New Kindle Voyage

[evanft]

Originally Posted by Barty

^^^ well you can reduce the margins on the paper white but it takes some doing. You have to jailbreak and apply a patch, not just add a line to a config file.

Of course there is no telling yet if the voyage can be even jail broken.

Yeah, I'm aware of that, but it appears to no longer work on the most recent firmware. So unless someone comes out with a new jailbreak, it won't work on the Voyage.

Originally Posted by tompe

Are you bothered by that in paper books also?

I don't care about paper books. I read on an ereader. Why should my reading experience be limited by the capabilities of paper books?

Originally Posted by tompe

I think you need margins for a good experience and I understand Amazon's decision not to let people change it to much. Having the text to near the side will for most people look very strange and not be optimal for reading and is not good advertising for a Kindle.

What you think is necessary for a good experience or is optimal has absolutely no bearing on what I want or what I like to have for my reading experience.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by tompe

Are you bothered by that in paper books also?

I think you need margins for a good experience and I understand Amazon's decision not to let people change it to much. Having the text to near the side will for most people look very strange and not be optimal for reading and is not good advertising for a Kindle.

Are you saying you can't trust readers to set their own margins? Why couldn't Amazon default to the margins they have now but make the two other margin settings, which are currently huge and huger (and, I'm guessing NEVER EVER used), to something reasonable? Amazon could let you choose a narrower margin or a slightly larger margin? The NST, for example, gives you three preset settings, and they're actually settings that someone might want to choose -- I sometimes choose the medium margin setting on the Nook. Does anyone, anywhere actually use the two EVEN wider margins on the Kindle? Ever? I can't imagine it.

And are you suggesting that, since you can't change the margins on paperback books, you shouldn't be able to change the margins on eReaders? Would you also say you shouldn't be able to change the font, the size of font, the width of the spaces between the lines? With a paper book you also can't touch a word on the page and have the definition pop up or touch a footnote and go directly to the reference -- should those features also be removed from a Kindle to give it a more "authentic reading experience?"

I'm not thrilled with the Kobo readers, but I'm half tempted to get Kobo Touch specifically because I could fine tune my margins and line widths exactly to my preferences. Or I could just accept the publisher's defaults, if I felt the need to be constrained.

As for me, I like my Kindle Basic (Non-Touch, Black version) much better now that I found the non-root margin hack that allows me to make the margins narrower. Personally I don't run my words to the edge -- I keep them somewhere between the edge and the Kindle's default margin setting. But those who do run them to the edge are apparently happy with their choice or they wouldn't do it. Why shouldn't they have that choice?

[evanft]

It really is a glaring problem on the Kindles. If the Voyage had the same margin and font control as my Kobo, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by evanft

It really is a glaring problem on the Kindles.

You mean it's something that you don't personally like. It would appear not to be a "glaring problem" for those who actually buy Kindles (by far the most popular book reading device on the market), or they would not buy them.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You mean it's something that you don't personally like. It would appear not to be a "glaring problem" for those who actually buy Kindles (by far the most popular book reading device on the market), or they would not buy them.

Well, I buy Kindle readers because -- unlike some here -- I like Amazon's infrastructure, book selection, device build and features. But I agree the margin settings are a problem. Especially the two even wider margin settings instead of something more reasonable. It's enough of an issue for me that I hacked my K4BNT to get narrower margins and I'm considering rooting my Touch to do the same on it. (Plus I want to do a couple other hacks -- like using Google Translate instead of Bing Translate and trying to find a darker K4BNT font for it.)

[Josieb1]

I must admit I never considered the margin settings an issue, I will admit I don't understand Amazon's logic for the two wider margins but this is mine on the thinnest margin setting, using Helvetica and I'm more than happy with it.

I like having the white surround as that's what I used to see on books. Too close to the edge and I'd find it messy.

[evanft]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You mean it's something that you don't personally like. It would appear not to be a "glaring problem" for those who actually buy Kindles (by far the most popular book reading device on the market), or they would not buy them.

I should have phrased it as "It's an issue that's a deal-breaker for me and prevents me from spending money on a Kindle." But I think playing a semantics game is a little pointless.

That being said, I don't care if it's popular. I don't care if it's the best selling device on the market. I don't care if people buy them and are happy with them. It's missing features that myself and others find essential to the reading experience. If other people don't find them essential, that's fine, but I do. It's been missing these features for years, while competitor products have had them.

They've rolled out many other features over the last few years, including a complete redesign of their interface, yet they have not implemented basic features like custom fonts or better margin controls. I was hopeful that given the higher resolution of the Voyage they'd use this as an opportunity to add these features, but it appears they have not.

What really bothers me is that adding these features doesn't necessarily harm the experience for those who are fine with the fonts or margins as they are. Finer font and margin controls could be hidden under an "Advanced" button, or they could move to a slider-based interface like the Kobo. People who want big margins and only the built-in fonts could still have those, while those of us who want smaller margins and custom fonts would get those as well. Then everyone would be happy.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by evanft

What really bothers me is that adding these features doesn't necessarily harm the experience for those who are fine with the fonts or margins as they are. Finer font and margin controls could be hidden under an "Advanced" button, or they could move to a slider-based interface like the Kobo. People who want big margins and only the built-in fonts could still have those, while those of us who want smaller margins and custom fonts would get those as well. Then everyone would be happy.

Adding custom fonts has the potential to significantly increase support costs, as people load broken fonts (of which there are many). Margins, I agree: it would be easy to add more options, but again it doesn't personally bother me in the slightest. I find the default margin absolutely fine.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by tompe

Are you bothered by that in paper books also?

The bezel is the margin.

Originally Posted by tompe

I think you need margins for a good experience and I understand Amazon's decision not to let people change it to much. Having the text to near the side will for most people look very strange and not be optimal for reading and is not good advertising for a Kindle.

[Waylander]

I agree with evanft, and it would be nice to be able to customise the margins to my liking. If the voyage is unhackable, then I'll keep my original Paperwhite going for as long as possible before going the Kobo route, and just get my books from Amazon and put them in Calibre.

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Adding custom fonts has the potential to significantly increase support costs, as people load broken fonts (of which there are many). Margins, I agree: it would be easy to add more options, but again it doesn't personally bother me in the slightest. I find the default margin absolutely fine.

However, Amazon could make everyone happy (including themselves) by simply selling additional 'font packs'. I would likely pay $5 to have an additional font that I liked and not have to hack my reader or strip and embed my books.

On the other hand, my pet peeve has got to be the lack of hyphenations. Would it kill Amazon to render hyphenations?! No extra work, no chance of breaking, no increase in customer support....really Amazon?

[soondai]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You mean it's something that you don't personally like. It would appear not to be a "glaring problem" for those who actually buy Kindles (by far the most popular book reading device on the market), or they would not buy them.

Golly that is about as pedantic as it gets.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by soondai

Golly that is about as pedantic as it gets.

No, it's not pedantic at all. There's a significant difference between a "glaring fault" and a personal preference. Eg, many Onyx T68's (but not mine, thankfully) spontaneously reboot at low battery levels: that's a fault. Not liking the margin settings on the Kindle is simply a personal preference.

[evanft]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

However, Amazon could make everyone happy (including themselves) by simply selling additional 'font packs'. I would likely pay $5 to have an additional font that I liked and not have to hack my reader or strip and embed my books.

On the other hand, my pet peeve has got to be the lack of hyphenations. Would it kill Amazon to render hyphenations?! No extra work, no chance of breaking, no increase in customer support....really Amazon?

Ideally, I'd like it to be similar to the kobo readers where you can just load as many as you want. But honestly I'd settle for the kinda backdoor method that worked on my K4NT. Not having it at all is annoying.

[Waylander]

to Sharks. It would be so nice to have hyphenation on Kindle, so that lines don't end short.