Paperwhite Second Gen: First Impressions

[ProfCrash]

I think there is a lost 11th commandmant that is paraphrased "Though shalt use an e-reader exactly as the builder of it intended or thou shalt be smote by firmware issues"

It has been a while since I went to Church so I am not certain if said commandmant had been discovered

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I think there is a lost 11th commandmant that is paraphrased "Though shalt use an e-reader exactly as the builder of it intended or thou shalt be smote by firmware issues"

It has been a while since I went to Church so I am not certain if said commandmant had been discovered

[Semilucid]

Hi so whats the deal with having Wifi disabled? I am thinking of purchasing a PW2 and would naturally use the device with wifi disabled.

If you're curious why, I dont see wifi providing any benefit to my reading experience and just another drain on the battery.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Semilucid

Hi so whats the deal with having Wifi disabled? I am thinking of purchasing a PW2 and would naturally use the device with wifi disabled.

If you're curious why, I dont see wifi providing any benefit to my reading experience and just another drain on the battery.

One benefit for me is direct access to Wikipedia. Also if have not noticed any drain that lead me to not have it charged when I needed to read.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

One benefit for me is direct access to Wikipedia. Also if have not noticed any drain that lead me to not have it charged when I needed to read.

Leaving WiFi permanently switched on approximately halves the battery life of the PW. This may not be of practical concern, of course. It's still a decent battery life.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Leaving WiFi permanently switched on approximately halves the battery life of the PW. This may not be of practical concern, of course. It's still a decent battery life.

In practice I remember to charge my PW since I know I can ran out of battery. For my Kindle WiFi (the cheapest one) I forgot more often to charge it...

I am also of the opinion that a device that is not connected to the net always is kind of broken.

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by tompe

I am also of the opinion that a device that is not connected to the net always is kind of broken.

Why??

[Rizla]

Amazon is making a lot of poor decisions lately for their Kindles. First it becomes super-painful to add custom fonts and now this cloud collection problem. The latter will probably be altered with an update, but it should never have happened. What were they thinking? Unless they are trying to enforce one account per device. And the need not to show cloud-archived collections is a no-brainer. Very poor.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by tompe

I am also of the opinion that a device that is not connected to the net always is kind of broken.

I'm of the opinion that this is a dumb opinion.

An e-reader does not *require* an internet connection to perform its main functionality: holding, organizing and presenting ebooks.

All other stuff such as Cloud Collections / WhisperSync, Social Media, buying books directly from a store, looking up stuff on Wikipedia and so on, should be optional.

I am of the opinion that all of these functions should be completely disabled if there is no internet connection, instead of having them enabled and constantly nag you to connect the device to the internet.

If there is no internet, the reader should not attempt to organize books in Cloud Collections. It should organize them locally, and as soon as there is a connection, it should update the Cloud Collection. (I.e.: same way as DropBox works.) And it should ONLY update Cloud Collections if an option to do that is set, because I can imagine that people don't want to use Cloud Collections, but do want to use the online store.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'm of the opinion that this is a dumb opinion.

An e-reader does not *require* an internet connection to perform its main functionality: holding, organizing and presenting ebooks.

All other stuff such as Cloud Collections / WhisperSync, Social Media, buying books directly from a store, looking up stuff on Wikipedia and so on, should be optional.

I am of the opinion that all of these functions should be completely disabled if there is no internet connection, instead of having them enabled and constantly nag you to connect the device to the internet.

If there is no internet, the reader should not attempt to organize books in Cloud Collections. It should organize them locally, and as soon as there is a connection, it should update the Cloud Connection. (I.e.: same way as DropBox works.) And it should ONLY update Cloud Collections if an option to do that is set, because I can imagine that people don't want to use Cloud Collections, but do want to use the online store.

So right! Thanks for stating it so clearly.

Now that I have no more PW2, the smart hackers have found a way to go back to the original firmware, so there is a solution for the rest of you, if you want to go that route. I certainly would, if I hadn't decided to be done with Kindles.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by booklover6

So right! Thanks for stating it so clearly.

Thanks

(I'm always right. "If the facts are against me, they should be changed. Simple as that." I wonder if that statement finally gets into the Guiness Book of World Records as most narcissistic statement ever )

Now that I have no more PW2, the smart hackers have found a way to go back to the original firmware

With the KPW, the firmware is always complete as far as I know; meaning that you can install any version just by putting it into the root of the device, and selecting Update from the menu. It will "update" (downgrade) from a newer to an older version without any problem.

Has this been changed in the KPW2, or even in the last versions of the KPW1?

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Thanks With the KPW, the firmware is always complete as far as I know; meaning that you can install any version just by putting it into the root of the device, and selecting Update from the menu. It will "update" (downgrade) from a newer to an older version without any problem.

Has this been changed in the KPW2, or even in the last versions of the KPW1?

No this hasn't changed, however, up until very recently (today?) the developers did not have an image of the original firmware of the PW2. Now they do (I think). (ix-mas-tab)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

With the KPW, the firmware is always complete as far as I know; meaning that you can install any version just by putting it into the root of the device, and selecting Update from the menu. It will "update" (downgrade) from a newer to an older version without any problem.

No you can't. The firmware updater will only move "up" in versions, not "down".

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No you can't. The firmware updater will only move "up" in versions, not "down".

I know 100% sure that I've returned to previous firmwares to be able to install some new hack, and then upgrade again to the most current version, and I've not done anything special to downgrade as far as I can recall.

Edit: now that I'm thinking about it, the one thing that *could* have happened is that the older firmwares I flashed, had their version number set to a number higher than the latest official one, and higher than any previous "hacked" versions, so the Kindle would always think it was updating. I did download the firmware versions I used through posts on MR, not from the Kindle site.

At the time I don't use any hacks anymore, and just run the Kindle completely stock.

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I know 100% sure that I've returned to previous firmwares to be able to install some new hack, and then upgrade again to the most current version, and I've not done anything special to downgrade as far as I can recall.

Edit: now that I'm thinking about it, the one thing that *could* have happened is that the older firmwares I flashed, had their version number set to a number higher than the latest official one, and higher than any previous "hacked" versions, so the Kindle would always think it was updating. I did download the firmware versions I used through posts on MR, not from the Kindle site.

At the time I don't use any hacks anymore, and just run the Kindle completely stock.

You can return to any previous firware as long as you have the .bin file. The problem with the PW2 was that the original firmware was not available as a .bin file. The devs did not have an image of the original firmware, so once you updated you could not go back. They now have one, so it is possible to revert to the original firmware if you don't like what is in the update.