Amazon announces Kindle Oasis

[ApK]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

This just in! The page turn buttons on the Oasis have proven so insanely popular that Jeff Bezos has wasted no time in announcing the next top of the line model, the Retro. The Retro, which is expected to sell for $1200 retail, not only retains the page turn buttons of the Oasis, but will also feature a physical keyboard! Here's a picture leaked by an anonymous Amazon employee:
Attachment 147826

I seem to have acquired an early...um... prototype of that!
It's most innovative feature is the front lighting system, which achieves perfectly even illumination by eliminating the edge LEDs, and covering the entire display with re-purposed ambient light!

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Shane R

Wow. That's an interesting device.

Lack of ecosystem (per that review) is a huge, huge con though.

Hardly. Kobo has their own store, and although it isn't Amazon, it's not small. And there are all the other EPUB shops out there (Google Books or for Dutch books, BOL.COM for instance). But even buying from Amazon and converting to EPUB is no problem when using Calibre and Alfs' Tools. I do it all the time.

Use Calibre and the deDRM tools and you can get your books from anywhere, whatever reader you use.

[Erich Zann]

Battery life estimation.

First pictures of battery have been released :
http://img1.lesnumeriques.com/news/5...tterie-web.jpg

— 250 mAh for internal battery
— 1290 mAh for cover battery

Some estimations can be made based on previous Kindle models. It's only estimations: on one side the new Oasis have more LED and higher power consumption, but on the other side there are maybe software optimisations that can reduce the need for power.

I used wikipedia values for this.

• Kindle Paperwhite 1 & 2: 1470 mAh => 8 weeks reading <=> 56 days of reading <=> 28 hours of reading during 8 weeks => 52,5 mAh / reading hour

• Kindle Paperwhite 3 & Voyage: 1320 mAh => 6 weeks reading <=> 42 days of reading <=> 21 hours of reading during 8 weeks => 62,85 mAh / reading hour

Now I'm basing the following on the most favorable values (52,5 mAh/hour)

• Kindle Oasis without cover : 250 mAh. 250 mAh / 52,5 mAh = 4,76 hours of reading, or 9H½ days.

It's still approximative. During the 23H½ remaining hours of a day, the reader will also consume some power. As a consequence battery life expectancy measured in hours is much higher if you read several hours per day and not ½H as computed by manufacturers, because the battery will use most of its energy for reading than for standby position.
On my Kobo H2O I was able to read 10 novels of variable size during few days of vacations and intense reading sessions. It was more than 50H reading without any charge, which correspond to 50 × ½ = 100 days of reading, much more than what Kobo says.

In this context, a big reader will probably enjoy a higher battery life than 4,75 H of continuous reading without plugging the cover. But it's still very limited. I'm quite sure that the Oasis will be the very first eInk reader which can't last one complete day of reading… on a long and rainy reading day

(sorry for my english)

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Wanting a device BECAUSE of the design is met with disdain, because it looks like as if someone wants it without having a good use for it

That's dumb. Liking how something looks does meet peoples needs. Why do people landscape their homes or paint the interiors? There's no functional need met in doing that; it's purely aesthetic.

No different with a gadget.

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by ApK

I think folks are trying to push another false dichotomy, in that either there is advanced innovative new tech in a thing, or it's not worth any more money and spending on it is only a "lifestyle choice."
It' just not so.

Here here.

Putting a set of incremental improvements in a product makes it better.
Better ergonomics, including the balance and lower weight, makes it better (and for people whose health and comfort benefit, I can see this being far more worth spending money on than some geeky new screen technology) and better design is...well...better.


And, while of course there will be a profit premium applied, as Amazon is a for-profit company, good designers, engineers, market research, all of which is need to successfully implement even just incremental refinements, do cost money.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by aceflor

I beg to differ. Apart from the Waterproofing, the Tolino has an interesting little feature noone else has: you tap on the back of it to turn the pages. I have tried it some months ago in a bookshop and was actually quite impressed by that. It is not a perfect copy of the PW imho. Nor is the Bookeen Muse Frontlight, which has physical buttons, and quite an impressive display.

There are other fishes in the sea, but with less money to back them up PRwise.

With regards to the Tolino I meant the look of the device itself. There has to be different features between competitors - the tap on back to switch pages is indeed a very cool feature. Waterproofing was not aimed specifically at Tolino, but everybody. None of the current ereaders are truly waterproof, only water resistant (as in submersible to a certain depth for a certain limited amount of time).

Competition is good.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by aceflor

I beg to differ. Apart from the Waterproofing, the Tolino has an interesting little feature noone else has: you tap on the back of it to turn the pages. I have tried it some months ago in a bookshop and was actually quite impressed by that. It is not a perfect copy of the PW imho. Nor is the Bookeen Muse Frontlight, which has physical buttons, and quite an impressive display.

There are other fishes in the sea, but with less money to back them up PRwise.

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

Yeah, the tolino is actually a great reader.

Flush screen, waterproofing, tap to turn page, ePub supprt. If it had the carta screen at 300 ppi, it would blow the paperwhite out of the water (pardon the pun).

Oh, geesh, this Tolino thing doesn't even have a current-gen display, and yet you think it's only PR money keeping them from being a market leader???
To quote from the Star Wars radio play: "Your grip on reality is fragile, humans."
Perhaps consider the possibility that you're just wrong, and it takes a lot more ability and investment at every level for Amazon to make such successful e-readers.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Amazon doesn't want tuna's with good taste they want tuna's that taste good.

You can tuna piano, but you can't tuna fish.

You can lead a fish to water, but you can't make her read.



okay, okay, I'll stop....

BTW, which fish is made up of only two sodium atoms?

Spoiler:

2 Na

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

BTW, which fish is made up of only two sodium atoms?

2 Na

[pdurrant]

I must admit that I'm surprised that Amazon didn't make the cover battery more like 5000 mAh. A 2500mAh polymer lithium ion battery weighs 52g, so increasing the cover capacity from 1290mAh to 5000mAh would increase the cover weight by about 70g.

5250mAh would (using Erich's smaller figure) give 100 hours of reading time, or over six months at 1/2 hour per day. Now that's a length of time worthy of describing as months, not weeks.

[Jason90]

Originally Posted by Erich Zann

Battery life estimation.— 250 mAh for internal battery

That is absolutley pathetic!!

The galaxy s7 edge @ 7.7mm thick has a 3600mAh battery,it also has modems cameras and alot of other tech not found in an ereader and only weighs 20 grams more...

The iphone 6s plus has a 2750 mAh battery @7.3mm thickness,still over 10 times more!!!

Amazon could of added such a battery to the thicker part of the kindle and still had the egornomic benefits of the weight being mainly in the palm of your hand.

Sorry but there is no excuse for this at all,this is one big money making scam on amazon's part and i hope it fails miserably.

[aceflor]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

With regards to the Tolino I meant the look of the device itself. There has to be different features between competitors - the tap on back to switch pages is indeed a very cool feature. Waterproofing was not aimed specifically at Tolino, but everybody. None of the current ereaders are truly waterproof, only water resistant (as in submersible to a certain depth for a certain limited amount of time).

Competition is good.

I don't know how long a device has to stay under water and at which depth to qualify as waterproof, and I don't personally read under water , but I can assure you that my H2O survived many days at the pool being splashed around, being submerged in pool water at least twice and it even fell in the ocean. I plunged after it, rinsed it, and am still to this day on it. The ocean episode happened in October. The season has now started again and my H2O is back in my beach bag. I will take it again on the boat. Just won't let idiots play with it anymore .

Just to say: as a beach/pool reader, it's pretty impressive.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

BTW, which fish is made up of only two sodium atoms?

Spoiler:

2 Na

But is it symmetrical?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Shane R

Is it thin, or is it weight?

Same difference.

Excising weight is a laudable goal in my book.

Waterproofing lost out due to weight.

Again, form over function.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

The tolino has a tap to change page feature, which I could find useful.

True that.

Amazon's addition of 4 more LEDs (holy mother of innovation!) reminds me of Gilette's innovation model - just add one more blade to the razor every year and shoot a dazzling ad around it.

The innovation was from going from bottom lit to side lit screen. So it was necessary to use more leds. Wasn't a technological innovation either, just a design choice to make the bezel very small on the bottom. You can't blame Amazon for using the extra leds in marketing, especially since there has been a lot of complaints and returns for uneven lighting in PW.

Sociological studies of how people use the reader in various environments cost pennies, relatively speaking. It cost them $100 a customer to conclude that a wedge shaped device makes better ergonomic sense? Somebody please fire their lead 'scientists'. I could have told them that for a one time payment of $50.

Always easy to say such a thing in hindsight. Why didn't you tell them? No, everybody wants more fonts, more control over margins, waterproofing, bigger screen, higher resolution.

Plonk a long wedge along one side, and they didn't even make full use of it. A puny 250 mAH (?) battery is what resides in a small portion of it. I guess you gotta keep that battery tiny so you could then sell the battery cover that now becomes vital to making the device last as long as an e-ink device should.

Weight? Savings in weight are welcome to those that absolutely can't even hold a paperback due to weight. Those would rather charge their ereader daily than not be able to read a long time during that day - at least my guess would be.