My Kindle Oasis Has Arrived - Page 3

Nate the great · 04-27-2016, 10:01 AM

Does anyone see a folder on their Oasis labeled "voice"? What's inside the folder?

According to one source, the Salli TTS voice can be found there:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/0...-kindle-oasis/

NullNix · 04-27-2016, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Does anyone see a folder on their Oasis labeled "voice"? What's inside the folder?

According to one source, the Salli TTS voice can be found there:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/0...-kindle-oasis/

Yes indeed, it's in there, and I have no idea why. It's not as if the Oasis has the hardware to do anything with it.

NullNix · 04-27-2016, 10:32 AM

Upgrading from a PW1, this is the first Kindle I've ever owned with a flawless screen: not a single fleck of dirt caught under the uppermost screen layer (even my K4 had one of those, even though the text appeared to "float at the top" as it does on the Oasis: the fleck was still above it). You *can* see lighting imperfections if you try, but it's really hard, and they're barely perceptible. It's also the first Kindle I've ever owned on which I can't see the pixels.

It's lovely to hold, so light I'm almost worried it'll fly out of my hand: even with the case on, it's only imperceptibly heavier than my PW1 was with the case off. I thought I'd have to flip the buttons over, but in fact the forward-page button is right under my thumb by default. I was also worried about the feel of the back and the smudgeability and reflectiveness of the glass front: in fact, the back is a mixture of PW1-style rubber (on the bezel) and plastic (on the screen) and is perfectly all right to hold, while the front is less smudgeable than my glasses, much easier to clean, and appears less reflective than my PW1's front was: in most lighting, it is entirely nonreflective.

One worry about the case: not only does it not protect the bezel, but it also doesn't protect the *sides* of the Kindle, so unlike the PW1's case is probably not sufficient to keep the Kindle dry when walking in a light rainfall. Ah well, books don't take well to rain either: I'll just stick it into my raincoat's pocket or under my jumper as I do with them

it *does* protect the screen, which is its primary purpose as a case, so I'm not unhappy with that compromise.

It arrives with a half-full Kindle battery and a case battery which appears half-full but which after ten minutes charging the Kindle battery snaps to empty, so I guess it's nearly empty but uncalibrated (either that, or I have a faulty case! I'll know in a few days, but it's probably the former). It also downloads its new firmware instantly as soon as it connects to wifi, and it does so at the start of setup, long before you get a chance to turn wireless off, so don't turn your Kindle on for the first time at a time of day when bandwidth is expensive! It blew about a tenth of my monthly bandwidth allocation in less than two minutes... ah well, it's nearly the end of the month anyway.

Software-wise, coming from firmware 5.6.1.1, I'm very impressed with the quick settings panel (easy access to wifi off at last!), the Bookerly font and the revised Caecilia, less than impressed with Ember (reading in sans serif on a screen this high-res? come on...) and deeply unimpressed with the ridiculous home screen (I don't know where those 'reading lists' even come from but none of them are things I want to read: I might find out when I get far enough into the manual. There's hardly any room on the Home screen for your actual *books*, it's so busy trying to push new product at you; thank goodness you can turn it off).

The changes to things like the on-screen keyboard and toolbar are also bizarre: rather than dividing the width of the screen up semi-evenly between buttons, the area you must hit is now no wider than the text of the button, and 90% of the toolbar is often left empty and unresponsive; this leads to things like the 'Aa' font change button being really rather hard to hit (it's not even at the edge of the screen any more), and when reading periodicals the nearly-useless 'Clip this article' button is huge and extra-easy-to-hit because its label is large. Whoever thought this was a good idea is an idiot.

All things considered, the lightness is probably going to dominate most other things: it really does make it lovely to use, as does the higher res: the larger capacity and near-complete lack of delay when doing anything at all (due to the faster processor, I guess) is worth having, too. I'll see what it's like for bedtime reading later; if it turns out to not be as good as my PW1 was, I'll demote the PW1 to the role of "bedtime book" and use the Oasis the rest of the time

JulyB · 04-27-2016, 10:38 AM

I'm new, but I've been lurking while I've been waiting for my new Merlot Oasis to turn up. It's finally here!

I'm really pleased with it, especially because my previous kindle was a Paperwhite 1, which I loved, but I'd be the first to admit that the screen was blotchy green and pink and the LEDs are completely visible. And, with the case, it's heavy.

The Oasis is exactly what I hoped the Paperwhite would be when I ordered it three and a half years ago. The screen is even whiter than the walls of my house! It's easy to read in direct sunlight - I tried it out this morning, and I live in Spain, so you can imagine that the sun can get quite strong even in April. Anyway, it looks perfect in all conditions.

The LEDs are almost, but not quite invisible - they certainly don't cast any shadows, and the colour is perfectly uniform across the whole surface. It's much brighter than my Paperwhite, much faster, and the touchscreen is far more sensitive.

I was a little worried at first about how I would know the status of the battery, but it's in the settings when you tap on it, so it's easy to see if there's any juice.

The red cover is very nice, quite subtle, not garish, and expensive feeling - it does give me the sense of holding an old book. Even with the cover on, it feels surprisingly light. The new fonts are great, the screen, compared to my old reader, seems to allow my eyes to relax in a way the previous one did not.

I'm honestly trying to find something wrong with it and failing. I suppose the only issue is the price, but for me this was a birthday gift! So I have nothing. I love it.

nics.stuff · 04-27-2016, 10:45 AM

I'm wishing I had of ordered on the first day, I didn't know that the Merlot wouldn't be available to Australians though. Everyones are turning up, now the shipping date for the Merlot is somewhere between July - August!

sandersonjj · 04-27-2016, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mickey330

I'm pretty sure it's room lighting. I took that picture last nigh in my living room with one lamp on.

Here's a shot of just the screen. I took this in my living room with lots of Windows, a sunny day and light level 18 set:

I don't see any unevenness (and I did try hard to get window glare off before I snapped the pic).

That help?

Marilyn

Hello Marilyn,

Sorry to bother you. I' m newbie in this forum

Which is the book you are reading?

Many thanks in advance !!! (and sorry for my bad english, I' m a non native speaker

)

Avwriter · 04-27-2016, 11:29 AM

1. If you hold it sideways, will it switch into landscape view, or must that be set in the firmware?

2. Is there a way to turn the accelerometer off so that reading sideways in bed will not accidentally flip the screen?

HarryT · 04-27-2016, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandersonjj

Which is the book you are reading?

It appears to be a vampire story called "Drink Deep", by someone called Chloe Neill. Not my cup of tea

.

JulyB · 04-27-2016, 11:35 AM

It doesn't switch to landscape on mine, just portrait left and right. I haven't found a way to switch off the rotation, but it doesn't seem to rotate by accident. It has to be almost all the way round before switching.

I am intrigued by the voice file with the U.S. English voice already download. I think there must be, or have been, some plan for text-to-speech.

NullNix · 04-27-2016, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JulyB

It doesn't switch to landscape on mine, just portrait left and right. I haven't found a way to switch off the rotation, but it doesn't seem to rotate by accident. It has to be almost all the way round before switching.

It'll rotate by accident if you put it down to read: that often involves a brief period in which it is tilted upside down when your fingers are letting go, and the firmware then says, ooh, let's flip it upside down! Wrong-o (but easy to fix in about half a second by just briefly picking it half up again).

Landscape is set in the Aa font dialog, which is tabbed now (but before someone gets excited and thinks this'll let you go to landscope in periodicals, noo, it's there in periodicals, but greyed out!)

Quote:

I am intrigued by the voice file with the U.S. English voice already download. I think there must be, or have been, some plan for text-to-speech.

How? I can't imagine that there was ever a plan for sound hardware on this thing, with its extreme weight constraints. More likely this is a mistaken addition...

sandersonjj · 04-27-2016, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

It appears to be a vampire story called "Drink Deep", by someone called Chloe Neill. Not my cup of tea

.

Ops !!! thanks !!! :P

Atunah · 04-27-2016, 12:03 PM

That book is the 5th in the Chicago Vampire series by Chloe Neill. It is Urban Fantasy. Great series by the way.

.

Raptwithal · 04-27-2016, 12:08 PM

I'm one of those who reads with the backlighting all the way down.

Without the backlighting, does the Oasis have any screen differences compared to the Paperwhite 300 ppi using the same font?

Thanks -- I know this is a niche question.

Sirtel · 04-27-2016, 12:27 PM

Well, I couldn't resist and ordered mine. Now I'm officially in the "unwisely spending" category too (actually I felt I was there anyway, after getting the Voyage, so there's not much left to lose reputation-wise.). It won't ship before June, so I'll have a bit of time to save up (or change my mind, but that's pretty unlikely).

NullNix · 04-27-2016, 12:37 PM

It will surprise nobody to find that the occasionally advertised 4GiB capacity is actually, uh, 3GiB available (minus the hundred megabyte plus for this mysterious voice content) and I guess a gigabyte in the system partition. So it's not quite twice as capacious as a PW1, rather than the nearly three times I was expecting. (Of course, Amazon just say 'thousands of books', but people have been saying 4GiB in various places for some time. It's not, any more than the PW1 was 2GiB. I'd guess there's a *lot* of room for expansion spare on the system partition...)

04-27-2016, 10:32 AM	#33
NullNix Guru Posts: 916 Karma: 13928438 Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK Device: Kindle Oasis 3, Kindle Oasis 1	Well, mine turned up. Upgrading from a PW1, this is the first Kindle I've ever owned with a flawless screen: not a single fleck of dirt caught under the uppermost screen layer (even my K4 had one of those, even though the text appeared to "float at the top" as it does on the Oasis: the fleck was still above it). You can see lighting imperfections if you try, but it's really hard, and they're barely perceptible. It's also the first Kindle I've ever owned on which I can't see the pixels. It's lovely to hold, so light I'm almost worried it'll fly out of my hand: even with the case on, it's only imperceptibly heavier than my PW1 was with the case off. I thought I'd have to flip the buttons over, but in fact the forward-page button is right under my thumb by default. I was also worried about the feel of the back and the smudgeability and reflectiveness of the glass front: in fact, the back is a mixture of PW1-style rubber (on the bezel) and plastic (on the screen) and is perfectly all right to hold, while the front is less smudgeable than my glasses, much easier to clean, and appears less reflective than my PW1's front was: in most lighting, it is entirely nonreflective. One worry about the case: not only does it not protect the bezel, but it also doesn't protect the sides of the Kindle, so unlike the PW1's case is probably not sufficient to keep the Kindle dry when walking in a light rainfall. Ah well, books don't take well to rain either: I'll just stick it into my raincoat's pocket or under my jumper as I do with them it does protect the screen, which is its primary purpose as a case, so I'm not unhappy with that compromise. It arrives with a half-full Kindle battery and a case battery which appears half-full but which after ten minutes charging the Kindle battery snaps to empty, so I guess it's nearly empty but uncalibrated (either that, or I have a faulty case! I'll know in a few days, but it's probably the former). It also downloads its new firmware instantly as soon as it connects to wifi, and it does so at the start of setup, long before you get a chance to turn wireless off, so don't turn your Kindle on for the first time at a time of day when bandwidth is expensive! It blew about a tenth of my monthly bandwidth allocation in less than two minutes... ah well, it's nearly the end of the month anyway. Software-wise, coming from firmware 5.6.1.1, I'm very impressed with the quick settings panel (easy access to wifi off at last!), the Bookerly font and the revised Caecilia, less than impressed with Ember (reading in sans serif on a screen this high-res? come on...) and deeply unimpressed with the ridiculous home screen (I don't know where those 'reading lists' even come from but none of them are things I want to read: I might find out when I get far enough into the manual. There's hardly any room on the Home screen for your actual books, it's so busy trying to push new product at you; thank goodness you can turn it off). The changes to things like the on-screen keyboard and toolbar are also bizarre: rather than dividing the width of the screen up semi-evenly between buttons, the area you must hit is now no wider than the text of the button, and 90% of the toolbar is often left empty and unresponsive; this leads to things like the 'Aa' font change button being really rather hard to hit (it's not even at the edge of the screen any more), and when reading periodicals the nearly-useless 'Clip this article' button is huge and extra-easy-to-hit because its label is large. Whoever thought this was a good idea is an idiot. All things considered, the lightness is probably going to dominate most other things: it really does make it lovely to use, as does the higher res: the larger capacity and near-complete lack of delay when doing anything at all (due to the faster processor, I guess) is worth having, too. I'll see what it's like for bedtime reading later; if it turns out to not be as good as my PW1 was, I'll demote the PW1 to the role of "bedtime book" and use the Oasis the rest of the time

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04-27-2016, 10:01 AM	#31
Nate the great Sir Penguin of Edinburgh Posts: 12,375 Karma: 23555235 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: DC Metro area Device: Shake a stick plus 1	Does anyone see a folder on their Oasis labeled "voice"? What's inside the folder? According to one source, the Salli TTS voice can be found there: http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/0...-kindle-oasis/

04-27-2016, 10:38 AM	#34
JulyB Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 15120 Join Date: Apr 2016 Device: Kindle Oasis	I'm new, but I've been lurking while I've been waiting for my new Merlot Oasis to turn up. It's finally here! I'm really pleased with it, especially because my previous kindle was a Paperwhite 1, which I loved, but I'd be the first to admit that the screen was blotchy green and pink and the LEDs are completely visible. And, with the case, it's heavy. The Oasis is exactly what I hoped the Paperwhite would be when I ordered it three and a half years ago. The screen is even whiter than the walls of my house! It's easy to read in direct sunlight - I tried it out this morning, and I live in Spain, so you can imagine that the sun can get quite strong even in April. Anyway, it looks perfect in all conditions. The LEDs are almost, but not quite invisible - they certainly don't cast any shadows, and the colour is perfectly uniform across the whole surface. It's much brighter than my Paperwhite, much faster, and the touchscreen is far more sensitive. I was a little worried at first about how I would know the status of the battery, but it's in the settings when you tap on it, so it's easy to see if there's any juice. The red cover is very nice, quite subtle, not garish, and expensive feeling - it does give me the sense of holding an old book. Even with the cover on, it feels surprisingly light. The new fonts are great, the screen, compared to my old reader, seems to allow my eyes to relax in a way the previous one did not. I'm honestly trying to find something wrong with it and failing. I suppose the only issue is the price, but for me this was a birthday gift! So I have nothing. I love it.

04-27-2016, 10:45 AM	#35
nics.stuff Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2016 Device: Kindle Oasis	I'm wishing I had of ordered on the first day, I didn't know that the Merlot wouldn't be available to Australians though. Everyones are turning up, now the shipping date for the Merlot is somewhere between July - August!

04-27-2016, 11:29 AM	#37
Avwriter Addict Posts: 350 Karma: 1422834 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: GA Device: Sony PRS 505, 600, 350, T-1, PW1, Voyage, Oasis2	1. If you hold it sideways, will it switch into landscape view, or must that be set in the firmware? 2. Is there a way to turn the accelerometer off so that reading sideways in bed will not accidentally flip the screen?

04-27-2016, 11:35 AM	#39
JulyB Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 15120 Join Date: Apr 2016 Device: Kindle Oasis	It doesn't switch to landscape on mine, just portrait left and right. I haven't found a way to switch off the rotation, but it doesn't seem to rotate by accident. It has to be almost all the way round before switching. I am intrigued by the voice file with the U.S. English voice already download. I think there must be, or have been, some plan for text-to-speech.

04-27-2016, 12:03 PM	#42
Atunah Wizard Posts: 1,817 Karma: 23400001 Join Date: May 2012 Location: USA Device: K1/K3/BasicK Voyage/Oasis1/Oasis3	That book is the 5th in the Chicago Vampire series by Chloe Neill. It is Urban Fantasy. Great series by the way. .

04-27-2016, 12:08 PM	#43
Raptwithal Connoisseur Posts: 52 Karma: 2409372 Join Date: Oct 2014 Device: Kindle now; changing soon...	I'm one of those who reads with the backlighting all the way down. Without the backlighting, does the Oasis have any screen differences compared to the Paperwhite 300 ppi using the same font? Thanks -- I know this is a niche question.

04-27-2016, 12:27 PM	#44
Sirtel Grand Sorcerer Posts: 10,130 Karma: 224760044 Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Estonia Device: Kobo Sage & Libra 2	Well, I couldn't resist and ordered mine. Now I'm officially in the "unwisely spending" category too (actually I felt I was there anyway, after getting the Voyage, so there's not much left to lose reputation-wise.). It won't ship before June, so I'll have a bit of time to save up (or change my mind, but that's pretty unlikely).

04-27-2016, 12:37 PM	#45
NullNix Guru Posts: 916 Karma: 13928438 Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK Device: Kindle Oasis 3, Kindle Oasis 1	It will surprise nobody to find that the occasionally advertised 4GiB capacity is actually, uh, 3GiB available (minus the hundred megabyte plus for this mysterious voice content) and I guess a gigabyte in the system partition. So it's not quite twice as capacious as a PW1, rather than the nearly three times I was expecting. (Of course, Amazon just say 'thousands of books', but people have been saying 4GiB in various places for some time. It's not, any more than the PW1 was 2GiB. I'd guess there's a lot of room for expansion spare on the system partition...)