I’ve wanted a Paperwhite for ages. Only reason i never got one was because i’ve been anticipating Amazon to release a new version of it, which they haven’t yet. At this point i’m just going to be a stubborn old goat and i’m going to keep waiting ]:
Try Calibre, I use it to convert and manage my ebook library. If you could call it a drawback, it’s updated every few days.
As someone who likes to read novels in French and German despite not having a perfect knowledge of their vocabularies, the Kindle’s ability to load foreign dictionaries is one of my favorite features, plus they’ve recently added a connection to Google Translate – you can highlight a passage and have it translated to English if you are still stumped by it.
What happens if the Amazon service is down (or the company gets irked at you and revokes your account)?
Do you still have a chance to get content to the device? (I personally have a strong preference for devices that behave like USB storage devices when connected to a computer, all sorts of scripting and automation then can be done with lots of comfort).
Can you deny Amazon the ability to watch what you read? The ability to revoke content remotely (“no, no, we promise we won’t do it again!”)? The ability to rat on you when a govt agent or a marketeer asks them?
How easily it can be rooted?
Any other brands out there with similar displays?
I have been using the Kindle app for iOS and Android for years now, but my wife finally put her foot down and said I wasn’t allowed to bring devices with cameras to bed. So I bought a Kindle Paperwhite for three reasons:
- No camera
- Readable in the sun and the dark
- Access to the Amazon Prime Lending Library
Now that I have had it a few months, I tend to use it over the Kindle app so long as I have access to it. I carry it around in my front right pocket with my phone. It is light, saves battery power on my phone, and the touch interface is solid enough (there are times where it won’t register a tap near the edge, but a swipe always works). The only two complaints I have are that I want to be able to control the powered-down image (or at least ban some of the built-in images) and it isn’t available in black and green.
The Kindle can be connected to your computer and used as an USB device completely without the influence of Amazon if that’s what you want. This has always been true of Kindle devices. As for alternatives, there are the “Kobo” series of e-ink devices that you sometimes see being sold at indy bookstores (plus Amazon itself sells them, weirdly enough). They seem to be decent enough devices, although their virtual bookstore is tiny as compared to Amazon’s.
No fun there then…
That’s possible if you have a jailbroken device. That’s the only reason I needed a jaibreak anyway, now it displays the currently open book’s cover when powered down, along with a small bar containing my name, e-mail and phone number in case I lose it and is found by a honest person.
See K5 FW 5.x ScreenSavers Hack - MobileRead Forums in case you want this, too.
Adding to what jhbadger already answered, I’ve rooted a couple of different kindles and its dead simple (though not the paperwhite, as I don’t have one).
Edit:
Also, I use Calibre to manage my books which gives you a lot of added functionality without having to depend on Amazon at all. (Format conversion, gather news feeds into an html book, and more.)
I get the feeling there’s a whole separate story here which is far more interesting than the one about “why I love my Kindle”…
I have the 3rd (I think) generation Kindle, with the keyboard on it. I like the side buttons for page forward / back. I don’t necessarily need the touchscreen unless there’s a sketch/jot application with it (unlikely, since e-ink, while a lot faster now, probably isn’t responsive enough for sketching). I’m going to check out Paperwhite(s) to see if the side buttons are still there, although my current Kindle is “good enough”
The screen on my old Kindle broke a couple of months ago, and last week I replaced it with a new eReader. It was a toss up for me between the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kobo Aura, both of which have similar screens with backlighting. I probably would have gone with the Kindle straight away if I hadn’t been a bit annoyed with Amazon for their recent interactions with publishers and tax dodging activities in the UK*. Both devices were selling for £89.99 last week.
As it turns out the Kobo is a lovely device. The shop has loads of content, although it isn’t nearly as nice as the Kindle shop is - there’s much less information about each book. On the other hand, it takes standard ePubs so you can purchase books from other stores like Google Play** if you wish to. One thing I like about it is the completely flat front it has - much like a modern tablet. It has a proper capacitative touchscreen, and the screen feels a lot more robust than the older eInk screens did - I had both a previous Kindle and a Kobo mini break on me; I’m hoping the Aura is more resilient.
One thing I hadn’t realised with the Kobo however is that although you can load ebooks from other sources onto it, you can’t do so via their cloud service - it will only serve (and sync) books bought from the Kobo store, which is quite irritating. I am quite tempted to hack it though to sync up with Google Play Books. Books has an API and there appears to be an active hacking community for the Kobo.
.* And then I realised Google are at least as bad with the tax stuff, and I use loads of their services.
.** See?
Not really. She just hadn’t realized that my Nexus 7 had forward and rearward cameras. She was less than pleased when with me when she did realize it. My position on it is that people taking naked pictures of me deserve what they get; she has a different policy.
Yeah, I know. I am just too lazy to jailbreak it for such a trivial issue.
how about tape?
I think the storage is all solid-state these days.
/ducks and covers
Oh… I thought it was more along the lines of “C’mon, Honey! That was one time!”
My KOBO Glo has better resolution, more fonts, more memory, an internal light, NO DRM epubs and cost like $20 more than your Kindle Paperwhite.
So nyah.
One thing that makes me wonder is that when these toys can go so long for one charge, why they don’t have built-in solar cells for tricklecharging during use and non-use. That way they could never have to be charged at all. The wide frame is just ideal for that integration (the cover can serve the same way). For added challenge (and performance), the display itself can be transparent in near-IR and near-infrared-optimized solar panel can be placed as one layer of the display. Or as a transparent solar panel (absorbing in said near-IR) overlaid over the display.
