Yes of course they can be disabled. But if you buy something partially because one of the new features really appeals to you, and that feature is so poorly implemented that you have to turn it off, then that is not a good thing. IMO the good in the Voyage seems to outweigh the bad, but the PT buttons are a big fail. People have been requesting PT buttons be put back on touchscreen Kindles ever since they were taken off. So there is a lot of disappointment over how poorly these PT buttons were implemented.