What Enhancements Should the Next Kindle PW Have?

[Richwood]

I would like to see page turn buttons or sensors and Illumination color temperature adjustment. Continue to offer the cellular communications option. How about a red case color option too. I have a couple of red Sony readers and like them.

Any firmware enhancements wanted?

[John F]

In addition, plastic substrate. More formatting options: font size, line spacing, ...

Bluetooth for page turning.

[Deskisamess]

No mechanical buttons please, I really dislike them on my Oasis. Improved menu functions, easier light adjustment with fewer taps. Place the screen invert option with the text/font options instead of burying it in Settings-Accessability.

I don't need colors for the case, I use skins and third party covers. I also don't need different color lighting options, but the Paperwhite could be brighter overall, so maybe more lights.

[Quoth]

Buttons that you can ignore, maybe on edge like my phone / tablet volume buttons and can be off/on with ability to turn off page change by touch.
A hinged cover that folds behind, magnetic in both cases so bulk isn't increases by after-market case.
Paging on the contents. The swipe GUI on TOC is terrible.
7" model for €75

[JSWolf]

Kobo firmware.

[Richwood]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Buttons that you can ignore, maybe on edge like my phone / tablet volume buttons and can be off/on with ability to turn off page change by touch.
A hinged cover that folds behind, magnetic in both cases so bulk isn't increases by after-market case.
Paging on the contents. The swipe GUI on TOC is terrible.
7" model for €75

Not sure about the magnetic cover. Both the Oasis Gen 8 and original Oasis Gen 9 magnetic covers were very poorly implemented by Amazon based on owner reviews and my experience with the Gen 9 version. The most compact and integrated cover I have seen was the cover, with light, for the Sony PRS-T3 reader.

The Kindle NT had very unobtrusive page turn buttons. All touch screen readers with buttons seem to allow people to ignore them if desired. I prefer them as they keep the screen cleaner.

[Richwood]

Originally Posted by John F

In addition, plastic substrate. More formatting options: font size, line spacing, ...

Bluetooth for page turning.

Would that be a dedicated Bluetooth mini remote so the reader could be operated remotely or hands free?

[cerem0ny]

Yes indeed! Amazon has so much catching up to do.

Change the screensavers to showing the cover of the book you're reading - like a real book!
More font sizes. Especially in the smaller range.
Extra PPI - some very fancy fonts still don't show up properly.
The Oasis design is amazing - not sure how you'd improve on it. Maybe make an 8'' device?

Thank u

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Richwood

Not sure about the magnetic cover. Both the Oasis Gen 8 and original Oasis Gen 9 magnetic covers were very poorly implemented by Amazon based on owner reviews and my experience with the Gen 9 version. The most compact and integrated cover I have seen was the cover, with light, for the Sony PRS-T3 reader.

The cover I have for my Kobo Aura H2O is every bit as "integrated" as the Sony T series lighted cover. There are covers for the PW3 that are very similar.

The Kindle NT had very unobtrusive page turn buttons. All touch screen readers with buttons seem to allow people to ignore them if desired. I prefer them as they keep the screen cleaner.

Unless you have dirty fingers, the screen does not show fingerprints.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cerem0ny

Yes indeed! Amazon has so much catching up to do.

Change the screensavers to showing the cover of the book you're reading - like a real book!
More font sizes. Especially in the smaller range.
Extra PPI - some very fancy fonts still don't show up properly.
The Oasis design is amazing - not sure how you'd improve on it. Maybe make an 8'' device?

Thank u

The fancy fonts are too lightweight for an eInk screen. Extra DPI will not help. Upping the weight of the fonts will help.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Richwood

Would that be a dedicated Bluetooth mini remote so the reader could be operated remotely or hands free?

If Amazon wants to an optional remote, that's fine. I want to be able to use a generic Bluetooth remote (to turn pages).

[Solo1959]

I want the option to configure the screen for page turns so that I can tap the left side of the screen to advance a page. I usually hold the reader in my left hand and that would make it very easy for me to turn pages. Swipe is very difficult for my fingers.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by Solo1959

I want the option to configure the screen for page turns so that I can tap the left side of the screen to advance a page. I usually hold the reader in my left hand and that would make it very easy for me to turn pages. Swipe is very difficult for my fingers.

You only have to tap about ½" from the left edge to page forward, you don't have to swipe. I have small hands and can do that easily while holding the Paperwhite in my left hand.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

You only have to tap about ½" from the left edge to page forward, you don't have to swipe. I have small hands and can do that easily while holding the Paperwhite in my left hand.

Which is exactly why tap zones should be customizable. If you are holding in right hand, then you cannot reach the tap zone to turn to previous page. I usually hold in my right hand.

Personally I’d prefer a symmetric arrangement that’s typically on phones and tablets, equally divided into 3 vertical zones, left, center, and right, where center brings up options. ‘Easy reach’ never really made sense to me, but at least there should be a mirror-image option available.

Other features I would like:
* Plain Old text-to-speech, with downloadable voices for non-English languages. Voice View is great if you need it, but for the rest of us it makes navigation very awkward. And even Voice View should have other languages available.
* Immersion reading: ability to listen to audiobook while viewing text. I don’t care if highlighting happens, just synchronize the page turns (or make highlighting optional, if it impacts power usage etc)
* gesture to adjust front light perhaps two finger swipe up and down
* gesture to quickly switch between recently opened books like task switching on iOS. Maybe two finger swipe left/right
* Ability to connect Bluetooth keyboards or simple page turn controllers, with keyboards, enable hotkeys for navigating to Home, bringing up TOC/XRay/Aa , selecting text etc. (when Kindles had physical keyboards, there were hotkeys! Bring ‘em back!)

The additional gestures could be turned off by default and enabled as ‘advanced’ features.

[Solo1959]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Personally I’d prefer a symmetric arrangement that’s typically on phones and tablets, equally divided into 3 vertical zones, left, center, and right, where center brings up options. ‘Easy reach’ never really made sense to me, but at least there should be a mirror-image option available.

Or horizontal zones - top, center and bottom. But that is a good idea! Or the option for either vertical or horizontal........