Amazon announces Kindle Oasis

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That's laying it on a bit thick. Not to mention that you're ignoring the fact that there are many posts in this thread pointing to things about the Oasis that actually appeal to people. It's presumptuous and rude to suggest that your opinion of the Oasis is the "correct" one, and that people who are ordering them are sheep with no common sense--destroying the market for all the other enlightened souls.

Agreed, there are significant advances in this new reader, just not the ones he was looking for. The size/thinness, the cover, the extra battery life, the new/better front lighting....etc. etc.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by selianth

Same here.. I ordered the one without special offers around 2pm ET and it still says "Delivery date pending." Unfortunately, I really want that Merlot cover so if I were to cancel and reorder now it wouldn't arrive until July 7. They better not be sending us ad-free folks to the end of the line!

They're not -- you're just late! I ordered an ad-free Merlot half an hour after the announcement, and got a date of April 27th.

... then spent the rest of the night pointlessly worrying about things like the auto-rotation and reading in bed, which as others in this thread have pointed out is a non-issue unless you are a bat (vampires are fine, they sleep horizontally in coffins like normal people). My miserly mind cannot accept that it is not in fact theft to decide you don't like something like this in the first few days and send it back, and cannot believe that Amazon would refund (which of course it would, particularly if I then said hey I'll buy a Voyage instead).

I'm so bad at spending money that I think I need retail therapy therapy.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Wait, now they are delivering to a tuna first

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....

[Yolina]

I have to say that as far as I am concerned, the best thing about the Oasis is the tuna discussion

[samosa]

Is the processor on Oasis any better than the previous Kindles?

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by Jason90

I might be imagining this but it seems to change pages and open books faster??

Might be the fact he's just pressing a button instead of tapping the screen to flip pages.

It's also that this is almost certainly a recently-booted and nearly empty device (being new and all). Nearly empty means the indexer and anything else that has to traverse all books has less load (and if any of these are using O(n^2) algorithms, which I hope they're not, that could be very significant) and that any data structures that involve all books use less memory. The indexes are mmap()ed at need, but even so having to mmap() a significant fraction of the memory capacity of the machine may sometimes force otherwise-useful pages out of memory.

The recently-booted means that the various heaps for the individual binaries are not fragmented. Over time the heap for long-running binaries will get more and more fragmented, at asymptotically slower rates, and eventually allocation requests will start to fail and you'll get that restart-your-Kindle notice: but long before then noticeable slowdowns will result from worse dcache utilization for small allocations (large allocations are not affected by that particular sub-problem because they're bigger than a cacheline and often bigger than a page: we're talking 64 bytes and less here: but nearly all allocations are small ones).

This is not Kindle-specific: every present-day device bigger than a DSP has both problems. It would be nice to avoid the heap fragmentation problem entirely, but it would mean rewriting more or less everything in a language that does not expose raw pointers so it could freely migrate things around the heap at any time, i.e., not C (not even Rust, unless you constrained nearly all the system to be in a subset that did not have access to raw pointers). It's more practical to rewrite things to consist of larger numbers of smaller processes, only the Kindle has more or less already *done* that. I don't see what else they can do to solve this ongoing minor reboot-every-couple-of-months annoyance which doesn't involve rewriting the world.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Graham

Is it just me that's bothered by the fact that the screen is off centre?

No. It's the primary reason I will probably not be considering this reader, next to the huge price, as I don't need or want any functionality besides those that improve the actual reading of the book.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

No. It's the primary reason I will probably not be considering this reader, next to the huge price

Same here. Every time I've looked at one of the videos that have appeared on YouTube, I can't help thinking that it just looks wrong and that's it, forget about anything else that it might do better (or not) than the other models. I've said before, maybe it wouldn't bother me so much if were to handle one but it's somehow unlikely. I am aware that I do have a thing about symmetry so

[DiapDealer]

I find it humorous (in a mostly non-judgemental way) that dismissing a device for cosmetic reasons seems to be viewed with a lot less disdain than desiring one for cosmetic reasons does.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I find it humorous (in a mostly non-judgemental way) that dismissing a device for cosmetic reasons seems to be viewed with a lot less disdain than desiring one for cosmetic reasons does.

I have absolutely no problem with people who want one just because they think it looks nice - it's their money and they're free to spend it as they wish

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Yolina

I have absolutely no problem with people who want one just because they think it looks nice - it's their money and they're free to spend it as they wish

I absolutely did not mean to single you out. You posted your comment while I was composing mine.

Most people are being sensible about this. My thoughts were primarily directed toward the "There's no way people should be going for this stupid thing" vocal minority.

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

reading on the naked Oasis.

Sounds like the name of a heavy metal band.

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Notice how form wins out over functionality.

Jeff is obsessing about "thin" the way Jobs used to. What a shame.

Is it thin, or is it weight? Excising weight is a laudable goal in my book.

Note: the market hasn't turned against them for it, so it's arguable that they're just being responsive to the whims of the market. Maybe waterproofing is important, but low on the totem pole.

[cats2books]

I purchased my first Kindle in 2009. The Kindle 2, for $359 USD, with the added cover and attachable light it totaled $432 USD. I currently have a Voyage, but I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Oasis. Yes, it's expensive, but I spend so many hours reading, I want the lightest most ergonomic device available. I also hope that the improved lighting will help to cut down on eye strain.

[AkiraReader]

Originally Posted by NullNix

it is not in fact theft to decide you don't like something like this in the first few days and send it back,

If you return enough merchandise, they will ban your account.