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Ok, got mine yesterday :-)
Pros:
- great that the screen is a tad larger
- superfast and responsive, makes all the difference when deciding between tablet and eink, especially for not entirely linear reading (footnotes, annotations, comments, heavy use of dictionary)
- weight is nicely balanced, mostly comfortable to hold if warm
- page turn buttons are great, I like that they close the annotation/highlight popup (something my old Voyage was not able to do)
- waterproofing, I guess
- PDF reader profits hugely from speed and screen size, that is a plus for me (even with the usual caveats)
- bluetooth connection to my Beats headphones worked without a problem, listening to audiobooks is great
- ambient light sensor works really well
Cons:
- aluminum back feels quite cold (material property -> aluminum drains heat quickly)
- also a bit slippery
- does not support the standard .m4a format for audiobooks, so restricted to Audible (also does not support mp3 like e.g. the Kindle 3 did)
- many of the features the firmware offers are restricted to Amazon content and that EXCLUDES books uploaded to the cloud
- no yellow light (like Kobos), screen does look blue when you come from a Mac or iPad that has Nightshift enabled
- no USB-C: not only would that future proof the device in general (no matter what you think, USB-C is coming), it would have also made wired USB-C connected headphones possible which would habe been a nice cost-effective alternative to bluetooth (and they come with many of the new Android phones)
- I hate that the 8GB version does not come with 3G capabilities (see summary)
Summary and thoughts:
It is a good device but it feels like yet another in-between (one thing no one should copy that from Apple), for it tries to do more things, still comes with compromises and is not strictly the latest tech. This should have been the device that was released one year ago and this year’s iteration should have included at least some form of yellow light and USB-C (especially considering the audio capabilities).
Also, the software is very good when it comes to Amazon content and very poor when it comes to other content. You can work around some of the stuff but it always feels kind of deficient (you always have to make some sort of compromise). I think that Amazon should be self-confident enough to remove some of the restrictions (or at least let readers convert their stuff to kfx, aka a format that supports all the bells and whistles the firmware has to offer).
So, will I keep it?
Honestly I don’t know. I like reading on it quite a bit but I am also a bit annoyed reading on it at night.
Getting it for audio capabilities is not worth it in my opinion. You cannot put your own audiobooks on it or some music for listening to while reading. And even if you have a large Audible library, you are restricted to bluetooth headphones, which is another investment for some, generally more annoying to set up that a physical connector which you just pop in, and at the very least, an extra strain put on the battery (you can get ok USB C headphones for a tenner and other than many cheap bluetooth headphones, they tend to always work flawlessly, plus people will have them lying around more and more in the foreseeable future anyway). The last point also makes me unwilling to shell out an extra 30 for the larger storage model (because I definitely would not use it) only to get 3G, which I always really liked about my Voyage, so for me personally, the experience is even more compromised that perhaps for others. I think Amazon could have easily done better and I am not yet sure if I want to reward them with a purchase for not doing so.
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