Should I get the discounted PW2 (WiFi) or the Voyage?

[NorthernReader]

Hello e-book wizards,

This is my first post and I was just reading this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...246513&page=22

I am currently looking for my first e-book reader and am leaning towards the PW2 (WiFi) which is currently discounted to around €100,-

If I would get the PW2, would there be anything that would stand out and annoy me when using this reader, thus making me regret not getting the Voyage (WiFi)?

Obviously I would like to hear about first-hand experiences from people who own(ed) both.

I don't have e-books in any format whatsoever at this moment.

Potential Kobo fans are welcome.

Thank you very much!

[susan_cassidy]

The only differences are slightly higher screen resolution, and the pseudo-page-turn areas on the bezel, on the Voyage. If it is worth a lot more money for you to have those two features, then get the Voyage, otherwise, get the Paperwhite.

[JSWolf]

If you read image heavy eBooks, then the PW2 is the better choice right now as the Voyage has a serious bug with images.

[sparklemotion]

I would go with the Paperwhite 2 over the Voyage. The screen is more even on the Paperwhite.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you read image heavy eBooks, then the PW2 is the better choice right now as the Voyage has a serious bug with images.

Huh? What bug? I haven't noticed any bug.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

I would go with the Paperwhite 2 over the Voyage. The screen is more even on the Paperwhite.

Whereas I would (and did) go with the Voyage. The higher resolution, flush screen, light sensor, and page turn sensors make it well worth the extra money for me.

The best thing for the OP to do, if possible, is to try both and see which he prefers.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Huh? What bug? I haven't noticed any bug.

Start at post #18 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=246624

Hitch explains the bug is detail. It does sound rather nasty.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Whereas I would (and did) go with the Voyage. The higher resolution, flush screen, light sensor, and page turn sensors make it well worth the extra money for me.

The best thing for the OP to do, if possible, is to try both and see which he prefers.

And a major bug dealing with images.

[HarryT]

A minor bug that manifests in such specific circumstances, and which Amazon will certainly fix in the next firmware update is hardly a reason to avoid buying the Voyage. I have lots of illustrated books and haven't noticed it for real in any of them.

[aceflor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And a major bug dealing with images.

Wolf, with all due respect, your Kindle hate is getting out of hand.

My class books have tons of images and illustrations, and I have not encountered this once since I started using my Voyage in October.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by aceflor

My class books have tons of images and illustrations, and I have not encountered this once since I started using my Voyage in October.

And neither have I seen a single report of this bug on the Kindle forum.

Sure, Hitch encountered it while creating a book for one of her customers, and she is a knowledgeable and experienced ebook creator, so I'm sure she is absolutely right in what she says, but:

1. It appears to manifest in very specific circumstances which rarely occur.
2. Amazon have acknowledged the existence of the bug, which means that it will be fixed. Amazon tend to fix such things pretty quickly.

To describe it as a "major bug" is just... silly.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

And neither have I seen a single report of this bug on the Kindle forum.

Sure, Hitch encountered it while creating a book for one of her customers, and she is a knowledgeable and experienced ebook creator, so I'm sure she is absolutely right in what she says, but:

1. It appears to manifest in very specific circumstances which rarely occur.
2. Amazon have acknowledged the existence of the bug, which means that it will be fixed. Amazon tend to fix such things pretty quickly.

To describe it as a "major bug" is just... silly.

Gang:

To clarify: yes, it's a actual bug. Amazon was pretty surprised by it.

The circumstances are, true, somewhat limited. However, it will, at this moment in time, affect ANY book that has images embedded that are intended to be 50% or larger, but not 100%, of the width of the device. The bug will blow them up to 100% of the width. Now, this may or may not be an issue with the books you read. If you read fiction, it's unlikely to...forgive me, bug you, but if the author you're reading used larger fleurons, or chapter head images, it might annoy you. It's certainly making my client with her "swoosh" chapter heads pretty unhappy.

I suppose that if a chart blows up to be too big, you can use the zoom feature to reduce it to readable size. The same with other text-intensive graphics (charts, tables, and that ilk). I image that for most images, in, say, memoirs, and the like, it's not an earth-stopping issue. We do a TON of memoirs, and most have images that are between 50-100% of the screen, so yes: those are ALL affected, and their images will look positively dreadful, as there's little you can do with 60-70-80 y.o. images to make them larger or crisper.

So, in summary: it's certainly a "major bug" for ME. I imagine that if/when other ebook producers notice it (most won't, sadly--many, many companies don't even buy the devices!), it'll be a big bug for THEM, too. Whether or not it's a major bug for you, as a consumer--I can't speak to that. It depends, by and large, on how/what you intend to use the Voyage for, to be ungrammatical.

But: at least now, you'll know about it. And just because I've only discovered this, thus far, doesn't mean it's the only display bug, mind you. My Voyage will be here on Monday; I imagine we'll note other minor or major issues after that point in time.

Hitch

[NorthernReader]

Thank you all for the answers. I appreciate you taking the time to help me with my choice.

I have decided to go with the PW2. In my country I don't have the possibility of trying them both in a B&M and since I didn't hear anything negative about the PW2 from you guys I'm pretty positive I will be happy with it

P.S. Just wondering... Does RAM matter for e-readers? And how much RAM do the PW2, Voyage and Aura (HD / H2O) have?

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by NorthernReader

P.S. Just wondering... Does RAM matter for e-readers? And how much RAM do the PW2, Voyage and Aura (HD / H2O) have?

You may already know this, but a lot of people confuse RAM with the built-in non volatile storage, so I'll start with some definitions:

RAM: Temporary working space that gets cleared when the device is turned off. (You can loosely think of it as the scratch pad that the Kindle uses to keep track of what it's doing). The amount of RAM is generally not published because it doesn't really matter. They include enough for it to do what it needs to do. In some cases more can make the device run faster, or allow it to handle a bigger book with bigger images, but in general this is NOT a limiting factor. More RAM can mean reduced battery life due to the need to refresh the chips periodically since they 'forget' what they're holding in a very short amount of time. According to Wikipedia the Paperwhite has 256 MB of RAM, which is more than sufficient for the task that it performs. 512 MB might help for PDF handling or big images, but again, see my comment about battery life -- and PDF isn't the target use case.

Flash/non volatile storage: Semi permanent storage that retains its contents "forever" when the device is turned off or has a dead battery. This is where your book are stored. Think of it as analogous to a USB stick that you plug into your computer to put stuff onto. This is typically 4 GB on most ebook readers, which is sufficient to hold thousands of typical text only books. Unless you're one of the people who likes to keep their entire extensive library available at all times it's way more than sufficient. I keep 20-30 books on my reader at the most and my 2GB model is about 15% full.

I suspect you were asking about the latter. If so, you may want to read some of the never-ending discussions here about whether an ebook reader needs an SD card slot.

[NorthernReader]

Thank you for your quick reply and for explaining both.

I was wondering if RAM would influence the fluidity of the device since the PW2 seemed to have little RAM (256MB) in comparison to the 1GB of the Kobo Aura (HD).

This website claims that the Paperwhite has 512MB RAM: http://www.techhive.com/article/2034...pe-chart-.html

The Kobo Aura H2O apparently has 512MB.

For my (initial) limited use I think 4GB (storage) of which a bit less (3.5GB?) is useable would be more than sufficient.