Kindle Voyage - First Impressions

[barkas]

Originally Posted by Dexmaster

I'm just going to put things into a proper order, KV is a great device, but Amazon politics and anger management is shit.

Also I think I think @barkas meant that you are paying 200$ for a device you can't change anything on.

It's great if you love it and you love all preferences(fonts, margins, sizes), you don't wish to add language PV doesn't have, you don't want to read books you wish without converting (epub, fb2...), or just play some simple games (sudoku, takuzu...), and I'm not saying about additional stuff you can think of.

It's great but not for me.

I did mean the screen, for me it's too distracting, and for that money it should be perfect.
Still, I'm glad I got a pw2 that could be jbed in the end.
Especially the difficulty organizing a large library with a stock kindle irritated me quite a bit.

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You should always buy a device for what it will currently do, not what you might be able to make it do.

That's pretty decent advice. Lots of tech exceeds its original purpose (the first Palms were only marketed as insanely expensive organizers, not PDAs, and IIRC, the iPhone didn't launch with 3rd party apps), but far more tech languishes after release in its original condition. You can't be disappointed if you don't gamble on getting lucky.

[ryuji35]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Same here. I think the Voyage is an enormous improvement over the PW2.

Well, maybe the cause of discontent is the ratio of improvement over price? It's as if Amazon rushed the Voyage in a sense that they wanted to have an instant answer for the Kobo H2O. It's a solid upgrade, but not worth almost twice the amount of PW2. 212 ppi is more than enough to get a good reading experience. 300ppi, although, yes it provides that crisp and sharp texts, is not worth the $80 jump. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Voyage. I just think if this is priced at $150 (okay, fine maybe $160) it would be justifiable.

For 199$ (220$ for non-ad,) I feel like the Voyage should have more.... well, more.

[krazy4katz]

Originally Posted by ryuji35

Well, maybe the cause of discontent is the ratio of improvement over price? It's as if Amazon rushed the Voyage in a sense that they wanted to have an instant answer for the Kobo H2O. It's a solid upgrade, but not worth almost twice the amount of PW2. 212 ppi is more than enough to get a good reading experience. 300ppi, although, yes it provides that crisp and sharp texts, is not worth the $80 jump. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Voyage. I just think if this is priced at $150 (okay, fine maybe $160) it would be justifiable.

For 199$ (220$ for non-ad,) I feel like the Voyage should have more.... well, more.

On the other hand, those of us who paid ~$400 for the first kindle are feeling OK with the cost/benefit ratio of the Voyage. It all depends on where you are…

[ryuji35]

Originally Posted by krazy4katz

On the other hand, those of us who paid ~$400 for the first kindle are feeling OK with the cost/benefit ratio of the Voyage. It all depends on where you are…

Hmm.. but you can't compare the price of an original Kindle to the Voyage. That $400 Kindle is the 1st Gen, new technology, new everything. You pay for a new technology.

Voyage on the other hand offered incremental updates. Solid, yes, but incremental. I dunno, but if smartphones can increase ppi and can sell them at the same price point, why not Kindle?

[Marseille]

Voyage has more than just a bump in ppi. There's no earlier version of micro etched glass. The button sensors are new tech as well. A flush screen is something I'm not fond of, but others have clamored for. Adaptive brightness is evolutionary, I admit, but it's also new in this context. I have zero interest in the paperwhites. Less than zero, really. Whereas I find the Voyage very tempting. My point being only that the Voyage isn't a paperwhite 3. From the way I read your posts, if you were looking at cars, you'd be contemplating the horsepower only and ignoring the category and trim. Some people are going to want the minivan even if you can lap them on a racetrack with your roadster.

I recommend smartphones to a lot of people elsewhere, and encourage people to skip generations. If you have an S4, you aren't going to get much bang-for-your-buck out of an S5, but if you have an S3 or an S2, it's a real upgrade. Saying that there isn't enough of a gap between a paperwhite 2 and this to justify the cost doesn't distinguish this from the smartphone market very much.

[tompe]

Why should you lower the price when the demand is higher than the supply at current prices? IF they could produce more they would do that.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ryuji35

I have the Voyage without Ads. I was under the impression that if I bought this one, I can customize the screensaver. But I can't seem to find the option in the settings. Am I stuck with the "stock" screensavers? Can I at least opt for the screensaver to be the book that I am currently reading just like in Kobo?

You are stuck with the sleep mode pictures as they come unless Amazon updates them via WiFi. There is no software only jailbreak for the Voyage.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Marseille

Voyage has more than just a bump in ppi. There's no earlier version of micro etched glass. The button sensors are new tech as well. A flush screen is something I'm not fond of, but others have clamored for. Adaptive brightness is evolutionary, I admit, but it's also new in this context. I have zero interest in the paperwhites. Less than zero, really. Whereas I find the Voyage very tempting. My point being only that the Voyage isn't a paperwhite 3. From the way I read your posts, if you were looking at cars, you'd be contemplating the horsepower only and ignoring the category and trim. Some people are going to want the minivan even if you can lap them on a racetrack with your roadster.

I recommend smartphones to a lot of people elsewhere, and encourage people to skip generations. If you have an S4, you aren't going to get much bang-for-your-buck out of an S5, but if you have an S3 or an S2, it's a real upgrade. Saying that there isn't enough of a gap between a paperwhite 2 and this to justify the cost doesn't distinguish this from the smartphone market very much.

It also depends if you are OK living with a Voyage with the stock firmware. If not, then a PW2 might be a better choice because there's a chance you'd get a PW2 with a version firmware that could be jailbroken.

[ryuji35]

Just confirmed from Amazon that if you live outside US and you registered your Ad-supported device with a non-US address, they will disable the special offers FOR FREE. I bought the No Special Offers fresh from the box. I feel duped :'( (Yes, I live outside US)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ryuji35

Just confirmed from Amazon that if you live outside US and you registered your Ad-supported device with a non-US address, they will disable the special offers FOR FREE. I bought the No Special Offers fresh from the box. I feel duped :'( (Yes, I live outside US)

The ad-supported Kindle is only sold to people in the US.

[ryuji35]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The ad-supported Kindle is only sold to people in the US.

Yes but if you, for example, bought an ad-supported Kindle from the US and bring it outside, you can opt for the special offers to be disabled without paying the extra $20. Therefore, you can ask your relatives in the US (if you have any) to just buy a ad-supported Kindle for you, let them ship it to you and ask Amazon to disable the special offers once you registered the device outside US.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ryuji35

Yes but if you, for example, bought an ad-supported Kindle from the US and bring it outside, you can opt for the special offers to be disabled without paying the extra $20. Therefore, you can ask your relatives in the US (if you have any) to just buy a ad-supported Kindle for you, let them ship it to you and ask Amazon to disable the special offers once you registered the device outside US.

You could do that, certainly, but then you'd have to post it back to the US if anything went wrong with it. Seems like a lot of hassle for a trivial sum of money (IMHO, of course).

[JoHunt]

Also if you have to pay customs for your ereader in your receiving country, it makes sense to buy an ad-supported Kindle with a savings of $20 and then either pay to remove the ads after receipt or request Amazon to remove them

[Barty]

Originally Posted by ryuji35

Hmm... sounds like a very liveable "hassle" to me. I can't believe they charge $20 for that.

Actually I think the reason people pay the $20 is to avoid having to do the swipe. To me, the ads are frankly are more interesting to look at than the utterly non descript screensavers. Of course I prefer to jailbreak and see the cover of what I'm reading. It's kind of astounding that amazon has not seen fit to implement this obvious feature.