
Amazon releases new Kindle products - tgcordell
http://www.amazon.com/
======
swanson
I've owned every model of the Kindle (minus the comically large DX) - it's
been fun to watch them iterate and refine this device. It really is a great
product and the price point is always within my "insta-splurge" budget. I read
roughly 10-20 books a year on the Kindle.

The Kindle Voyager fixes the biggest complaint I have with the Paperwhite:
page turning via touching the screen is worse than the physical buttons on
older-gen Kindles. And the auto-brightness sensor means there is one less
thing for me to fiddle with. Higher DPI and thinner (flush bezel looks sexy!)
are just icing on the cake.

It's kind of hard to explain why I love the Kindle so much - and why I've
owned every model - but something just feels right to me about reading with
it. It's modern but familiar and so much more convenient for me (click Buy Now
on amazon.com and the book is loaded by the time I walk over to pick it up
from the shelf).

FYI: I always buy the models "With special offers" (ads shown on the lock
screen - but usually Amazon does a free giftcard offer during the first few
weeks so free $$) and "WiFi" (I've rarely used the 3G - and you can always
just tether to most phones nowadays anyway).

~~~
auderwoof
I got the DX because I read a lot of PDFs and Word documents that don't fit on
a small screen. It ended up being my favorite ereader ever. The big screen
lets you pick a big font, which makes for a super-easy reading experience. The
battery is a problem, though, yeah.

~~~
chj
I bought DX years ago and it is still among the most used devices, second only
to iPhone. I wish Amazon would make it bigger, but now they don't even produce
it any more. Let's hope someone would come in and fill the void.

~~~
drited
It's expensive, but Sony's digital paper product looks pretty sweet:
[https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/show-
digitalpaper/resource.sol...](https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/show-
digitalpaper/resource.solutions.bbsccms-assets-show-digitalpaper-
digitalpaper.shtml?PID=I:digitalpaper:digitalpaper)

------
amerkhalid
Kindle Voyage looks like almost perfect reader.

I have been Kindle user since they had Kindle 3. I love K3 but I wish it had
backlight. I bought Kindle Touch but gave it away, cuz touch screen was clumsy
to use for page turning. There were so many times where I tapped a link
accidentally while turning a page. However, I liked touch for quickly tapping
word to look it up in dictionary.

This Kindle Voyage with dedicate page turn buttons, backlight, and touch
screen might just be perfect..

If only it had "Text to Speech." I guess not many people like to hear books in
monotone. But I use it to listen to old classics, blogs, or other fiction
while walking on treadmill, driving, or when I just too tired.

~~~
swanson
Was Text to Speech removed? I know at least the last model with the full
keyboard had it.

~~~
amerkhalid
Yeah, it was removed in Paperwhite. Voyage is also missing this feature. But
Kindle Fire still has it.

------
krschultz
I write mobile apps for a living. My desk is littered with iPads, Android
phablets, etc. I've tried them all.

You can drag the e-ink display Kindle from my cold dead hands. Nothing is
better for serious book reading. It's the only screen my wife and I allow in
our bedroom, it's the only electronic device I'm bringing to the beach. I'm
very happy to see Amazon continuing to refine them.

------
soapdog
I come from a different country (Brazil) but I am addicted to eReaders. I had
a couple Kindles, they were always rock solid. Page sync was the most useful
feature for me because I kept my Kindle in my home and read on the go with a
phone.

The main pain point for me was the lack of Epub support in it. I wanted to buy
the paperwhite but in an effort to not support DRM based solutions I started
buying my technical books directly on the publishers website with non-DRM
formats.

Then Kobo released the Kobo mini and that was the perfect pocketable size for
me. I jumped in. All my Kindle notions and impressions were out of the door.
The Kobo was a much better device in my opinion. The "Reading Life" feature
was awesome and the UX and font selection great. Stopped using the Kindle.

Then I missed a light. I tend to read on the dark hours and something like the
paperwhite became a need. eReaders are not cheap here in Brazil. A Kindle
Paperwhite with cost you USD 200+. Since I was a fan of Kobo, I decided to
check out the Kobo Aura HD. Heck the thing was the price of a laptop.

In the end a major book retailer here in Brazil decided to ship their own
eReader called Lev. It had a version with light, it could read Epubs and other
formats and it fit my budget. Also it had a killer feature the both Kindle and
Kobo lacked: PDF Reflow. This small simple eReader can reflow text on a PDF to
fit the screen and it works pretty well. I was sold. I am pretty happy with my
Lev eReader now, I have all the features I could want from the competitors
plus the ability to read old LISP book PDFs as if they were meant for that
screen.

Moral of the story: Instead of jumping in and buying the new thing from
gigantic retailer, shop around and see what the small guys are doing in your
region. There might be an eReader there that fits your needs much better than
the Kindle. (Still miss page sync though)

~~~
noxToken
Unless you're specifically trying to support small business, I'd go even
further to say that you could just use eReading apps. This assumes that you
have a smartphone or tablet in the first place. One less piece of tech to
carry around that gives you the same functionality is always a plus in my
book.

~~~
soapdog
E-ink displays goes a long way. LCD light hurts my eyes after reading for a
long time. The E-ink displays are just too comfortable :-)

------
scw
Here's hoping that the roughly quadrupling of resolution (167dpi to 300dpi)
will make reading journal PDFs tolerable over the current generation of
Kindles, where it's obnoxiously cumbersome (it requires rotating the screen
and viewing 1/4 a page at a time). The DX had a 1200x824 screen, but only at
150 ppi. This is better, and has a less expensive launch price.

~~~
jonathansizz
PDFs are really meant for printing (on standard size paper); a better solution
would surely be for more journals to publish in ebook format.

~~~
SiVal
PDFs look gorgeous on a hi-rez color screen; ebooks look dumbed-down. Compare
a full-color calculus textbook or news magazine in PDF format vs. ebook
format, and which would you rather have?

The problem is that US letter paper or A4 are both roughly 14" diagonal, and
textbooks and magazines are often a bit larger, so you need something like a
borderless 15" diagonal display with at least 300px/in resolution. I'm hoping
that within a few years we'll see reasonably-priced tablets with displays like
this and with serious battery life (say, 24 hours or so, because thinner isn't
everyone's first priority).

~~~
Turing_Machine
"Compare a full-color calculus textbook or news magazine in PDF format vs.
ebook format, and which would you rather have?"

The ebook format, because it doesn't make archaic assumptions about "paper
size", and I can therefore read it on anything from a phone to a wall-sized
projector screen.

------
otoburb
The Kindle Voyage[1] doesn't state whether it supports Amazon's etextbook
format. As an example, the Kindle Probabilistic Graphical Models[2] textbook
is only available on PC or Kindle Fire, which is a bummer if still true since
the Voyage looks like it _should_ be able to handle this now, but no actual
mention of this in the product description nor in the pull-down hover label
"Available only on these devices".

[1]
[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IOY8XWQ/ref=fs_kv](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IOY8XWQ/ref=fs_kv)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Probabilistic-Graphical-Models-
Princip...](http://www.amazon.com/Probabilistic-Graphical-Models-Principles-
Computation-
ebook/dp/B007CNRD62/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1-spell&qid=1411042373)

------
tomw1808
I think the more than competitive offer of amazon is not really surprising,
thinking that they always reduce their own margin significantly to offer such
awesome products. Well done, well done!

What I am wondering though is, why they post a picture instead of text on the
website - not only for SEO. It results in everyday problems: eg I can't copy
and paste the text and post it into skype to inform my dad about that. Yeah,
sure, I could post the link, but this is what I consider as a really bad
practice. Compare the beautifully crafted privacy statement of apple, even the
text in the charts is "text". Just my 2 cents...

~~~
dlgeek
I've heard a rumor that it's a directive straight from Jeff Bezos because he
wants reporters to have to actually write their own articles rather than
copying and pasting.

No idea how accurate that is...

~~~
r00fus
If that's the case - then why does the alt-text show the text [1]? Kind of
defeats the purpose theorized in the rumor...

[1] yes, it's for section 508 compliance, I know

~~~
Crito
I'd kind of be a dick move to screw over people who can't read the images
(people who use screen readers for instance), so the alt-text allows that. But
what reporter knows how to copy it?

------
tzs
I have a Kindle Paperwhite, and one thing that has puzzled me is the light.
The light setting has a slider to set the brightness, and the labels recommend
a low setting for dark rooms and a high setting for bright rooms.

What puzzles me is that in bright rooms (e.g., all my daytime reading if the
window blinds are open) I turn the light all the way off [1]. One of the
points of eInk is that you don't need any extra light when you are in a bright
room.

Why does Amazon want me to turn the light up, which eats up the battery? I
realize it does make the screen look whiter to have the light on in a bright
room, but as far as I can see it does not make a noticeable difference in
readability.

The new high end eInk Kindle features automatic light adjustment based on a
light sensor. If that means that in bright rooms it is going to crank up the
light, I would not be happy. Does it do that? If so, can it be overridden?

[1] well, not quite...the light cannot be turned all the way off on the
Paperwhite while reading. It only goes all the way off when you put it to
sleep.

~~~
sdrothrock
> Why does Amazon want me to turn the light up, which eats up the battery?

It's actually easier on your eyes.

> If that means that in bright rooms it is going to crank up the light, I
> would not be happy. Does it do that?

Probably.

> If so, can it be overridden?

Probably.

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/17/6353785/amazon-kindle-
voya...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/17/6353785/amazon-kindle-voyage-e-
reader-price-announcement)

Amazon also says that you can fine tune the behavior if you don't like the
default.

------
necubi
The Verge has a first look at the new high-end Kindle Voyager [0] and it
sounds like the increased resolution (300dpi) really makes a difference. I'm
also excited that the screen is now glass. The old plastic ones were very easy
to scratch.

[0] [http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/17/6353785/amazon-kindle-
voya...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/17/6353785/amazon-kindle-voyage-e-
reader-price-announcement)

------
reedlaw
$80 more for the higher-DPI Kindle Voyage seems a bit steep. Usually each
generation of e-Ink Kindles were roughly the same price but with incremental
improvements. I don't see much improvement in the Voyage to justify a big
price increase. Plus I wish they'd bring back the physical page-turn buttons.
Touch screens and "haptic" responses can't beat old-fashioned buttons.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Although you don't get the high res screen, there _are_ incremental
improvements in the base $79 model. More storage, faster processor, touch
screen...

If I were betting, I'd bet that the high res screen component isn't yet
available in large enough quantities and/or cheaply enough to make it feasible
to use in the low-end model. That will no doubt change.

~~~
ode
I think what the OP is referring to is that the Voyage is really just the
Paperwhite v3.

The just called it something else and raised the price excessively.

------
martco
"For the first time, you and your family can access and easily share not only
your own Kindle books, but also books from the Amazon account of a spouse or
partner"

This seems like a really nice feature that was somewhat buried in the Kindle
Voyage description.

~~~
eternauta3k
My family just shared an Amazon account.

------
ComputerGuru
Wait, what? It's $200 dollars? I spent a good five minutes trying to find the
mistake that was showing me that price. Did Amazon learn nothing from the
Kindle Fire phone fiasco?

Kindle had always been a no-brainer purchase at a "don't think too hard about
it" price point that made upgrading to each new model actually feasible. But
two hundred for a higher resolution screen and a $2 dollar photo sensor
module? Color me confused.

I clicked the link with every intention of buying after reading the comments
here, but I can't believe no one mentioned the (hefty) price tag!

~~~
nodata
The price is based on what people will pay, not what the components cost.

The people who buy this will be existing Kindle owners who can't do without
their Kindle but want the existing problems addressed.

~~~
veidr
Exactly. I ordered the new Voyager model immediately, because my (until today,
top-of-the-line) Paperwhite annoys the shit out of me (for one microsecond)
every time I turn the page, and because I want a higher res screen while
keeping the same awesome readability.

I'd bet a huge majority of purchasers of the Voyager are mostly-happy current
Kindle users.

------
dilap
I'm a little bit sad to see the touchless base kindle go away.

I have both a kindle paperwhite and the previous base, touchless model, and
the text is noticeably more recessed underneath the physical display on the
paperwhite -- presumably to accomadate the touch sensor and the light.

So even though it's higher DPI, the actual reading experience feels more
analog/physical-paper-like on the classic, touchless kindle.

------
malloreon
I have a paperwhite and an iphone.

I am an iOS engineer by trade.

If I had to give up my paperwhite or my iphone, I'd give up the iphone in a
heartbeat.

If you read, you need a paperwhite.

~~~
__david__
That's interesting. I bought a Kindle for my dad, who is an avid reader (1 or
2 books a week), about 3 or 4 years ago. Last time I had checked he had moved
to the Kindle app on an iPad (and not the mini) as his main reading device. He
told me he doesn't use his Kindle at all any more.

~~~
r00fus
Confirm the same - both my parents (avid readers) use iPads with Kindle app or
iBooks to read, despite having access to my Kindle3.

From a elderly reader's standpoint, the iPad is like a Kindle DX but a)
heavier, b) with color, and c) with tons of other apps. For whatever reason,
eyestrain of an LCD doesn't bother them in the least.

~~~
GFischer
I bought a Kindle for my uncle (who has bad eyesight), and he can't use it.

While the books themselves have adjustable font size, menus are way too small
for him, and he'd like a much larger screen.

I wouldn't be surprised if he used a 10 inch iPad instead :)

------
YBibo
I seriously don't get why people want buttons (including these side "buttons"
with haptic feedback) to turn pages. It's so much more satisfying to turn a
page on a Paperwhite with a flick of the finger sliding across the "page" (the
screen) like you would do with a book. You can already tap the screen with
your thumb (using the same hand to hold the device) to turn a page. Why on
earth would you want these ugly lines and dots now on the side of the Voyager
reader so you can turn your pages that way?

~~~
Erwin
I had one of the earlier white Kindles with full keyboard, and the buttons is
what I miss the most on the Paperwhite. It just feels awkward to move your
thumb to the screen and touch, as your fingers get in the way of the screen.
On the Keyboard Kindle you can keep staring at the screen while turning pages,
with nothing getting into your focused field of vision and achieve a higher
flow.

Still, the Paperwhite is good enough that it has been a good upgrade. Touching
to define a word or to find out who this character in GoT really is, is very
useful.

Alas, the new Kindle does not ship internationally just yet (or at all, until
October 21st).

------
acabal
Looks like a great upgrade to the Kindle Paperwhite, in particular the return
of physical page turn buttons. But my biggest wish--native epub support--still
isn't there :(

~~~
bhaak
The day Amazon adds epub support for the Kindles is probably the day they give
up on the Kindles. Given their business model, it makes lot of sense _not_ to
support epubs.

The only options you have is using Calibre (which I don't because I don't like
toxic developers and ugly UI/code) or using a Jailbreak.

I'm doing the latter and am quite happy with my kerned and hyphenated epubs.

~~~
harshreality
If that's true why do kindles have native support for other formats or
containers like PDF and plain text?

I suppose the idea would have to be that there are significant non-commercial
sources of pdf and text documents that someone might want to read on a kindle
(think documentation, academic papers, a collection of notes, the kind of
things that aren't available through amazon).

However, those same kinds of documents are increasingly distributed as epubs,
because PDFs are horrible unless you target one specific output size and
resolution (like physical paper), and text simply doesn't offer enough layout
flexibility. Epub is the open standard, and anyone who wants layout
flexibility uses it. Anything else, including a lot of kindle ebooks, are
typically converted from an epub original.

It's not a technical challenge. KF8 is nearly isomorphic to epub.

~~~
bhaak
> Anything else, including a lot of kindle ebooks, are typically converted
> from an epub original.

You won't find any epubs in the Amazon Store. That Amazon still allows to
side-load other ebooks onto the Kindle is nice but you never known when that
hole gets closed up.

It might not be a technical challenge for you but there many people out there
for whom it is and those will go to the Amazon Store to get their ebooks there
because it's easier to do. And voila, their in the walled garden of Amazon.

PDFs are targetting a different kind of ebooks, those that need to have an
exact layout. Amazon is also not really supporting them well, the reading
experience of a PDF on a Kindle is awful even though the Kindle DX would have
a big enough display for displaying whole pages.

~~~
harshreality
> You won't find any epubs in the Amazon Store.

I think you misread/misinterpreted. I didn't say there were epubs in the
kindle store, but that many of their ebooks were converted from epub format
[to _get them into_ the kindle store as kf8 or mobi]. To elaborate: You can't
natively edit kf8 or mobi files (at least not with mainstream editors). kf8
and mobi ebooks therefore originate as html or epub (which are pretty much the
same thing, ignoring that epubs are zipped, and ignoring simple extras like
toc and cover page semantics). Kindle-supported kf8 format is generated using
kindlegen operating on either a epub or html source (or some other formats,
which aren't recommended because they lack formatting parity with epub/kf8).
The point being, ebooks are basically in some quasi-html open format to begin
with, Amazon requires converting them to a proprietary format (and kf8 is a
very thin proprietary veneer over epub) to get them onto kindles... a
conversion that serves no practical, functional purpose.

------
dombili
Voyager looks nice, but as a Paperwhite 2 owner, I'm not going to upgrade it.
I don't really care much about the physical buttons on the side for page
turning but the screens and the bezel having the same height and being on the
same level sounds great.

Also, $79 regular Kindle doesn't have any kind of backlight (or whatever
that's called in Kindles), which could be a deal breaker with some people. Not
to mention its DPI is much lower than Paperwhite 2, probably even 1.

~~~
Sami_Lehtinen
It's called Front Light. In Finland light is essential, because half of the
year you're going to be in dark, when ever you aren't at work. I guess same
rules apply to northern parts of Canada and US (Alaska) due to similar
latitude.

~~~
mapleoin
You're saying that as if there were no bedside lamps in Finland.

~~~
nolok
The Kindle without Front Light are also non paperwhite, the screen is much
darker overall and it's not that easy to find a "perfect position" in terms of
light. Or at least, a lot harder than with Front Light.

------
polskibus
I really wish there was a new DX model, with screen size between old DX and
the standard version

------
Eleopteryx
I initially loved my Paperwhite, but I was turned off by the lack of epub
support. Whatever their rationale is, I object to not supporting an _open
format_ in principle. I have no trouble buying books from their store; 4 out
of 5 times they have the lowest price anyway, and the purchasing process is
smooth. But 1 out of 5 times they don't have the lowest price, or the
formatting of a book I want to purchase is for some reason fubared (the last
couple of books I got from Google Play specifically because of this), so I
should be able to upload an epub painlessly. So the device starts to feel more
like a vehicle to get you to buy into their Kindle ecosystem than anything
else, even though the reading aspect of it is really nice.

This doesn't seem to bother most people, though.

I ended up getting a tablet, but I can't say it's an improvement in every
regard. Tablets cost more (actually with the voyage at $200, not that much
more), they weigh more, the batteries don't last nearly as long (although I
get a good 1-2 days out of use), and good luck reading in the sun. But they
also do more.

The Kindle app on Android is in some ways more feature-ful and easier to use
than the Paperwhite's software. Taking notes (I read a lot of non-fiction) for
example, is a cinch when I can use SwiftKey, where as the Kindle's native
keyboard was a pain in terms of responsiveness, predicting words, and making
corrections.

To each his or her own, though. But I'm definitely not in the "I don't need a
tablet" crowd.

That said, I had no idea that I could jailbreak the Paperwhite, or that there
was such a huge scene around it. Gonna check that out.

------
swartkrans
I had the original Kindle Fire which worked nicely, but had a pretty poor
screen. Now I have the 7" Kindle Fire HDX which has been fantastic with a
beautiful screen, except a few days ago I noticed a yellow blur irregularity
in the top right corner, like a little streak stain that turns things a little
bit yellow. I don't know, if Amazon Video were available on a real Android
tablet I'd get that, but until then I'm using these Fire tablets.

Also, my opinion on the kids version of the Kindle Fire is don't get it. Get
an iPad. The iPad ecosystem is so much better for kids. There are so many
great learning apps, there is no question unless the price is really a deal
killer that you should get an iPad for a child. Very few of these children
apps are available on Android tablets, much less the Amazon app store. I say
this as someone who owns a Galaxy S5 and loves Android. These products are
great, but sometimes even frustrating for adults so for kids they are not so
usable and have a poor choice of apps.

~~~
taeric
Oddly, from my end the kids version is ridiculously compelling. Especially if
it really has a "no questions asked" replacement policy.

Of course, our non eink kindles spend the majority of their time in freetime
for the kids. With "unlimited," I have a hard time warming up to any other
offering.

~~~
swartkrans
My daughter has had an iPad available to her for 3 years now and she's never
managed to break it, although we are careful with it. It's all about the apps.
You can take a look in iTunes to see the many wonderful children apps, compare
that with the Amazon App store before you decide. There's just no comparison
in my opinion.

~~~
taeric
We've only broken one. And, at the cost it wasn't a huge deal to replace it.
Still, is a nice lure.

And I've never actually browsed the Amazon App store. I have flipped through
all of the apps available in Freetime Unlimited. To say there are a lot of
apps there would be understating it. Sure, many are probably not that good. On
the flip side, none of them have in app purchases.

I am curious if there are any that truly aren't in both ecosystems.

------
wsc981
I understand that many people like to read fiction and the like on the Kindle.

How useful would the Kindle be for reading technical books?

~~~
derengel
Terrible bad, is an abomination compared to reading a PDF version on
windows/osx.

I don't know if is the fault of the format(mobi) or they are really bad at
formatting technical books.

~~~
0x38B
As far as reading PDFs on Windows goes: evince (default on Ubuntu, I think)
works really well - it's _fast_ , remembers my position in various PDFs, and
in general works really well.

[https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evince/Downloads](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evince/Downloads)

------
andor
I'm a bit disappointed that they haven't upgraded to a proper line-breaking
algorithm. The high resolution display is probably great, but look at that
inter-word spacing! How can they state this is "passionately crafted for
readers" when the typesetting is worse than in Microsoft Word?

------
mchart
It feels somewhat sad to see them take away the physical keyboard. I find
myself regularly using the keyboard on my current Kindle to annotate books as
I read them. Even if it is more efficient to have an on-screen keyboard,
physical keyboards symbolically imply that one could potentially be an active
critic and participant rather than only a passive consumer of media. For the
same reason I have always preferred computer to console video games, and I
have never completely warmed up to the iPad even though I own one. Then again,
my physical paper books always seemed to become filled with sticky notes and
(erasable, penciled-in) annotations, too.

~~~
karlshea
See I'm totally the opposite. I don't ever annotate books and losing the
keyboard just meant more screen space for me. But if I did use it a lot it
would be really obnoxious, their on-screen keyboard is pretty laggy and bad.

------
Sami_Lehtinen
I love my Kindle because it got ultimate display compared to any other media
device. It's just delighting experience to read in full sunshine. If you try
your iDevice(s), you can't see a thing in those conditions. Another great
features are of course the battery life and weight. Many manufacturers
advertise light tablets, but most of those aren't light. I'll always have my
Kindle with me, and it allows me to read tons of stuff during the year. I'm
using it more than one hour / day.

------
thomasfl
Why is there no web browser on the tablets without backlight?

I have wanted a laptop or tablet without backlight for years. The backlight
not only makes it harder to get to sleep at night, but it also makes it harder
to concentrate. A laptop where you didn't have to stare at a backlight would
make it easier to get shit done. I can't just dim the screen on my MBP. It is
even some research that suggests there is a hypnotic effect of staring into a
bright lit TV or computer screen.

------
fourstar
The "Worry free" warranty for kids is great.

~~~
yitchelle
I think this is great as well, but alas, this kindle does not seem to be
available outside of the US? Anyone know?

------
theon144
What's Amazon's grip against physical buttons? Out of the whole range, I still
like Kindle 3's page-turning buttons the most.

------
blaabjerg
I've never owned a Kindle before, but I want one and I can't decide if I
should go for the standard Kindle or the Voyage. What are your thoughts, is
the upgrade worth it on a tight student budget?

I'd be upgrading from paper books, so I'm not entirely sold on the idea that I
particularly need a front light. Is the readability significantly better even
in a well-lit room?

~~~
BillinghamJ
Normal Kindle is more like black-on-beige, whereas the paperwhite/voyage one
is black-on-white. Personally I don't like the look of the normal one.

Also you may be surprised at how much you use the backlight. Especially when
reading in bed, on airplanes, etc. - it's pretty useful.

~~~
higherpurpose
It's FRONTlight, not a backlight. Otherwise we could just use LCD tablet
instead. And yes, I agree, I think the light is great and indispensable.

------
petercooper
The new HD tablets might finally be the first tablets to make it into my in-
laws' house. The first tablet I've seen that's basically guaranteed to be of a
certain quality, that isn't expensive, and is by a company they've heard of. I
think this could be bigger than it looks from a tech point of view.

------
jwr
I stopped upgrading my Kindle at Kindle 4. There were three things wrong with
the Paperwhite:

1) no physical page turn buttons, 2) weight, 3) worse typography.

They seem to have fixed (1) in the latest model, but I still need to check if
it's as heavy as the paperwhite and whether they improved they way text is
displayed.

~~~
mmanfrin
1oz lighter (7.6 -> 6.6), 4x density display (not sure if that deals with your
typography issue).

~~~
jwr
Looked it up:

Kindle 4: 169.5g, 165 x 114 x 8.6 mm

Kindle Voyage: 180g, 162 x 115 x 7.6 mm, so 6.2% heavier than the Kindle 4,
but 12.6% lighter than the Kindle Paperwhite.

See here for a side-by-side screenshot of the same text on Kindle 4 and the
Paperwhite: [http://screech.rychter.com/files/kindle-4-vs-
paperwhite-2014...](http://screech.rychter.com/files/kindle-4-vs-
paperwhite-20140918-092909.png)

Notice how the left screen reads uniformly, like a book, while on the right
screen spacings are slightly off, enough to give it a "computery" look.

I'm surprised more people haven't noticed this.

------
prezjordan
I left my Kindle on the Caltrain about 2 weeks ago (side note: if you found a
Kindle on the Caltrain about 2 weeks ago please let me know!). I guess I
picked a pretty good time to need to buy a new one - not _totally_ sure if I
can justify the $200 price tag for the voyager just yet.

------
zak_mc_kracken
The Kindle for Kids is very interesting, does anyone know if it's still
possible to install arbitrary .apk on it? I know it doesn't have Google Play
(only access to Amazon's store) but if I can install .apk files from the Play
store manually, then it's an instant buy.

~~~
higherpurpose
Unless it's rooted, probably not.

------
grinnick
I have never owned a kindle before. Should I wait for the Kindle Voyage (wait
about 6 weeks and pay $100 extra) or buy a Kindle Paperwhite now?

It appears the main improvement is the resolution but it's difficult for me to
get a sense of how important this is without having used a Paperwhite.

~~~
kemayo
It's a personal taste matter, of course, but //for me// the resolution on a
Kindle has never been a problem, and I've been using them since the second-
generation model. If you view a lot of PDFs or images on them, it might be an
issue, but I just read ebooks.

The biggest factor, I think, is whether you want buttons for page turning or
not. If you get a Paperwhite, the only way to turn the page is to tap (or
swipe) the screen. If you get the Voyage that'll still work, but there are now
sensors on the edge as well with some sort of haptic feedback.

If neither of these things sound important to you, get the Paperwhite and save
$100. It's a great e-reader.

------
collyw
I never understood the appeal of touchscreen son Kindles. They have a really
nice screen, why get greasy finger marks all over it? These ones don't appear
to have the side buttons that my basic kindle has, which implies that I would
need to hands to switch page.

~~~
billynomates1
The screen isn't glossy like a phone. It's matte, so you don't get noticeable
fingerprints on it. The touchscreen is good because it saves putting buttons
on the case, meaning the screen can be bigger. However the Paperwhite isn't
all that responsive so the touchscreen can be a little frustrating.

~~~
ode
I find the Paperwhite responsive enough, version 2 anyway (I didn't buy V1.)

------
taeric
I'm impressed that they aren't hyping up the profiles stuff more. Especially
the feature where you can link multiple accounts to it. Not that it is that
big of a deal, but it is rather comical on what they think I want to
read/watch nowdays.

~~~
gcb0
amazon knows about logistic, not product design.

just try to navigate their site.

also 100 for a kindle is idiotic since its useless for anything but buying
amazon books.

pdf are a pain. you still get to scroll sideways for each portion of each line
you are reading. its obviously done so you dont read pdfs or images there.

any other ebook or doc format that they promise worry free conversion. just
send them via email. yeah right. i managed to convert exactly zero out of 100s
i tried.

they should be giving those out almost for free as it is. microsoft did it
with xbox and then penny and dimed their customers with great success.

~~~
taeric
I've never really understood the complaints on their site being bad. I can't
remember the last time it really frustrated me. Actually, I can. Trying to
find ram for my laptop. Somewhat obnoxious. Of course, trying to find the same
product on the laptop manufacturer's site was also bloody painful.

Regardless, I can't understand the criticism. Their site works remarkably well
for what it is. A shopping site.

The $100 Kindle is the multimedia one. So... with Prime it actually has
replaced Netflix for us. And Spotify, oddly enough.

I do agree the $200 one seems excessive in price. Though, I still wouldn't
mind upgrading my paperwhite. Which I absolutely love.

~~~
saryant
RAM is a good example of where Amazon's design falls down a bit. For items
like RAM, where you know the exact specs you need, NewEgg is hard to beat.
Their power search lets you drill down to precisely what you need.

I like Amazon when I _don 't_ know quite what I want. That's where the reviews
come in.

~~~
taeric
For me, I didn't know the exact specs I needed. I just wanted whatever worked
in my laptop. Oddly, they have this down pretty well for cars. Whenever I am
looking at automotive parts, it lets me know if it works for my vehicle.

If I recall, I wound up buying straight from crucial. They were the first site
where I could type in what laptop I had and it would give me options for ram
to buy.

------
a3176082
Fire HD 6 - Quad Core but they seem kinda silent about the memory. And for a
good reason, it has 1GB of RAM. That is way too little for Android. Wouldn't
buy, no matter the price. Note how they also call "storage" as "memory".

------
unlingua
Turns out it DOESN'T change the worst thing about the paperwhite, because it's
new buttons PLUS the touchscreen page turning 'zones'. You can't disable touch
to turn pages.

Accidental page turns will be as big a disaster as ever.

Big fail at Lab126

------
gfunk911
$99 seems insanely cheap, assuming it's not completely gimped.

The kids edition is also a cute idea

~~~
karlshea
No backlight on that version, which is a dealbreaker for me. After the
Paperwhite I realized how nice it is.

~~~
seanflyon
The $99 version is the fire HD which has an LCD display (with backlight)

------
jongalloway2
It's too bad that none of the e-ink Kindles has audio anymore. I really liked
being able to read on a device, then seamlessly (on the same device) switch to
listening while driving / flying / working out.

------
jscheel
I got a Paperwhite about 3 weeks ago. I've kept it in the packaging,
anticipating a new release was coming. I was not anticipating such a huge bump
in price though. Guess I'm keeping the Paperwhite.

------
hdra
Another Kindle release that I can't have. All these cool products that aren't
available where I live.

Seriously though, does anyone know whats stopping Amazon from making their
offerings available in more countries?

~~~
jstanek
They probably have stupid regional licensing agreements with publishers. I
guess that without the books to release for the Kindle, Amazon doesn't think
releasing the Kindles to be worth it in these countries. I don't know, that's
just my guess.

------
bithush
UK prices are (with special offers/without special offers)

Fire HD 6"

£79/89 - 8GB

£99/109 - 16GB

Fire FDX 8.9

£329/339 - 16GB

£369/379 - 32GB

£409/419 - 64GB

Kindle

£59/69

Kindle Voyage

£169 WiFi Only

£229 Wifi + Free 3G

~~~
bcraven
I just got the notice "this item will be released on November 4, 2014" for the
WiFi-only Voyage.

------
rtcoms
We really need front-light displays for laptops/monitors. Is any company
making those ?

------
paulornothing
Isn't it called the Kindle Voyage? Everyone says Voyager.

------
bithush
The Kindle Voyage looks really nice but at £169 (a £60 increase over the
Paperwhite) there is no way I will be getting one. That is a lot of money for
just an ereader to me.

------
riffraff
interestingly, Kindle Voyager and Kindle Kids don't seem to be available on
all national amazons, I wonder why.

------
hnriot
$20 more to avoid ads on the lock screen and another $20 for the power
adapter!!! WTF

~~~
john2x
I think of it as $20 less _without_ the power adapter. Most people probably
already have a USB-capable power adapter. No reason for the Kindle to cost
extra for a redundant accessory.

