Kindle Voyage - First Impressions

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by disconnected

I have loved my Kobo Aura
Now if I could have one exactly like it but with the higher resolution of the H2O and Voyage, then THAT would be my perfect ereader

Same here! That would be perfect! I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[maxkhoon]

is majority of k voyage had this uneven tone?

I am doomed because I spend a lot importing this..why is this happen again?????

they didn't learn from pw1 incident?? I am so angry..my voyage will reach next week whether I like it or not..

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Yolina

Given the premium price, they really should have made more of an effort with QC.

I've got a feeling that they weren't quite ready to go and they tried to rush them out too fast.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by maxkhoon

they didn't learn from pw1 incident?? I am so angry..my voyage will reach next week whether I like it or not..

There have also been good screens -- so, hopefully, you'll be lucky and get one of those.

[frenshprince]

For those interested in the H2o, here's my qutoe frome a different thread :

Originally Posted by frenshprince

I have a h2o since its release in france, and as much I really like the different reading experience it brings beside my kindle PW, I'm really disapointed about other things :

When I got it, I noticed right away four dead pixels (or bright points) really visible on a black screen.
Three were on the left side, and one at the center.
Since they were not disturbing on a blank screen, wich is majority the case when I'm reading a novel, I thought I could deal with it.

Unfortunately yesterday, three more dead pixels (dark points this time).
And the front light is less uniform than one week ago.

So I'm bringing it back tomorrow, and still don't know if I'll ask for a new one or a refund.

And end of the story :
Back in the store, I tried two more H2o.
First one was worst, and second was similar to mine.
Unnaceptable to me, I ask for a refund.
Too bad, because beside that, the H2o is a really great Ereader.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I've got a feeling that they weren't quite ready to go and they tried to rush them out too fast.

Dunno, we said that of the PW1 too and yet I ordered mine several months after launch and I still had horrid pink & green blotches all over the place (the replacement I subsequently got was acceptable but not fantastic either). On the other hand, my PW2 was one of the very first batches as I had pre-ordered as soon as it was possible to do so and the screen was perfect.

[wallflower75]

First impressions? I haven't used it much yet, but with a couple of minor quirks, I'm happy with my purchase.

Things I love: the screen. Oh, the screen clarity is amazing compared to my old PW1. I turned out the lights last night, turned both of them on, and was blown away by how great the Voyage looked.

The light distribution on the Voyage was even--I'm not one who paid much attention about that when the PW1 came out, but in the dark, it again became clear how much better the Voyage was in comparison.

Page press buttons? Toss-up. I kind of like them, but because I've gotten used to touching the screen, I may not use them as much as I thought at first. I think this is a feature my mother will like once I pry that Nook GlowLight out of her hands.

What I hate? Well, something I probably wouldn't have noticed except I went cheap on the cover, ordered a Belkin instead of the Origami, and wound up with a cover that doesn't automatically put the Kindle to sleep. So I have to hit the power button, where I discovered that in order to "unlock" the Kindle, I have to swipe the screen. I hated that feature on the Nook Touch, which is why I don't own one of those anymore. Could someone with an Origami cover tell me whether they have to do this?

Other than the cover issue, which is my own fault, I'm glad I upgraded. Given how sluggish my PW1 was getting, it was time.

[Chi Cygni]

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

I received my voyage. I'm not all that thrilled with it really. My screen is also somewhat two toned, more yellow on the top, brighter and more white on the bottom. Most definitely not getting on the exchange merry go round this time, especially since I'm not overly thrilled with the device in general, especially for the price. The best thing is the fonts are definitely sharper.

However, the screen on my PW2 is much more even than on the voyage I received. I also feel the fonts on my PW2 are pretty much just as dark as on the voyage. Overall I really like the screen better on my PW2 and the difference of the slightly sharper font on the voyage is not enough for me to keep it.

The page turn buttons I'm not impressed with. They're ok, but to me since the screen is completely flush, you barely have to move your hand over much more to simply hit the screen instead of the page press. If you want to always have your hand on the bezel it would benefit you, but for me actually using them, I didn't find it all that great.

Bottom line for me is for the price it's not worth it. I'm going to give the Kobo H20 a try as I love the idea of being able to customize the fonts, line spacing, and what not. If the H20 screen is comparable to my PW2, I'll keep the H20.

Very happy for everyone who loves their voyage, it's just not worth it for me personally.

I was sorry to hear of your disappointment. Especially that we wait so eagerly, excited and then it is impossible to enjoy, pricey toy at that. I will never order Voyage as it leaves me quite cold. I find the layout boring by now, it looks exactly the same, with the same fonts. I'd have felt I have the same old ereader. Yes I know screen is better (or is it) I still keep Charis SIL on my PW1 and I refuse to read anything Caecilia. I finally want book cover as screen saver. No personal tag on my covers either. So, H2O is the way for me.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Chi Cygni

I was sorry to hear of your disappointment. Especially that we wait so eagerly, excited and then it is impossible to enjoy, pricey toy at that. I will never order Voyage as it leaves me quite cold. I find the layout boring by now, it looks exactly the same, with the same fonts. I'd have felt I have the same old ereader. Yes I know screen is better (or is it) I still keep Charis SIL on my PW1 and I refuse to read anything Caecilia. I finally want book cover as screen saver. No personal tag on my covers either. So, H2O is the way for me.

I need a kindle but I know exactly what you mean, even my poor little Aura with its not great screen was a nicer read than my kindle. I have to have one, and yes it needs to have a lighted screen, but after seeing the reviews and the experience on here I am happy to settle for a wifi PW2 and not pay out for the expensive Voyage. Just hope I get a decent one tomorrow when it arrives.

[happysnapper22]

Reading all the posts on this thread I'm glad I held off ordering. I've got a PW1 and the lighting is blotchy at bottom. Wife had a PW1 and whilst I didn't spend much time comparing the two I'd say it was about the same. That said 2 isn't a very big pool to draw conclusions from... Wife now has a PW2 (got lucky with that PW1 developed a fault and the supplier asked if we'd accept a PW2 as a replacement ). The PW2 is noticeably better than my PW1 but I've not seen another PW2 so I've no idea if Wife's PW2 is better or worse than average.

I'm not desperately unhappy with my PW1 but it will get upgraded some time, so..

Get a PW2 now - attractive, current official Amazon case will fit, sale proceeds from PW1 (guess £40) so PW2 could cost £69 or so...

Wait to see if there is a PW3 @ £109.

Wait and see if future production runs of the Voyage improve.

Wait for Voyage 2 next year.

I'll give it a couple of months and see what happens.

Thanks to all those who have contributed to the thread. Interesting stuff.

[Doitsu]

@RDaneel54 and aceflor:

In the product demos Amazon mentioned that the Voyage will have a new Word Wise feature that'll display small word definitions above the regular text. Does the Voyage ship with a Word Wise demo book or did you see somewhere in the menus a Word Wise option that can be enabled or is this a hard-coded feature?

[aceflor]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

@RDaneel54 and aceflor:

In the product demos Amazon mentioned that the Voyage will have a new Word Wise feature that'll display small word definitions above the regular text. Does the Voyage ship with a Word Wise demo book or did you see somewhere in the menus a Word Wise option that can be enabled or is this a hard-coded feature?

I have not seen it. I understand some of the features are not enabled yet and will come with the next FW upgrade.

[xendula]

WillG, I can see green, yellow and pink in your photo. Mine does not look quite as bad, but bad enough. As one of the people who went through a number of PW2s and whole bunch of PW1 replacements, I must say that the font is much, much closer to the surface in comparison to them (but not compared to my K4B), much less fuzzy, and much darker. I have a hard time imagining going back to my less than perfect PW2 now, but I also can't stomach paying around $240 (once I remove SO and get a cover) for a rainbow device. I am really torn.

Two more things I noticed:
1) I have a gap on the back of the device, at the top in the left corner, where the glossy material meets the rubbery. It is pronounced enough that the device sometimes makes a weird cracking sound when I use the power button, but not always. I wonder if this cause cause problems later down the road.

2) I constantly flip pages when grabbing the device by the bezel. Because there are no physical buttons, this is much harder to avoid than on the K4B for instance, and it drives me NUTS.

Originally Posted by Crodley

So my question for the off color screen, is this problem only in a dark environment where you need the light on? For the VAST majority of my reading I'll be in very well lit places. When I read in bed, I only last around 5 minutes before I nod off.

No. I noticed it as soon as i took it out of the box during daylight

Originally Posted by tomsem

Folks, I want to hear more about the page turn buttons. Do they totally eliminate the need to swipe to page through Kindle Store listings, scroll a wikipedia article in the browser, scroll and page through TOC/XRay/search results/notes lists? Just as you could on Kindle Keyboard etc?

Hoping they have not failed to wire them up everywhere they'd be useful, and not just for 'turning pages'.

No. It only seems to work in books. I tried to use it in the store and on my home screen and in the browser, and nada, not even a haptic feedback.

[David58117]

Originally Posted by WilliamG

Hi, everyone. Long time, no post.

I picked up THREE Kindle Voyage units today, because I wanted to do a comparison between the screen types. Bear in mind, I have been using a Kindle Touch since launch, having sent back both Paperwhite 1 and Paperwhite 2 units for being anything but "paper white." Green/pink splotches = no thanks.

Turns out, the Kindle Voyage suffers from similar issues. While the stage-lighting effect at the bottom of the screen is reduced (you can sometimes see it if you're picky), the screen now tends to be cool white at the bottom, changing to orangey/green at the top, and pink in the top left and right corners.

Again, this is with THREE units tested, all with the same issue with very, very small variances.

I truly believe those of you out there who say theirs doesn't suffer these issues is either:

1.) Not as picky (I wish I were you)
2.) Not as visually astute (I mean no insult by this - I wish I were you!)

Either way, if you're the person who sent back the Paperwhite for this issue, the Voyage is not really any better. Just... different.

Here's a picture (I posted over on a different site, too). I see pretty much every single color - pink, green, orange... Ugh.

If you're astute, you'll be able to make out the hint of the stage-light shadows at the bottom of the screen. This also varies between the three units I have, but it's visible if you're very, very picky.

[Image violates guidelines for size - MODERATOR]

Yep, mine looks like this (picked up from BB in the Midwest).

[Drew0020]

I have a bad feeling that the majority of Voyage's have this problem. For most, it will be very hard to see especially if you use it in brightly lit rooms or outdoors. The only reason I noticed this on mine is because I received it at night and set it up in a dimly lit room.

In fairness, I only use the brightness setting up to 7-8 and this also masks the screen defects.