I currently have a kindle DX and would love something new with at least a backlight and maybe a touchscreen, but they just don’t make them anymore. Seems like of the Ereader’s I’ve owned (Sony and kindles) every model was always missing that “one” feature that would make it perfect.
Where are the buttons?
What are the options for people who can’t control touchscreens?
What is the minimum white luminance?
What are the options for users who can’t look at bright lights?
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How about “perfect for this reviewer.” I wouldn’t expect any device could be ideal for every possible user. For example, a blind person would presumably forgo a screen entirely in lieu of an audio player or some kind of portable braille terminal.
The backlight on mine seems to have a pretty good range though. It’s certainly easier on my eyes than a conventional tablet screen, especially in bright sunlight.
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Perfect does not mean perfect for everyone. If you lack fine motor control, and touch screens are an issue, then you may have difficulty with the PW. Buy a different ereader. If you must have buttons for some other reasons, again the PW may not be for you. Buy another ereader. As for the minimum luminance, it can be turned down to nigh imperceptible, so if looking at bright lights is an issue for you, no need to buy another ereader.
@Grey_Devil: actually they are on version 2 of the PW. The newer version was released without much fanfare, but it does improve some things slightly, including legibility. If you’re waiting for the next next thing, I suspect you are the kind of person who might never be happy. But in general I find that I need to upgrade my kindle devices far less often than other devices because they do such a great job at their intended purpose, a minor new feature isn’t going to make me want to upgrade. Ymmv.
I do think, though, that it’s inordinately hard to find accessibility info, whatever one’s needs may be, and to search for accessible options.
Well the basic specs make it pretty clear that this uses a touch screen and doesn’t have an audio output, so if either of those is a deal-breaker then this isn’t the device for you. But in general if you are capable of reading any kind of printed books then this is a very capable digital alternative.
Kindle has never been good at displaying technical books with diagrams.
How does this one go with PDF?
I’m very happy with my year old PW, except for one bit-
I paid a decent percentage more to buy the device “without ads”.
When it goes to sleep, it displays an ad. Has anyone found a way (out of the box, without any particular shenanigans) to make it display the cover of the book you’re reading, or just go blank?
If you jailbreak (it does not remove the ads from the subsidised version) then you can install a VERY primitive sketch program, which is fun.
Update: Latest Kindle update killed the ‘Draw’ kindlet. Damn.
Pocketbook Pro 903 is pretty good with PDFs. 9" screen, so entire page is shown in a decent size, and the diagrams work pretty well. The buttons on the side are liable to be pressed accidentally when a powered-on one is put in a pocket (big, thigh pockets of cargo pants, gotta love them), same for the top power/lock button; both can be corrected with a little glue and a wire (for the power) and sheetmetal (for the page turn buttons) bent into guards. The time to boot up after power-on leaves something to be desired (no instant-on, but bearable). And it is somewhat old so could be quite cheap as secondhand.
I like my Paperwhite II, for my next device, I might get a Kobo, from reading a bit about them, it might be a very good idea to get the extended warranty though.
I have a Nook Glo (or whatever they call the one with the built-in light). It’s awesome as far as overall reading experience. However, it’s one more device that I have to haul around and keep charged. Also, pulling the microsd card every time I purchase a book from someone other than Barnes & Noble [1], so that I can transfer it, is more hassle than importing the ebook (via SpiderOak) into Aldiko on my phone.
My phone, of course, has a far inferior battery life, compared to the Nook. However, in my day to day life, I’m never far from an outlet or the Anker battery-pack I keep in my backpack. As a consequence, I rarely use the Nook. Where it still shines is for travel. With its very nice battery life and performance in situations with bright ambient lighting, it’s to my choice while traveling.
[1] Where possible, I prefer to purchase directly from the publisher or author, instead of via a middle-man.
My kindle displays ads too. If I wanted to read William Faulkner, or Emily Dickinson, I would buy their books. I don’t need a cheesy woodcut of Jules Verne “decorating” my kindle…
Oh wait. You mean actual “buy now for 7.95” type ads? How déclassé.
Your device is broken. If you bought an ad-free Paperwhite, it shouldn’t display adds. Log a complained with Amazon customer service, they did not give you what you paid for.
It’s possible to jailbreak the device and do what you want - see my other post in this thread - but the maintainers of the linkss-Hack do not support ad-supported kindles.
In order:
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There’s an ‘on/off’ button in the bottom.
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A different device perhaps? The ‘plain’ $69 Kindle is button-based, and even if amazon seems to have dropped features like audiobook support, text-to-speech and voice guides in this generation, I’m sure there are other e-readers out there with these features.
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Very dark indeed, still softly backlit but good enough to read in total darkness. Much less bright than the minimum in an ipad 2, for instance.
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See 3 above.
It is a good little device. My personal annoyances are the lack of ePub support (the open, sane, supported-by-everything else standard) so you have to use gimcrack file conversion software and hope for the best every time, and the fact the in-kindle book store is much less usable than the online one.
I’d say if you’re going to spend a lot of time with PDF files - presumably formatted for 8.5x11 - then I’d pick up a refurb/leftover Kindle DX. Far from state of the art anymore, but pretty cheap considering the size.
I’ll second this, I actually “downgraded” to a Kindle DX because I read a lot of documentation in PDF format (And maybe comic books. Maybe). And this is the only reader that allows me to do this.
No touch screen, weird joystick navigation and bulky to carry around. But! a joy to read.
I’ve got a third gen Kindle, which I bought when they first came out, and which I love, but I also have a Nook, because they were on sale for £30, and at that price why wouldn’t you?
Neither have a backlight, but I use them in the same circumstances as I would read a book, so that’s not a problem for me.
I also recommend Calibre as the best way to manage all of your books, with the right plugins (search for “apprentice Alf drm”) it’ll remove the DRM on bought books, and will convert between pretty much every ebook format, from .txt to .doc. Basically it’s made of win.
What’s so great about Calibre?
Doesn’t it insist on keeping copies of all the books in its folder, in addition to the users’ various folders? So that wastes space and creates hassles. Doesn’t it insist on renaming everything?
I’m in the same situation. I have a kindle keyboard and heard of the rumors (by tech crunch) in november 2013 about a new kindle pw with physical page turn buttons. We probably have to wait until the holiday season.
