
Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite e-reader comes with frontlit screen - taylorbuley
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/amazons-new-kindle-paperwhite-e-reader-comes-with-frontlit-screen/
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ChuckMcM
As an engineer this may finally solve one of the most vexing problems I deal
with, data sheets. They are all PDFs these days and they are unreadable on the
old style Kindle (kinda ok on the DX) nice but a bit of overkill on the 3rd
gen iPad.

The reason I want an e-ink screen device for data sheets is that it often sits
on my desk for long periods on the pinout page or the 'example circuit' page.
On an e-ink display it just sits there forever, on an iPad the display goes to
sleep or if I keep it awake I burn through power too fast.

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kasbah
What's the problem with datasheets on the old style Kindles?

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ChuckMcM
If I zoom them to be readable they look like crap (and its very tiring to read
them) I've got an Illiad V2 which I originally used for this (167 dpi) and its
"ok" but not great, and not enough real estate for the whole document. My 3rd
gen iPad is quite nice but has the issues noted above. I had hoped the Plastic
Logic folks would have made a dent here but alas that was not to be.

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kasbah
Illiad V2 looks nice.

My dream is just having an e-paper monitor next to my regular monitor to which
I can just pull text over to read. I wish I could just get my hands on an
e-paper screen of a decent size to hack.

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flurpitude
I feel a bit sorry for Kobo, who have announced essentially the same thing but
with less fanfare: <http://www.kobo.com/koboglo/>

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twodayslate
The kobo is great but I love the Kindle due to the integration with Amazon.
Wirelessly getting books via whispersync is awesome.

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flurpitude
How is that different from what Kobo does? I have a Kobo Touch (and my family
have their own Kobo Touches on the same account) and I have Kobo apps on my
Android phone and tablet, Windows and Chrome/Chromium browser. They all stay
in sync, when I buy a book it appears on all the devices, and when I read a
book on one, the others all update their bookmarks to where I stopped. Does
the Kindle sync offer anything more?

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axomhacker
Does Kobo have a similar collection of books? Allows you to purchase from
Amazon? Otherwise the difference (and a huge one at that) is the collection of
books available on Kindle.

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xelipe
The biggest news about the new Kindle lineup is the one-year 4G subscription
for only $49 available for the Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G.

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twodayslate
Is there a data cap?

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chrisrhoden
Yes, 250mb/month. Not exactly an incredible announcement, if you ask me.

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kasbah
I wonder if this actually makes it less easy on the eyes than regular e-ink.

I really like e-ink technology but the Kindle approach scares me a bit with
it's reluctance to give me proper ownership over the device and content I buy.

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a_bonobo
I have bought only 3 books for my Kindle over Amazon -

I use calibre to convert all kinds of e-book-formats to mobi/azw on Fedora,
then a USB-cable to transfer them over (I think WLAN works, too). 3G is never
on. Calibre also has a plugin to remove DRM from Amazon-books so that the few
ones I bought are actually mine.

You can also install alternative OSes like Duokan for even more control,
haven't really tried that out - deinstalled an old version after a short bit
of trying when the book was displayed "smudgy".

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tspiteri
Thank you for the pointer.

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redm
Thank god for front lighting, my wife keeps me up reading every night.

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axomhacker
Get her one of these: [http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Kindle-Lighted-Leather-
Paperwhi...](http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Kindle-Lighted-Leather-
Paperwhite/dp/B004SD2562/).

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pkamb
So these don't have side-mounted page turn buttons? Only touchscreen to turn
pages? Can anyone comment on how that compares (usability wise) to the old
buttons?

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aamar
The hardware buttons are better in my experience.

Even after months of practice with the touchscreen, I find that one out of
every 10 or so page turns I get a response different from my intention: the
page turns in the wrong direction, turns two pages instead of one, triggers
"open menu" command incorrectly, or does no action. I've found the swipes
somewhat more accurate, net-net, than tapping, but they are a little awkward
one-handed.

I've had miscues with the hardware buttons as well, but they're much less
common.

The touchscreen's advantage is its on-screen keyboard. I found this a little
better than the physical keyboard (which added too much size/weight) and d-pad
selection. Though I only use that function once in a long while.

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tallanvor
Yeah, I have the same problem every once in a while. --Probably not every 10
pages, more like every 30-50, but still.

But it looks like the Paperwhite Kindle now has a capacitive touchscreen
(rather than using IR sensing as the Touch does), so that may help.

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dustismo
I am excited whenever I hear of better eink displays. I am waiting for the day
I can get an eink laptop so I can work outside.

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pmarsh
This doesn't seem to be an e-ink display though. Am I wrong? I hope they
aren't planning on getting rid of e-ink I much prefer it to any screen.

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dustismo
Yes it is e-ink, higher res and whiter background then previous versions.

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SnaKeZ
Good devices but I hope that Amazon updates their devices more often: the
Kindle devices haven't the same firmware (Kindle keyboard, Kindle touch...
different firmware).

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kmfrk
Can you turn off justification on the Kindles?

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mparlane
Turn off... justification? o_O

I don't need to justify this with an actual response.

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Kerrick
He means to ask if you can turn off text justification and have a ragged edge.
The answer is no, at least on my Kindle Keyboard 3G running v3.3 of the Kindle
Firmware.

