I assume Kindle Voyage sales were not what they were hoping for, so bring the screen tech down a level. Pretty hard to justify the price difference now.
Voyage has been backordered since its release. That's a pretty good indication that sales have been strong. When I ordered mine two months ago I had to wait three weeks for delivery.
The reason the screen tech is coming down is because Amazon is not a hardware company, they are a service and sales company. If they could give the Kindle away free they would, even the Voyage. Its the books they make money on.
"backordered"?? Uh, no. It isn't. Buy it on Amazon and have it delivered the next day or walk into most any Best Buy and walk out with one. Whew.
Amazon would "give the Kindle away free"?? Lol. That $219 price tag for the Voyage kind of puts the lie to your statement. You really don't know much about what you write, do you?
It was backordered when I ordered mine. If they caught up, that's new and recent. The point I made was that the Voyage was selling well, given that it launched last year and was backordered until apparently just the past two months, it has indeed sold very well. After all, we are at the point where devices launched alongside it are getting refreshes.
And I'd love to see which idiot figured out that jamming characters closer together somehow magically makes words easier to read.
At least that's how I'm interpreting the image above, with examples on the right side of the arrow being the new "improved" form (which are nearly illegible) ... Too much stupid going on, just like Windows 8.
That person is long lost to history as it was a well recognized fact several hundred years ago. Kerning is a feature of all fonts except the horrible monospace monstrosities like courier inherited from the typewriter.
Fonts come with Kerning tables consisting of hundreds of letter pairs which adjust distance between characters for readability purposes. The rule of thumb is to try and allow a consistent percentage of whitespace between letters. The lowercase f is a weird letter that has confounded typography for generations since it became fully distinguished from the letter s.
Ligatures are there own unique thing where certain combinations of common letters are visually interpreted differently and benefit ease of reading.
It is near impossible to get a feel of how a text reads or feels outside the context of a sentence and display. There is a lot of research to increasingly identify what aspects of typography matter and which are just style changes.
I suppose monospace serves well in programming since code is more precise than regular free flowing text. We tend to concentrate on each character of code because details such as capitalization, exact spelling and operators can make a big difference. Regular prose however, is processed in a very different way. I find myself looking only at a few key letters and positions, and based on the context, interpolating all the content in between. Non-monospace fonts make a big difference here by giving a unique shape and size (profile?) to every word, so we don't have to read every single letter.
Reading code as a series of words is a mistake, reading prose as a series of words is how it's done quickly. Lines of code are comparatively much shorter and consistent spacing, indentation and similar shapes of idioms are very important. For reading human language, monospaced fonts are terrible.
You'd need to go back a lot longer than that. Roman engravings were kerned not monospaced. (Going farther back so was Greek writing or Egyptian hieroglyphics; but our alphabet is derived from the latin one so it's a more direct link.)
The readability of type is kinda a weird mishmash approached from different fields. (Readability is too broad a description which includes actual word choice and grammar, legibility is too small and focused on actual individual letter recognition and not word/sentence recognition). Much of the research before the computer was ad hoc and often fell under typesetting research which is largely a design field. It emerged from graphic design and other more artistic pursuits and the scientific research was limited and often paid for by newspapers.
In more recent times the scientific fields of linguistics (emerging from orthography research as well as ) and cognitive phsychology (how the brain works) had become more involved. The linguistic study is called gaphetics as distinguished from graphemics.
There is also some computer science research related to AI, image recognition, and similar fields.
It's noticeable, but the paperwhite 2nd gen already has an excellent screen. You might want to wait till the next generation. I have the voyage, had the paperwhite 1st gen, and have used the 2nd gen.
Would you easily notice? Yes, absolutely. Is it worth the upgrade... depends how much reading you do and whether or not you currently notice the limitations of your model. If you're an avid reader, I'd say it's worth it. You can deregister your old unit, wipe it, and then either sell it or give it to a family member introducing them to the awesome of a Kindle Paperwhite. Once you use an e-reader with a good e-ink display you'll never want to read on conventional backlit displays (LCD, LED) for any length of time.
I'd certainly hope so, my ancient kindle keyboard 3 generally dies in the middle of book 5 if I don't charge it; and depending on length a novel is generally 5-7 hours for me.
OTOH this useless X days if you only use it a few minutes/day metric has shown that Amazon's marketing for this thing has been done by non-readers for multiple kindle generations.
The darn things still get exceptional battery life. I'm used to charging my phone nightly, my Kindle Paperwhite I probably charge weekly at most. That's pretty darn good considering I almost always use the light at medium-high settings.
Yeah, even my old Kindle is good enough that a low battery warning almost always means I was an idiot and forgot to turn off the wifi again. (I really wish it had a turn on Wifi for the next X minutes option.) But the utterly useless battery life metric they use has offended me for years.
They only rolled out the last version a few months before Xmas IIRC. I have the current version and it is a brilliant bit of kit. Could have got a tablet but...just too much hassle. In this case a specific device wins hands down.
"new features like Page Flip which lets you skim ahead without losing your place. I prefer to read a book the way it was written, but I know a couple of people who like to look ahead and see what’s going to happen so this will be a nice feature for them."
Not being able to easily flip back and forth between where I'm reading and a map/graph/table X pages back has kept almost all of my non-fic reading in print despite having had a kindle for years. Fiction books with a map/list of characters/etc at the front/rear are similarly painful.
I just wish that they would keep making at least one kindle that has the page turn buttons on the side and is not a touch screen. I have a tablet, I have a smartphone, I want my Kindle to be simple. I bought one of the newer versions but I am left handed and I was constantly paging backwards by just by holding onto my Kindle when I'm reading. I ended up returning it and buying two used kindles in case one of them breaks.
The Kindle Voyage lets you squeeze either side to page forward. It's actually better than the physical buttons were IMO, and I hated the pure touch screen Kindle as well.
Well, CGPGrey would disagree with you about the page turn squeeze things because he hates them (and I imagine I would hate it but since my kindle 3 works fine I'm in no hurry to upgrade).
FWIW when I played with one in a store, I found the Voyage's page turn pads to work fine. OTOH I'm still happy enough with my Kindle Keyboard 3 that I don't see a compelling reason to spend $200+ for a replacement.
The Voyage is GREAT! My dad has one. They're a bit pricey though, but if you keep your Kindle for years before upgrading, and you don't like the touchscreen-only page turning of the other models, it's worth it.
The only thing I don't like 100% about it is the first-party leather case. I loved the Amazon cases for the Keyboard and the Paperwhite, I have mixed feelings about the case for the Voyage. I understand the intent, but the way it folds does not appeal to me a lot. You can get third party cases and some of them are decent, but the quality isn't quite as nice as the Amazon genuine leather cases.
Obviously Wolfpup just misspoke in calling it backlit instead of edgelit. I suppose you could crack the case and disable the backlight completely thatway, and just hope you never need to make a warranty claim.
Up is down. Left is right. A career in politics is yours for the taking. :P
It is NOT backlit, it is frontlit. The light comes from the edge but it is still functionally a frontlight - the light is NOT emitted by the display itself, it strikes the display from the front and is reflected back. Combine this with an e-ink display and it is functionally identical to using a physical paper book and a booklight - better actually. Very gentle on the eyes and nothing at all like a backlit LCD or LED display.
You can also crank the Paperwhite light SUPER low. So low that I don't even see how this could be a reasonable complaint.
Yeah I do wish there was a revised "DX" model somewhere in the 8" ballpark. But that's not really Amazon's fault - if e-ink doesn't release a new display in a larger size (with a PPI at least somewhat competitive with its smaller brethren), there's no point.
Same reason they haven't released a Kindle with a color e-ink display. The current model of color e-ink display (Triton) sucks.
There are 7" eInk screens on the market used by some of the competition now. If Amazon wanted, getting its suppliers to ramp volume on larger screens would be trivial. I really wish they'd launch a larger screen model too. The keyboard models had about the same physical dimensions as a paperback, but a noticeably smaller text area because of the hardware buttons on the bottom. Going touchscreen would've let them get a paperback sized text area while keeping the form factor unchanged.
The Kobo Aura HD is 6.8" and uses an eInk screen. But it's an older generation screen. Amazon's latest are 300dpi vs the AuraHD's 266dpi, and maybe with better contrast.
How about the differences between the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Aura H20 / Aura Glo HD? The Kobo looks interesting because of the support for open file formats and micro-sd card support, whereas the Kindle has 3G support and the Kindle ecosystem that includes the Lending library.
Kindle is now the only actively marketed ereader which prevents users from easily changing the typography as they wish. Add your own font? Nope. Left-align a book formatted as justified? Nope. Change the paragraph spacing? Nope. How about a custom font or margin size? Nope
Instead, Amazon tells you how you will read your book and you will like it because that is the Bezos way and you don't have a choice. Or, of course, you could buy a kobo. Same screen resolution, without the dictatorship. You should buy a Kobo.
This is a unitasking device where a unitasking device is optimal. My phone as big as it is (Note 4) is still too small for my taste, the battery still doesn't last long enough to use as a reader AND a phone AND all the other things it does, and it's still not that great in bright light.
I think I would read a lot more if I had this around, as it is, my phone as an e-reader doesn't get read too often.
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geekman1024 - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Kindle Paperweight? Nice name.NewBro - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
You do know the name 'Paperwhite' has been around for quite sometimes right?SmashingTool - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I sense that he isn't much of a reader.yvizel - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I guess you both missed his joke.inighthawki - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
It would be a better joke if that was actually the name of the device...Davieblue - Friday, July 10, 2015 - link
I found it pretty humorous, actually. lol.Scott_T - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I'm guessing this isnt going to help kindle voyage sales any.Brett Howse - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I assume Kindle Voyage sales were not what they were hoping for, so bring the screen tech down a level. Pretty hard to justify the price difference now.Reflex - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Voyage has been backordered since its release. That's a pretty good indication that sales have been strong. When I ordered mine two months ago I had to wait three weeks for delivery.The reason the screen tech is coming down is because Amazon is not a hardware company, they are a service and sales company. If they could give the Kindle away free they would, even the Voyage. Its the books they make money on.
lasterex - Sunday, June 21, 2015 - link
"backordered"?? Uh, no. It isn't. Buy it on Amazon and have it delivered the next day or walk into most any Best Buy and walk out with one. Whew.Amazon would "give the Kindle away free"?? Lol. That $219 price tag for the Voyage kind of puts the lie to your statement. You really don't know much about what you write, do you?
Reflex - Monday, June 22, 2015 - link
It was backordered when I ordered mine. If they caught up, that's new and recent. The point I made was that the Voyage was selling well, given that it launched last year and was backordered until apparently just the past two months, it has indeed sold very well. After all, we are at the point where devices launched alongside it are getting refreshes.OC'd Packrat - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I'd love to see the research behind the readability improvements of the new font. What field of study does it fall under?Arnulf - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
And I'd love to see which idiot figured out that jamming characters closer together somehow magically makes words easier to read.At least that's how I'm interpreting the image above, with examples on the right side of the arrow being the new "improved" form (which are nearly illegible) ... Too much stupid going on, just like Windows 8.
errorr - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
That person is long lost to history as it was a well recognized fact several hundred years ago. Kerning is a feature of all fonts except the horrible monospace monstrosities like courier inherited from the typewriter.Fonts come with Kerning tables consisting of hundreds of letter pairs which adjust distance between characters for readability purposes. The rule of thumb is to try and allow a consistent percentage of whitespace between letters. The lowercase f is a weird letter that has confounded typography for generations since it became fully distinguished from the letter s.
Ligatures are there own unique thing where certain combinations of common letters are visually interpreted differently and benefit ease of reading.
It is near impossible to get a feel of how a text reads or feels outside the context of a sentence and display. There is a lot of research to increasingly identify what aspects of typography matter and which are just style changes.
Guspaz - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Try writing code with a non-monospaced font and see how long you keep thinking of them as a "monstrosity". It makes code enormously easier to read.duriel - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I suppose monospace serves well in programming since code is more precise than regular free flowing text. We tend to concentrate on each character of code because details such as capitalization, exact spelling and operators can make a big difference.Regular prose however, is processed in a very different way. I find myself looking only at a few key letters and positions, and based on the context, interpolating all the content in between. Non-monospace fonts make a big difference here by giving a unique shape and size (profile?) to every word, so we don't have to read every single letter.
xthetenth - Friday, June 19, 2015 - link
Reading code as a series of words is a mistake, reading prose as a series of words is how it's done quickly. Lines of code are comparatively much shorter and consistent spacing, indentation and similar shapes of idioms are very important. For reading human language, monospaced fonts are terrible.DanNeely - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
You'd need to go back a lot longer than that. Roman engravings were kerned not monospaced. (Going farther back so was Greek writing or Egyptian hieroglyphics; but our alphabet is derived from the latin one so it's a more direct link.)http://www.romanhomes.com/your_roman_vacation/quar...
ArleneHansen - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
A great joy that I feel is perhaps a future in the future. The font I love is now available for free at yofontsMumrik - Sunday, June 21, 2015 - link
I looked at it several times to make sure they arrows weren't supposed to point the other way. It's fucking awful to look at.errorr - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
The readability of type is kinda a weird mishmash approached from different fields. (Readability is too broad a description which includes actual word choice and grammar, legibility is too small and focused on actual individual letter recognition and not word/sentence recognition). Much of the research before the computer was ad hoc and often fell under typesetting research which is largely a design field. It emerged from graphic design and other more artistic pursuits and the scientific research was limited and often paid for by newspapers.In more recent times the scientific fields of linguistics (emerging from orthography research as well as ) and cognitive phsychology (how the brain works) had become more involved. The linguistic study is called gaphetics as distinguished from graphemics.
There is also some computer science research related to AI, image recognition, and similar fields.
OC'd Packrat - Friday, June 19, 2015 - link
Thank you for such a concise yet comprehensive answer :)maximumGPU - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Would you easily notice the resolution increase coming from the previous gen paperwhite? Just wondering if it's worth the upgrade.az060693 - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
It's noticeable, but the paperwhite 2nd gen already has an excellent screen. You might want to wait till the next generation. I have the voyage, had the paperwhite 1st gen, and have used the 2nd gen.Alexvrb - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Would you easily notice? Yes, absolutely. Is it worth the upgrade... depends how much reading you do and whether or not you currently notice the limitations of your model. If you're an avid reader, I'd say it's worth it. You can deregister your old unit, wipe it, and then either sell it or give it to a family member introducing them to the awesome of a Kindle Paperwhite. Once you use an e-reader with a good e-ink display you'll never want to read on conventional backlit displays (LCD, LED) for any length of time.thesloth - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I suspect you'd get more than 21 hours continuous usage, as you are not accounting for the power used whilst in standby.DanNeely - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I'd certainly hope so, my ancient kindle keyboard 3 generally dies in the middle of book 5 if I don't charge it; and depending on length a novel is generally 5-7 hours for me.DanNeely - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
OTOH this useless X days if you only use it a few minutes/day metric has shown that Amazon's marketing for this thing has been done by non-readers for multiple kindle generations.Alexvrb - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
The darn things still get exceptional battery life. I'm used to charging my phone nightly, my Kindle Paperwhite I probably charge weekly at most. That's pretty darn good considering I almost always use the light at medium-high settings.DanNeely - Friday, June 19, 2015 - link
Yeah, even my old Kindle is good enough that a low battery warning almost always means I was an idiot and forgot to turn off the wifi again. (I really wish it had a turn on Wifi for the next X minutes option.) But the utterly useless battery life metric they use has offended me for years.jabber - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
They only rolled out the last version a few months before Xmas IIRC. I have the current version and it is a brilliant bit of kit. Could have got a tablet but...just too much hassle. In this case a specific device wins hands down.DanNeely - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
"new features like Page Flip which lets you skim ahead without losing your place. I prefer to read a book the way it was written, but I know a couple of people who like to look ahead and see what’s going to happen so this will be a nice feature for them."Not being able to easily flip back and forth between where I'm reading and a map/graph/table X pages back has kept almost all of my non-fic reading in print despite having had a kindle for years. Fiction books with a map/list of characters/etc at the front/rear are similarly painful.
Landisblue - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I just wish that they would keep making at least one kindle that has the page turn buttons on the side and is not a touch screen. I have a tablet, I have a smartphone, I want my Kindle to be simple. I bought one of the newer versions but I am left handed and I was constantly paging backwards by just by holding onto my Kindle when I'm reading. I ended up returning it and buying two used kindles in case one of them breaks.Sancus - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
The Kindle Voyage lets you squeeze either side to page forward. It's actually better than the physical buttons were IMO, and I hated the pure touch screen Kindle as well.invinciblegod - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Well, CGPGrey would disagree with you about the page turn squeeze things because he hates them (and I imagine I would hate it but since my kindle 3 works fine I'm in no hurry to upgrade).DanNeely - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
FWIW when I played with one in a store, I found the Voyage's page turn pads to work fine. OTOH I'm still happy enough with my Kindle Keyboard 3 that I don't see a compelling reason to spend $200+ for a replacement.Alexvrb - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
The Voyage is GREAT! My dad has one. They're a bit pricey though, but if you keep your Kindle for years before upgrading, and you don't like the touchscreen-only page turning of the other models, it's worth it.The only thing I don't like 100% about it is the first-party leather case. I loved the Amazon cases for the Keyboard and the Paperwhite, I have mixed feelings about the case for the Voyage. I understand the intent, but the way it folds does not appeal to me a lot. You can get third party cases and some of them are decent, but the quality isn't quite as nice as the Amazon genuine leather cases.
AlucardX - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
+1Really need this. I lost my Kindle keyboard edition on an airplane and am stuck with an older Kindle touch and it's awful.
Considering buying a used keyboard edition on ebay.
Alexvrb - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I'd try a Voyage out first.Wolfpup - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
I dislike that you can't turn off the backlights since it's been demonstrated they're disruptive to sleep. Also want physical buttons...Also sick of Amazon never updating the software on older devices.
SmashingTool - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Has that been demonstrated? If it's true, it's certainly much less disruptive to my sleeping than LCD screens are.SmashingTool - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
https://gigaom.com/2014/12/23/do-e-readers-really-...So basically, that study is not relevant to backlit e-readers.
Brett Howse - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
My first gen paperwhite has gotten a few updates. Not a lot, but then again it's just an e-reader. As long as their are no bugs I'm happy.I'm also not sure what you mean about not being able to turn off the lights can you clarify? Also, it's not backlit it is edge lit.
DanNeely - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Obviously Wolfpup just misspoke in calling it backlit instead of edgelit. I suppose you could crack the case and disable the backlight completely thatway, and just hope you never need to make a warranty claim.Alexvrb - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Up is down. Left is right. A career in politics is yours for the taking. :PIt is NOT backlit, it is frontlit. The light comes from the edge but it is still functionally a frontlight - the light is NOT emitted by the display itself, it strikes the display from the front and is reflected back. Combine this with an e-ink display and it is functionally identical to using a physical paper book and a booklight - better actually. Very gentle on the eyes and nothing at all like a backlit LCD or LED display.
You can also crank the Paperwhite light SUPER low. So low that I don't even see how this could be a reasonable complaint.
sheh - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Still no 7" version. :(And that stupid naming scheme that's there to hide the hardware version.
So, what the difference between Voyage and Paperwhite 3/Paperwhite 2015?
sheh - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/134317-amazon-kind...Alexvrb - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Yeah I do wish there was a revised "DX" model somewhere in the 8" ballpark. But that's not really Amazon's fault - if e-ink doesn't release a new display in a larger size (with a PPI at least somewhat competitive with its smaller brethren), there's no point.Same reason they haven't released a Kindle with a color e-ink display. The current model of color e-ink display (Triton) sucks.
DanNeely - Friday, June 19, 2015 - link
There are 7" eInk screens on the market used by some of the competition now. If Amazon wanted, getting its suppliers to ramp volume on larger screens would be trivial. I really wish they'd launch a larger screen model too. The keyboard models had about the same physical dimensions as a paperback, but a noticeably smaller text area because of the hardware buttons on the bottom. Going touchscreen would've let them get a paperback sized text area while keeping the form factor unchanged.sheh - Saturday, June 20, 2015 - link
The Kobo Aura HD is 6.8" and uses an eInk screen. But it's an older generation screen. Amazon's latest are 300dpi vs the AuraHD's 266dpi, and maybe with better contrast.Munna2002 - Friday, June 19, 2015 - link
How about the differences between the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Aura H20 / Aura Glo HD? The Kobo looks interesting because of the support for open file formats and micro-sd card support, whereas the Kindle has 3G support and the Kindle ecosystem that includes the Lending library.Which is considered the best e-reader?
SunnyNW - Saturday, June 20, 2015 - link
Any way we can be told which soc?lasterex - Sunday, June 21, 2015 - link
Kindle is now the only actively marketed ereader which prevents users from easily changing the typography as they wish. Add your own font? Nope. Left-align a book formatted as justified? Nope. Change the paragraph spacing? Nope. How about a custom font or margin size? NopeInstead, Amazon tells you how you will read your book and you will like it because that is the Bezos way and you don't have a choice. Or, of course, you could buy a kobo. Same screen resolution, without the dictatorship. You should buy a Kobo.
Choppedliver - Wednesday, July 1, 2015 - link
This is a unitasking device where a unitasking device is optimal. My phone as big as it is (Note 4) is still too small for my taste, the battery still doesn't last long enough to use as a reader AND a phone AND all the other things it does, and it's still not that great in bright light.I think I would read a lot more if I had this around, as it is, my phone as an e-reader doesn't get read too often.
ArleneHansen - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
A great joy that I feel is perhaps a future in the future. The font I love is now available for free at Yofonts