution than many frontlight solutions I've seen, but not perfect.

I miss the physical next/prev page buttons.  Touch works okay for page turning, but feel especially laggy for paging through your book list and I think the physical buttons were nicer for that.  The touch based keyboard is a big improvement over the dpad driven keypad from the third generation Kindle, though.

Basic navigation feels a little slower without dedicated home, back, and menu buttons -- I have to tap the top edge of the page, wait for the menu bar to draw, then tap an icon to navigate, and while the e-ink display refreshes faster than the previous generation it is still not instant and still flashes a bit when drawing.

In many ways the PW is a step back in feature set from the Kindle Touch:

- Home button is gone, now you need two taps to get anywhere. Yes, it is an affordance that I miss.

- On Kindle Touch swipe up/down, when in a book, advanced to next/previous chapter -- it is a very nimble method of navigating through text, especially ebooks formatted to take advantage of this (i.e., chapters with subheading links at the top). And far superior to the hardware button navigation (IIRC, could advance chapters but the touch screen has the advantage of more easily popping into a link as opposed to "tabbing" through)

- Less storage, reduced to 2G (from 4G).

The higher density display and additional font options are nice.

This, for me, is the only major plus and the higher resolution is a big win.

Built-in light is meh, considering that my old Kindle Touch had the clamp on light. Yeah, cumbersome, but the built-in light on the PW is not without flaws -- I cannot turn up more than 1/3 or the splotchy light clumps at the bottom of the device become irksome.

[Trippy]

My no ads Paperwhite is showing a "Popular Books for Young Readers" section (presumably from the fact that I own Hunger Games) when I view by cover on Device. How the fuck do I turn that off? I didn't see a setting for that and didn't find anything in the manual.

Edit: found it in the manual, it's the "Recommended Content" section but there's apparently no way to turn it off. Fuck.

[Quinton]

Ugh, that's obnoxious.  Amazon really seems to be pushing the limits on some of their advertising and advertising-related features.

The list view (which I prefer since it seems to make better use of space) doesn't seem to have this, but when I flip back to cover view, I find that I too have "Popular Books for Young Readers" (weird, of the 150+ books I own, I only think a handful are YA type titles and nothing I've read recently -- maybe just poor targeting here?)

[Viin]

I agree, I'd prefer buttons to the touchscreen.

I agree with you guys on this too - it's nice to have the touch screen for selecting books and such, but the dedicated buttons for next/previous page were great. With the touchscreen, if you don't hit it just right you bring the menu up or bring up the dictionary or something. The buttons were better/easier to do especially when laying down.

Haven't seen a PW yet, but I like the idea of a built-in light.

[Quinton]

The way the page navigation works on the PW is that that tapping the top 3/4" edge of the display brings up the menu bar (for home, back, settings, search, etc), tapping the left 3/4" edge of the display goes one page back, and tapping the rest of the display goes one page forward.  Long-presses initiate hilight/dictionary actions.  Left/Right swipes do prev/next page. 

I find it's a little easier to accidentally tap the screen than to accidentally hit the hard buttons from the previous generation.  The main annoyance is if I happen to adjust my grip such that I'm touching the display, hilight mode starts and I need to let go and tap elsewhere to cancel.  It doesn't happen often, but it never happened on the non-touch models.

[Paelos]

I got an email today saying that there is a possible credit coming from a settlement with the Attorney General on my ebooks. Did yall get this?

[Viin]

Yep, $.30 to $1.30 a book or something like that?

[Paelos]

Yep, $.30 to $1.30 a book or something like that?

Yeah, in February 2013 mine said.

[HaemishM]

I think it's the settlement on the price-fixing/collusion thing. The total amount is probably pretty big, the individual amount if you aren't one of the lawyers is probably fuckall.

[Tale]

I just took delivery of a Kindle, international version (the black Kindle 4), shipped from Amazon US to Australia.

On the default page-turn setting it has massive, ridiculous ghosting of text from each previous page, until the full refresh on every 6th page, which starts the ghosting again from scratch. I can fix this in the options by switching on full-refresh on every page turn (Kindle 3-style page turning). It works fine that way.

A search reveals lots of people changing this setting to fix it, but lots of people also returning them to Amazon for a replacement. Has anyone else experienced this? Reckon I should return it?

[Trippy]

I'm not getting excessive ghosting on my Kindle Paperwhite. If people have reported less ghosting on replacement Kindles it's probably worth pursuing. Refreshing on every page can be annoying even if you don't care about the hit on battery life cause of the noticeable flash, which is especially bad with the PW in low light situations with the light turned up.

[Tale]

I can imagine it would be worse with the paperwhite. I don't think the "flash" is going to bother me on the standard Kindle.

Without the full-refresh, mine looks like the "exaggerated" picture on the Tom's Hardware review. A bit distracting, because my eye notices the edges of the ghosted letters behind the real letters.

[Numtini]

On mine, I see a gradual shifty darkening behind the words until it refreshes. I definitely do not see ghost words like the Tom's example. I never noticed it until someone pointed it out.

[WayAbvPar]

My 3rd Kindle Keyboard 3G arrived (I am an asshole and lost the first 2). Would have been nice to hold out for a next gen one, but I was just about done with the last paperback I had and needed to access the dozens of books on my Kindle I still haven't read  I bought this one from ebay- got it brand new for $118 including shipping. After I won the auction I realized I had bid on another one that was cheaper- I was eventually outbid but that one went for $92. ARGH.

[Soln]

Disappointment: bought an ebook, started reading it on my PC on Amazon Cloud Reader, don't own a Kindle, tried to download it to my wife's Kindle to read, looked online for help and told no, called CS and told no. 

So I can log into my Amazon account and read my ebooks via Cloud Reader on my wife's PC or even her phone, but I can't do it on her Kindle.

Wow.   

[JWIV]

Disappointment: bought an ebook, started reading it on my PC on Amazon Cloud Reader, don't own a Kindle, tried to download it to my wife's Kindle to read, looked online for help and told no, called CS and told no. 

So I can log into my Amazon account and read my ebooks via Cloud Reader on my wife's PC or even her phone, but I can't do it on her Kindle.

Wow.   

You can, it just involves a download or two.

http://calibre-ebook.com/
http://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/

Because yes, the fact that publishers got in the way of stupid shit like I READ A BOOK. I WOULD TO SHARE IT WITH MY WIFE WITHOUT GIVING HER MY FUCKING KINDLE SO I WILL LET HER BORROW IT. is beyond obnoxious.

[Trippy]

That's cause you don't actually own the Kindle books you purchase

You can, if you want, temporarily reregister her device to your account. You may also be able to "loan" it to her account. Or you can do what JWIV posted and get rid of the fucking DRM and transfer the unprotected file to her device.

[Soln]

Thanks guys, I'll check that out.

Of course, there is no easy way to download anything to Kindle -- no usb, no SSD....  Yeah I'm not happy.  Disappointing.

[apocrypha]

That's cause you don't actually own the Kindle books you purchase

If you want to see a very clear reminder of this then look no further than the woman who had her Kindle remotely wiped by Amazon without being given a reason why beyond “We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and any open orders have been cancelled”.

After it hit the tech news sites they unwiped it, again with no explanation.

I don't know what it's like in the US but in the UK Kindle versions are not significantly cheaper than actual physical books that you really own.

[Trippy]

Thanks guys, I'll check that out.

Of course, there is no easy way to download anything to Kindle -- no usb, no SSD....  Yeah I'm not happy.  Disappointing.

The Kindle charging cable is a USB cable that you can connect to your PC. You can then use Calibre to transfer the files over.

[Trippy]

I don't know what it's like in the US but in the UK Kindle versions are not significantly cheaper than actual physical books that you really own.

It's better now in the USA after three of the major publishers agreed to stop pricing fixing stop using the agency model for their eBook pricing. Random House is not part of that settlement, though, so their prices on Amazon are only slightly discounted, if not actually more expensive, than the paperback versions.

[apocrypha]

Madness.

Ever since they started making them I've really liked the idea of e-readers, but the stupid shit they've all been inflicted with has kept me from ever buying one.

I find myself sounding like a Luddite (who actually weren't anti-technology, but that's a rant discussion for another time & place), but I'm sticking with my paperbacks dammit! 

[Cyrrex]

I don't know what it's like in the US but in the UK Kindle versions are not significantly cheaper than actual physical books that you really own.

It's better now in the USA after three of the major publishers agreed to stop pricing fixing stop using the agency model for their eBook pricing. Random House is not part of that settlement, though, so their prices on Amazon are only slightly discounted, if not actually more expensive, than the paperback versions.

I assume you also got a mail from Amazon regarding some kind of settlement that means we are all going to get a refund of some kind, yes?  I expect it will amount to very little, but there it is. 

How much have they actually come down in price in real world terms?  I haven't bought one since the "agreement".

[Numtini]

If you want to see a very clear reminder of this then look no further than the woman who had her Kindle remotely wiped by Amazon without being given a reason why beyond “We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and any open orders have been cancelled”.

After it hit the tech news sites they unwiped it, again with no explanation.

After 14 years of hearing about those game companies that ban people for no reason I'm was skeptical of the story.

It came out shortly after that they didn't remotely wipe her kindle, they closed her account for abuse and she went on using her kindle until it physically broke. The error was her account was blocked entirely rather than being closed and allowing her to continue to download pre-existing purchases, so when she got another device or used the software, it didn't work. They fixed it.

While I think region locking is crap, it's not really Amazon's fault and it sounds like she was trying to evade it and that the same address had been used by other people who were less than innocent.

[Baldrake]

Thanks guys, I'll check that out.

Of course, there is no easy way to download anything to Kindle -- no usb, no SSD....  Yeah I'm not happy.  Disappointing.

The Kindle charging cable is a USB cable that you can connect to your PC. You can then use Calibre to transfer the files over.

The easiest way of transferring books to another kindle is actually email. Use the "manage your kindle" page at Amazon to find out your email address. Then it is a one-click operation in Calibre to mail a book. You can then pick it up on the recipient kindle by wi-fi sync.

The recipient can even choose to save emailed books in their cloud archive, meaning they can be downloaded any time from any device registered to that account.

[JWIV]

That's basically what I do with mine.  I have it set up to basically generate and send me the local paper every morning at 5:30 am or so. 

[HaemishM]

That's cause you don't actually own the Kindle books you purchase

You can, if you want, temporarily reregister her device to your account. You may also be able to "loan" it to her account. Or you can do what JWIV posted and get rid of the fucking DRM and transfer the unprotected file to her device.

This is one of the reasons I always make sure my Kindle versions (and any other eBooks) do not have FUCK YOU FUCKING FUCK DRM. Goddamn waste of effort pain in the ass bullshit.

[Trippy]

Thanks guys, I'll check that out.

Of course, there is no easy way to download anything to Kindle -- no usb, no SSD....  Yeah I'm not happy.  Disappointing.

The Kindle charging cable is a USB cable that you can connect to your PC. You can then use Calibre to transfer the files over.

The easiest way of transferring books to another kindle is actually email. Use the "manage your kindle" page at Amazon to find out your email address. Then it is a one-click operation in Calibre to mail a book. You can then pick it up on the recipient kindle by wi-fi sync.

The recipient can even choose to save emailed books in their cloud archive, meaning they can be downloaded any time from any device registered to that account.

Oh sure, send illegally cracked (it violates the DMCA anti-circumvention clause) ebooks through Amazon's email system. That sounds like a good idea

[naum]

That's basically what I do with mine.  I have it set up to basically generate and send me the local paper every morning at 5:30 am or so. 

Are you scraping RSS or parsing web pages?

Instapaper will do this but I have to remember to click on the browser bookmarklet whilst perusing the web. Would be nice to just automagically deliver a 5:30am bundle… …but I have far too many Google Reader subscriptions (>3K now).

[JWIV]

That's basically what I do with mine.  I have it set up to basically generate and send me the local paper every morning at 5:30 am or so. 

Are you scraping RSS or parsing web pages?

Instapaper will do this but I have to remember to click on the browser bookmarklet whilst perusing the web. Would be nice to just automagically deliver a 5:30am bundle… …but I have far too many Google Reader subscriptions (>3K now).

It's all RSS.   You can create a basic Calibre recipe pretty easily - just go to Fetch News and click the arrow on the right side to open the option window - Then select 'Add Custom News Search' and you cna just throw RSS urls into it.

You may also be able to find the paper of your choice is already created in the recipes, and then you can just schedule that and off you go.

[Soln]

Danny Sullivan nails it: Why Do Amazon & Apple Hate Families?  No household account or profile linking.  AOL had this in '99.

[Baldrake]

Danny Sullivan nails it: Why Do Amazon & Apple Hate Families?  No household account or profile linking.  AOL had this in '99.

It's not as bad as all that... Amazon allows five devices to be linked to a single account. If that isn't enough for your family then... you have a big family.

[Trippy]

Not the same thing. E.g. if I let my non-existent wife borrow my Kindle and she reads one of the books I was reading when I get the device back the book will be on the page she last left off on not the page I last was reading. Yes I could go through and add a manual bookmark to every single book on the device but that would be a fricking pain in the ass.

Edit: wive?