It really is a shame that my e-reader doesn't have an SD slot

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And our token Amazon paranoiac has arrived....

Toxicity levels are off the scale...



Yep, eschwartz is here!

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

The problem with minimal is that different people have a different idea of what minimal should look like. For example: some people will want the ability to adjust the font weight in order to make the text easier to read, while other people will want to adjust to the margins to display more text on the screen. Some people will use both features, others will use one or the other, and (I suspect) most will use neither. Different people will give different answers based upon their needs and perspective. How do you choose?

Yes, I realize that's just two features. Now consider the feature requests that a hundred people would generate. While many would be in common, there would also be many that would address the needs of a small group of people.

One way to choose is to let the vendor impose limits. If the vendor does their market research properly, they'll have a good idea of what their customers demand and what most customers won't miss. Unfortunately, the people who expect those missing features will find the product painful to use. Is that really any different from the pain felt by people who found feature rich products difficult to use? In a very real sense, yes. Perplexed users can always learn how to ignore those "unnecessary" features or even learn how to benefit from those features. When you're missing features, the best you can do is accept your fate. In reality though, you're probably going to have to deal with diminished productivity.

I don't really want unnecessary features clogging up the UI. Let's take the homescreen for example. How do you propose I ignore something like this:

Can I make it stick, so I will never have to look at a non-book tile again? I just want a simple look at my books and collections...

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I don't really want unnecessary features clogging up the UI. Let's take the homescreen for example. How do you propose I ignore something like this:

Can I make it stick, so I will never have to look at a non-book tile again? I just want a simple look at my books and collections...

I think almost all of them can be discarded forever through Kobo Utilities (and you can, at least, discard them, I can't add them for Amazon )

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So if there are more things to go wrong adding in a card slot, then lets take out 3G on those models. Let's take out any physical buttons and make it wake/sleep via a sleep cover. We'll just have touch. Oh and the front light, it has to go. It could go wrong. Oh and we also have to dump the ad supported firmware as the WiFi has to go as it could go wrong. And the software to deliver the adds could have bugs in it so it has to go too.

But those are actually features people want.

If the interface is done in an intelligent way, it won't be confusing. Take the Kindle options as they are now. Add in more fonts and properly weighted fonts. That would do for a start. Now take the second and third set of settings and dump them. They are useless. Keep the current settings and make it the last options. Have a set of options for a smaller line height. And have options for a smaller margin. There's nothing complicated there. You can keep the interface very similar to what's there now and give useful options.

But in this case, we have too minimal and it's not better. It's a lot worse. It's not actually sufficient. The options given go from bad to worse. How is that good?

It would be nice if there were saner defaults for margins etc. But confusion is only one of the problems, and the least of them, in offering configuration down to every last detail.

So what we'll have is a Kindle with Touch and USB. We won't have a light. No buttons at all. No WiFi, Everything will be done via USB and Kindle for PC or Kindle for MAC. You'll use it to download your eBooks and you'll use it to side load. You won't be able to get any eBooks not from Amazon. You won't be able to have have any options for customizing. Just the one font family and the one set of margins and line height. All you can do is read. That's about it. We'll make it the most minimal device possible and do away with all models except this one. Will that satisfy your minimal is best because more hardware means it might break, might weigh more, might cost more and the firmware will stick with Mobi because AZW3 might has bugs and we only need one format anyway as more format is not minimal enough. We'll make this the lightest dumbest, minimalist hardware/software possible in case there could be at least one person out there that needs it like that. How's that sound?

That sounds like a strawman. No one has actually suggested that definition of minimal, we prefer common sense.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

I think almost all of them can be discarded forever through Kobo Utilities (and you can, at least, discard them, I can't add them for Amazon )

Almost all? Still, that does sound reasonable...

I am still concerned about the sometimes-bugginess of having all the various options used or not. And most of the people who would benefit most from cutting down on UI bloat would probably find it less than optimal to go through that route.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But in this case, we have too minimal and it's not better. It's a lot worse. It's not actually sufficient. The options given go from bad to worse.

After seeing that all of Amazon's customers agree with you, I'm almost convinced. It's amazing that they manage to keep selling this unusable garbage with so many 1 star reviews.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I happen to agree entirely that for manga and manga alone, more space is acceptable and needed. I would also like to point out that most Kindle buyers -- and people with ereaders in general -- are not heavy manga readers AFAIK (the definition of a fringe group), so it wouldn't really contribute to Amazon's bottom line to cater to them in E-ink devices... but I certainly don't blame any manga readers for wanting an ereader with an SD slot.

Personally, I cannot help but think that you are going to get better mileage out of reading manga on a tablet anyway



All I'm saying is that I don't expect an SD card to be an intrinsic goal of ereader manufacturers, and additionally that the majority (non-manga readers) of the people who insist they need them, don't.

It is not for Manga alone, however.

Technical manuals (which have always been full of line drawings) also benefit from graphics.
And Jane's Guides.

Once upon a time Eink didn't have the resolution for those things. Now it does.

So, even if you have to put your own together (Companies like Whirlpool and Bosch being somewhat behind the times) high memory capacity is useful and many times tech support finds themselves working in direct sunlight where tablets with LTD or LED screens just don't cut it.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by Phogg

It is not for Manga alone, however.

Technical manuals (which have always been full of line drawings) also benefit from graphics.
And Jane's Guides.

Once upon a time Eink didn't have the resolution for those things. Now it does.

So, even if you have to put your own together (Companies like Whirlpool and Bosch being somewhat behind the times) high memory capacity is useful and many times tech support finds themselves working in direct sunlight where tablets with LTD or LED screens just don't cut it.

As an advocate of the KISS approach to an e-reader I agree with this POV as well and believe that there's probably a market for ruggedized, high resolution, high capacity devices for this purpose, but that's a very different market than the novel reader.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by rcentros

(20 pages a day would be less than a standard size novel a month.)

What? Many books are 200-300 pages.... that's more like 2-3 per month. My reading list shows me a median of 305 and mean of 338, so still about 2 per month.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by twowheels

As an advocate of the KISS approach to an e-reader I agree with this POV as well and believe that there's probably a market for ruggedized, high resolution, high capacity devices for this purpose, but that's a very different market than the novel reader.

That is a specialized market, and has no place in commercial ereaders.

In fact, that specialized market is currently being served by a device that actually does a good job rendering PDFs in large part because alone of ereaders it has a PDF-sized screen: Sony DPT-S1

[JSWolf]

The reason I went on the side of as minimal as possible is because some of you are saying that some Kindle users are unable to handle any real features/options. That's insulting to the many users who can handle such and do want them. So I was showing you how silly it came across. I'm getting the feeling of you saying that if there are features that some users cannot handle, then they should go. So I went and came up with the most minimalistic Kindle possible.

A lot of Kindle users (and would be Kindle users if the Kindle had more going for it) want more features/options like a card slot, sound, TTS, better configuration options, more fonts, better fonts, computer controllable collections (so Calibre can create the collections), etc.

Amazon doesn't give a darn what the users want or we'd have seen a major overhaul of the UI by now. Lots of customers have asked Amazon for better configuration options and Amazon isn't listening. So please don't tell me that Amazon listens. They don't it's obvious or there would be better configuration options. Amazon has been adding features that are nothing special when the ones most wanted continue to be ignored.

You can say what you like, but I am not wrong here. Amazon is all about keeping control and giving in is not Amazon's idea of keeping control.

[meeera]

I really don't get how having ten margin options instead of three, or twice as many fonts, can create unmanageable confusion and support costs.

And I really had to giggle a little at an SD slot adding significant weight... and yet, Kobo Aura: 174 g; Kindle Paperwhite 2 (no 3G): 206 g.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Let's take the homescreen for example. How do you propose I ignore something like this:

Just deal with it. Believe it or not, many Kobo users don't like the home screen either and they do just that. Why? Because Kobo has other features that are compelling. For many it will be things like being able to borrow library books. Believe it or not, many libraries only support Adobe's DRM. Other people will want to buy books from third parties without doing converting formats or stripping DRM. Yet other people appreciate the microSD expansion slot. There are even people who like Kobo because Kobo is a relatively open platform that is safe and easy to modify.

It isn't even that much to deal with. It is the place where you select the book that you want to read, then you spend most of your time in the reader software. Even when you are selecting a different book, it isn't too bothersome. Unless you read a lot of books concurrently, the book you want to read is probably there. Otherwise it is a minor amount of trouble to go to the library screen. Maybe you're willing to forego the features offered by Kobo because of that, yet many people aren't.

[meeera]

I'm not sure what's so difficult about that screen? Once you know that you can dismiss any tile except the Sync tile with a long press, and that it shows the most recently used things, it's really not complicated.

I've set up several relatives with Kobos now, and these are not people who are new-tech savvy; they're doing just fine. One found it far easier to learn to use than his new iPhone.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Just deal with it. Believe it or not, many Kobo users don't like the home screen either and they do just that. Why? Because Kobo has other features that are compelling. For many it will be things like being able to borrow library books. Believe it or not, many libraries only support Adobe's DRM. Other people will want to buy books from third parties without doing converting formats or stripping DRM. Yet other people appreciate the microSD expansion slot. There are even people who like Kobo because Kobo is a relatively open platform that is safe and easy to modify.

I live in the US, which is the center of the world and all so Kindles can check out library books here.
Just kidding, I do wholeheartedly agree that Kobo is the right choice for non-US citizens who value library eLoans.

It isn't even that much to deal with. It is the place where you select the book that you want to read, then you spend most of your time in the reader software. Even when you are selecting a different book, it isn't too bothersome. Unless you read a lot of books concurrently, the book you want to read is probably there. Otherwise it is a minor amount of trouble to go to the library screen. Maybe you're willing to forego the features offered by Kobo because of that, yet many people aren't.

"Unless you read a lot of books concurrently", well, yes, there is that.

Not too bothersome, maybe. On the other hand, why should I put up with even that, if I don't value the features it offers?

And people who value simplicity in the homescreen also value simplicity in the options menu.

And according to Terisa de morgan, davidfor's Kobo Utilities plugin can get rid of whole types of extraneous tiles forever, so maybe that isn't such a big deal.

That brings it down to having EPUB+ADE support in exchange for a whole bunch of hidden features I don't want, which make the firmware somewhat unstable,... and I live in the US and DeDRM all my books.

Oh, yes, and back on topic -- the SD card. While I don't particularly object to the Kobo as an ereader, I still don't consider it a particular strength that it has an SD card slot. On the other hand, for non-US citizens who like library ebooks, and people who actually care about fonts (G-d knows why ), I would not at all recommend the Kindle.