Kindle Oasis?

[Brian G Turner]

I personally don't get it. Then again, I thought the Paperwhite was too expensive at just over £100!

I do have the original Kindle, but I much prefer the versatility of the Kindle Fire - the HD version at a special offer price can make it much more appealing than a general Android tablet.

 

[ratsy]

I would never spend that kind of cash on one of those. That is crazy. I have the paperwhite and love it (it was an xmas gift) I don't need buttons on the side, and the battery lasts a really long time as it is.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

but I much prefer the versatility of the Kindle Fire - the HD version at a special offer price can make it much more appealing than a general Android tablet.

The Fire isn't an eReader at all, its an LCD tablet with a Kindle Reader app. Fine if that's what you want.
An Android Tablet starts at £45 with a Keyboard cover (though you have to spend closer to £300 for a really high resolution screen)
No matter what kind of tablet I have, I'd want eInk for books. I read a lot. I don't flit between reading and other things. A separate tablet, netbook, laptop, smart phone, smart watch (£12!) is fine. I don't need versatility. I like that it's pretty useless for anything other than reading and annotation.

I'd not spend that money for something the essentially same as a paperWhite. I'd MIGHT spend it for an A4 sized eInk. I like the physical page buttons on the Kindle DXG and miss them on the Touch, paperwhite and my own Kobo H2O Aura HD. Stupid decision more about following Apple's Jony Ives than sense. It's not about cost. Actually would add about 15p per button cost now that I checked.

 

[Foxbat]

I personally don't get it. Then again, I thought the Paperwhite was too expensive at just over £100!

I do have the original Kindle, but I much prefer the versatility of the Kindle Fire - the HD version at a special offer price can make it much more appealing than a general Android tablet.

Me too. What I love about the Fire HD is
a) it's brilliant for reference books (history or whatever) with loads of colour plates, photographs etc.
and b) said books are much cheaper than buying in paper (often under £10 on kindle if you keep an eye on the offers against around about £30 or more for a good print copy) I buy all my Osprey books on kindle now and have saved a fair bit because of it.

 

[Parson]

Sigh! It's not the size of the screen that intrigues me, it's the size of the machine. My second Kindle (He's embarrassed to admit he has 3 Kindles, plus a phone app and 3 computer apps) was a fourth generation Kindle. It was small, fit nicely in my front jeans pocket and had the buttons on the side. I felt it was nearly perfect. --- But I was slightly aggravated at not being able to read it in a dark room as I sometimes want to. --- So when the screen developed a fault I bought a white paper. But the machine and cover are quite a bit heavier and it is not as easy to hold for hours on end, and the touch screen often makes me scream when I want to brush something off it, and the page changes; or I want to go to adjust something, and the screen changes. ---- Grrr! I want those physical buttons on a lighter white paper.

I agree with Ray about reading on a computer or tablet. I've done them both, computer fairly often, and would sure rather have a dedicated e reader with its eink display. ---- Sigh! I forgot I also have an old Kindle Fire which I also find too heavy to read effortlessly. (I keep getting my daughters rejects, hence the fire and my dxg Kindle.)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

it's the size of the machine.

The Oasis is only partially skinnier (excluding a bulge for electronics and battery on right) and lighter, but I think a little wider. It seems to have a half or third of battery life without the cover, which is included and makes it larger & heavier than the PaperWhite, I think. The cover makes the back as fat as the bulge and has a lot of battery.

I guess for the left handed you use it the other way up. Then the cover opens Hebrew style. (You can do that with the DX and DXG). Perhaps there is something I've misunderstood, but really compared to making a PaperWhite with two buttons added, this seems a poor design and too expensive.

 

[pambaddeley]

Yes, thought the Voyage was expensive enough. This is a bit of a joke, don't see who is going to want to buy it at that price, and of course the almost straight conversion from dollars to pounds makes it ridiculously dear in the UK. ($289.99 as opposed to £269.99) for the 'cheaper' wifi only model.

 

[steelyglint]

All models of Kindle, indeed all electronic book readers, are the leading cause of genital dwarfism, a near-certain trigger for profuse hair-growth to the palms and tongue, and the sole vector for the rare Galloping Knobrot virus.

These are facts well known to all purveyors of real books.



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[Foxbat]

I was sceptical when I bought my first kindle and did it primarily as an experiment. But I quickly learned that the arguments (for example) about vinyl versus digital in the music industry can't be applied here. Using a printed version against a digital version doesn't change the quality of information inside it (unlike the audio example). A word is a word is a word.

Of course, a person could argue that they personally prefer the look and handling of print rather than digital - or even the smell of the paper - and that's a fair and valid argument.

Would I prefer some badly written novel just because it is printed on paper or a fine work in digital? I think the answer is quite obvious (but, of course, the converse of my point is also true).

A book should ultimately be judged on the quality of its content, not the medium in which it appears.

 

[steelyglint]

If it appears on a Kindle it isn't a book - it is software.

That's why it is taxable. Real books are zero-rated, tax-free.

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[Ray McCarthy]

If it appears on a Kindle it isn't a book - it is software.

A document on a computing device ABSOLUTELY isn't software. It's a book represented by a pattern of 1s and 0s in a file instead of visible marks on pages.

You might as well claim a cinema production or TV program or music on a DVD, CD, Tablet, MP3 file is software. It's not.

Real books are zero-rated, tax-free.

Not in Ireland. There is 23% VAT on books, comics, magazines etc. (mutters bitterly into cup of tea as tax is too high on anything alcoholic).

Is the UK tax definition actually "Book" or a species of printed material?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I was sceptical when I bought my first kindle

I remember in 2007 showing the Sony PRC to my wife. The Kindle hadn't arrived yet. It was very dull and grey compared to the later "pearl" and current "carta" (carta isn't hardly brighter but about 50% higher resolution) eInk. Yet if we could have afforded it, we would have bought one, ideally one each. It was, I think, 2011 when two of my sons got kindles (early pre-touch models, one with keyboard). Since then there has been loads more Kindles and a Kobo (I'm greedy, I gave wife my Touch, bought a DXG for technical stuff, then she bought a 2013 PaperWhite for another son, then a touch in Dec 2014 for daughter*, new 2015 paperwhite for herself and the eldest grandson got her Touch (which had been mine), then I got a Kobo H2O Aura HD so I'd have something lighter and could test ePub creation. I think I can test mobi files on 7 different Kindles and a Kobo now.

I'd believe that the cheapest Touch and PaperWhite are below cost (adverts on sleep screen) and the cheapest non-advert with no 3G are at about cost. The battery and electronics and case is about same complexity / cost as a cheap Android tablet. The eInk screens are single source and very expensive compared to an HD LCD. The Kobo runs a flavour of Linux/GNU and the Kindle eInk is Android (which is bits on top of Linux) with normal Android GUI replaced by code probably based on mobi reader and a basic manager. Amazon bought Mobi. (Just as Apple bought Fingerworks to have iPhone GUI on top of a cut down OSX to create iOS)

[*Mysteriously a 300dpi Touch using same screen as 2015 PaperWhite without LED lightss, most Touch are 212 dpi]

 

[Wruter]

I've been reading ebooks since 2005, starting with a Palm PDA before e-ink arrived and solved the problems of battery life and eyestrain. Returning to LCD devices as seems to be the trend just feels like going backward to me, let alone dead tree books.

 

[Parson]

If it appears on a Kindle it isn't a book - it is software.

That's why it is taxable. Real books are zero-rated, tax-free.

I buy my e-books here in the States without tax. But to be fair if I buy my "regular" books from Amazon there is no tax on those either. --- At least so far, this is a major fight. The brick and mortar stores complain loudly about the unfair competition from someone like Amazon which doesn't have to charge tax and can deliver anything "free" (Amazon Prime) in two days. Small town stores find it very difficult to compete. They can't keep the inventory to compete. Their prices are somewhat to considerably higher. And if they order they can't get it faster and it necessitates another trip to the store or an even longer wait for re-shipment.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Returning to LCD devices as seems to be the trend

I don't think it's a trend, those are more extra adopters of ebooks that want flexibility, hence people that read on a phone. in odd moments. Actual eInk is only going to appeal to people spending 1 to 5 hours at a stretch, possibly daily, with no interruptions from email social media or web browsing.

 

[steelyglint]

A document on a computing device ABSOLUTELY isn't software. It's a book represented by a pattern of 1s and 0s in a file instead of visible marks on pages.

You might as well claim a cinema production or TV program or music on a DVD, CD, Tablet, MP3 file is software. It's not.

Ebooks are actually not books—schools among first to realizing this fact | Digital Book World

If you could reach into that file and pull out something physical I might agree. Those patterns of 1s and 0s, aren't such patterns the basic programming that tells a processor which pixels to light on a screen to form words? Like the 1s and 0s that tell processors to form characters and weapons on a screen to make digital games? Isn't anything that runs on a computer, even one solely dedicated to 'ebooks', software?

TV, movies and music are still encoded onto DVDs and such, just as are computer games, so yes, they're software, too. But a movie shown at a cinema isn't - that's usually on reels of film. Though if they've gone digital that's software, too.

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[Wruter]

I don't think it's a trend, those are more extra adopters of ebooks that want flexibility, hence people that read on a phone. in odd moments. Actual eInk is only going to appeal to people spending 1 to 5 hours at a stretch, possibly daily, with no interruptions from email social media or web browsing.

Have you read Rainbows End by Vernor Vince? It's a wonderful rigorous near-future sf novel and it describes everyday computers as being floppy e-paper mats that you can fold up and put in your pocket. The technology for color, flexible e-ink screens already exists today in prototype and this seems the logical direction we're headed in after LCD tablets. You're right but my hope is for e-ink/paper to ultimately become mainstream rather than niche and if the technology is given the chance to develop maybe it will.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Ebooks are actually not books—schools among first to realizing this fact | Digital Book World

Inept inaccurate article. eBooks are not printed books, but they are not at all software. I've been writing software for over 30 years and producing digitally encoded content for over 20.

TV, movies and music are still encoded onto DVDs and such, just as are computer games, so yes, they're software, too. But a movie shown at a cinema isn't - that's usually on reels of film. Though if they've gone digital that's software, too.

Sorry, but a computer game is a mix of software, video, animation, text etc.

Digital doesn't mean Software. I can store images, video, or sound in Analogue format or in Digital format on discs, plastic film (film) or magnetic tape. Even photographic film can actually store analogue frames or digitally encoded data.

Laser discs are Analogue.
8mm magnetic tape cartridges (interchangeable) can be analogue video or digital video.
Barcodes are printed on paper. It's simply machine readable text. Rarely ever actual software, though it's possible


Software is NEVER EVER merely content. Software is a stored program for a digital computer.

I've rarely heard or read such un-informed rubbish. DVDs and CDs, cassette tapes can have software stored on them (machine code and data intended to be loaded as programs). Nothing is "software" purely because it's digital. That's nonsense.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

for color, flexible e-ink screens already exists today in prototype

Inherently limited to about 1/3 brightness by basic physics. In practice much worse, at best about 1/6th brightness.
Mirasol works on principle of a butterfly's wing colour and is feasible. The eInk tech used in Kobo & Kindle is inherently useless for colour.

 

[Wruter]

Inherently limited to about 1/3 brightness by basic physics. In practice much worse, at best about 1/6th brightness.
Mirasol works on principle of a butterfly's wing colour and is feasible. The eInk tech used in Kobo & Kindle is inherently useless for colour.

I know, should have specified, 'eInk' is basically an individual brand and, as you rightly say, inherently limited.