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Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

(www.aboutamazon.com)
572 points bookofjoe | 106 comments | 16 Oct 24 13:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.418s | source | bottom
1. jjice ◴[16 Oct 24 15:04 UTC] No.41859903[source]▶
I own a Kindle Paperwhite (last gen, relative to this new one) and a Kobo Clara BW (purchase in the last 6 months). IMO, the Kindle is the premium e-reader when it comes to look and feel. It's just a fantastic experience. The issue is Amazon and how even if you want to put your own purchased ebooks on it, you have it send it through their servers. That tied with a few other privacy issues over the years led me to also get a Kobo.

The Kobo can run in a fully offline mode (called "side-load mode" or something like that) and I can transfer my ebooks directly via USB. I use the Kobo most of the time now since most of my reading lately has been independently published ebooks, but I still use the Kindle for books I purchase via Amazon directly.

With all that said, I personally think the Kindle Paperwhite is already the perfect size. It fits snuggly in my back pocket and strikes the perfect balance between screen size being large, but not too large to hold for my average male hands. I'd be a bit concerned about the size increase for my personal use case, but Amazon does a great job with the Kindle in general so I'd like to see some reviews.

As for the new Colorsoft, I'd really like to see some reviews. The color Kobos that came out earlier this year got some mixed reviews for colors, but I'm not sure if that's just the nature of color e-ink or not.

replies(16): >>41860022 #>>41860629 #>>41860848 #>>41862006 #>>41862476 #>>41862599 #>>41862789 #>>41864319 #>>41864453 #>>41865784 #>>41866020 #>>41866109 #>>41866457 #>>41869558 #>>41871687 #>>41876621 #
2. thimabi ◴[16 Oct 24 15:11 UTC] No.41860022[source]▶
> The issue is Amazon and how even if you want to put your own purchased ebooks on it, you have it send it through their servers.

You can sideload your books over USB too, using Calibre for instance.

I own a few Kindle models and a Kobo Forma as well. The Kindles do have some quirks and bugs (e.g., disappearing books, issues with sideloaded fonts…). But my Kobo Forma’s battery completely died after a couple years of usage, and the device became completely unreliable. After that experience, I’ve resigned myself to live with the Kindle’s problems.

replies(7): >>41860077 #>>41860139 #>>41860177 #>>41860403 #>>41862043 #>>41863569 #>>41873194 #
3. __float ◴[16 Oct 24 15:15 UTC] No.41860077[source]▶
Whenever I’ve converted books to mobi in Calibre it seems they fall back to a slightly worse experience - using “location” markers instead of real page numbers as official Kindle books display, cover art is tricky to get working on the lock screen, etc.

Is this a poor Calibre configuration or are there real limitations to reading books side-loaded on Kindles?

replies(3): >>41860132 #>>41860142 #>>41860433 #
4. thimabi ◴[16 Oct 24 15:20 UTC] No.41860132{3}[source]▶
You can find Calibre plugins to convert the books to KFX, Amazon’s native format. There’s also a plugin to recover actual page numbers rather than loc markers in the books. It’s not very intuitive, but it’s doable given the options Amazon gives us.
5. soco ◴[16 Oct 24 15:20 UTC] No.41860139[source]▶
Why do you need a few Kindles and also a Kobo? Are you keeping them in different places and don't move them? I only have the first Paperwhite which I carry along, it's 11 years old already and it still does the job. The battery keeps up and I was probably lucky to not have noticed any hiccups.
replies(3): >>41860231 #>>41860477 #>>41864686 #
6. danhon ◴[16 Oct 24 15:20 UTC] No.41860142{3}[source]▶
You sideload them as epubs and they're fine on my Oasis at least. Calibre does a good job of fixing metadata like covers.
7. htamas ◴[16 Oct 24 15:23 UTC] No.41860177[source]▶
My Kindle had this "bug" where my side loaded books randomly disappear. As a workaround, I have to keep it in flight mode at all times. Not a big issue since that’s what I would do anyway, but in case my Kindle would break, I wouldn’t think long to buy an alternative
replies(5): >>41860402 #>>41860407 #>>41860602 #>>41860746 #>>41870810 #
8. thimabi ◴[16 Oct 24 15:28 UTC] No.41860231{3}[source]▶
I read several types of books, multiple hours per day: reflowable fiction books, PDFs, books generated from my Markdown notes… I’ve got a Paperwhite, a Scribe and a Kobo Forma, but I’m still searching for the perfect e-reader.

The Paperwhite is too small for PDFs, but great for fiction and portability. The Scribe is excellent for PDFs, but it makes my books disappear sometimes, and it does not work well with sideloaded fonts. The Forma is a middle ground in terms of portability, but its battery died after a couple years and nowadays I only use it near a power outlet.

replies(1): >>41865470 #
9. andrepd ◴[16 Oct 24 15:42 UTC] No.41860403[source]▶
So you got one bad battery and you decide to ditch their devices? Seems weird. Fwiw I have an 11-year old Kobo that's still going strong lol.

Opted for a pocketbook this time though. Physical buttons and small 6-inch form factor? And respect for your privacy? Count me the fuck in!

replies(1): >>41860493 #
10. andwaal ◴[16 Oct 24 15:42 UTC] No.41860402{3}[source]▶
This happend to my kindle to! After keeping in in flight mode for years I put it online again in order to buy a few new books from the kindle store, poof suddenly my entire library of side loaded books was gone, with progress and everything. I could see random metadata files related to the books on the drive, be books was gone. Super annoying as many of the books I didn't have locally anymore and to loose the "archivement" of finished books sucks big time. I can see this may be implemented by amazon to counter piracy, but alot of these books was perfectly legal. So the result of this is that I will never put my kindle online again and just stop buying from the Kindle store.
replies(4): >>41863482 #>>41864280 #>>41866409 #>>41866885 #
11. thimabi ◴[16 Oct 24 15:43 UTC] No.41860407{3}[source]▶
You’re lucky. I’ve seen books disappear from my Kindle even in flight mode. I wonder what is behind such a persistent bug.
replies(1): >>41865283 #
12. Tijdreiziger ◴[16 Oct 24 15:45 UTC] No.41860433{3}[source]▶
It’s been a few years since I’ve had to do this, but I think that (at least back then) Calibre defaulted to MOBI for the conversion. However, you could manually select KF8 (AZW3), which is essentially EPUB with a different file extension.
13. fencepost ◴[16 Oct 24 15:48 UTC] No.41860477{3}[source]▶
My wife is a pretty voracious reader and has 3 active Kindles that I believe are mostly segregated out by genre/collection. I wouldn't be surprised if this is as much for convenience as anything else, I don't use it much but Amazon's library management and navigation on the Kindles has never impressed me.

She's also one of those folks who sideloads with Calibre as well as purchasing through Amazon.

14. thimabi ◴[16 Oct 24 15:48 UTC] No.41860493{3}[source]▶
I decided to ditch their devices because of the support I got — or lack thereof. First they refused to talk to me, because, for privacy reasons, my device was unregistered. I ended up registering it, and even so they offered just a 10% discount on the purchase of a new device.

Sadly, Amazon’s support is not far behind, considering its inability to fix certain persistent Kindle bugs. But I’ve never seen the hardware itself fail.

replies(2): >>41862425 #>>41866075 #
15. AcerbicZero ◴[16 Oct 24 15:55 UTC] No.41860602{3}[source]▶
Out of all the devices where having a physical airplane mode switch would be nice, I'd put the kindle pretty high up. Kinda sucks having a battery that lasts ~45 days in airplane mode, and like a week and a half when I forget to turn it off.
replies(2): >>41864366 #>>41866715 #
16. kjhughes ◴[16 Oct 24 15:57 UTC] No.41860629[source]▶
> As for the new Colorsoft, I'd really like to see some reviews.

Here's a hands-on Kindle Colorsoft review, Amazon's first color Kindle is the e-reader of my dreams,

https://www.tomsguide.com/tablets/e-readers/kindle-colorsoft...

submitted earlier:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41858947

17. widowlark ◴[16 Oct 24 16:06 UTC] No.41860746{3}[source]▶
I basically always keep it offline, pushing updates via usb-c
18. loeg ◴[16 Oct 24 16:13 UTC] No.41860848[source]▶
> you have [to] send [books] through [Amazon's] servers.

No, you can sideload books using USB mass storage. It's pretty easy. Kindle Paperwhite is still a great experience even without using the Amazon book ecosystem.

replies(1): >>41861334 #
19. jestersarmed ◴[16 Oct 24 17:03 UTC] No.41861334[source]▶
You are correct, you can sideload, but as soon as you open them in your Kindle, they get an Amazon-DRM; so you can't read the very same files on another e-reader. And - as soon as you go online with your Kindle - said DRM is checked and all non Amazon books deleted. At least, that was the case 10 years ago: I still own a Paperwhite 1st Gen which is now basically defunct.

I switched to a Poke 5P (Onyx) and was surprised at the tons of features. No ads, no DRM and reads basically all formats. Win.

I downloaded all my Amazon-bought books, so I can still read them on PC, but otherwise I'm done with their product.

replies(4): >>41862550 #>>41862876 #>>41863091 #>>41864609 #
20. Wowfunhappy ◴[16 Oct 24 18:15 UTC] No.41862006[source]▶
Where do you buy DRM Free books from? (I assume that's a requirement for the device to be fully offline, right?) Do you run everything through that DRM-stripper Calibre plugin?
replies(3): >>41863541 #>>41864335 #>>41864637 #
21. dml2135 ◴[16 Oct 24 18:19 UTC] No.41862043[source]▶
I recently picked up a refurbed Kobo Forma, and I absolutely love the device -- with the caveat that, like you mentioned, the battery has been completely unreliable.

Multiple times I have picked up the device to find it completely dead, while it was at full battery less than a day ago. I haven't quite narrowed down the cause yet -- since I did install KOReader and Nickel right after getting the device, it's not running stock software, so I'm not certain if the issue is hardware or software related.

It definitely seems to be doing something in sleep mode that's draining the battery, even with wifi turned off. This really shouldn't be the case -- I'd expect close to 0 power being used when not actively refreshing a page. I've recently turned to mitigating the issue by setting the device to turn off completely after an hour... which is not ideal, but having to wait for the thing to boot up is definitely preferable to waiting for it to charge.

It's annoying because otherwise this thing is pretty close to perfect for me -- the form factor is excellent, extremely lightweight, and I can connect to my Calibre-web server and download any ebook I have on demand. I'd seriously consider buying an extra one to crack open and install my own battery if I knew that would fix the issue.

Edit: Lastly, I have a sneaking suspicion that "refurbished" does not mean "replaced with a new battery", which, honestly, should probably be illegal to advertise a device that way vs "used".

replies(1): >>41862436 #
22. msh ◴[16 Oct 24 18:49 UTC] No.41862425{4}[source]▶
I had a kindle that died. Amazon support was top notch
23. thimabi ◴[16 Oct 24 18:50 UTC] No.41862436{3}[source]▶
My biggest problem with the Forma is that, even when completely turned off, the battery dies and refuses to charge for days on end. One day, the device says it is charged to 100%; the following day, it dies without an apparent reason. I’ve calibrated the battery many times, but the issue remains. I agree that if it didn’t happen, the device would be excellent.
24. unethical_ban ◴[16 Oct 24 18:53 UTC] No.41862476[source]▶
I am running a kindle voyage (2014). It is the perfect size for male jeans pocket carry, PPI is above 300 and battery works.

Most important! The yoga cover is great for laying on either side, so I can toss and turn in bed and keep reading. Literally no e-reader I have seen since has a symmetrical stand-cover that can be used sideways both ways.

As for Kobo, I just looked the other day and saw they have some great prices for e-readers that have similar features, plus they advertise being completely repairable! And you're not in the Amazon ecosystem. My only gripe years ago was the don't rendering on side loaded books wasn't as good as Amazon, and that Calibre couldn't De-DRM Kobo books as well as Amazon. I think the game has changed a bit, though, and I haven't tested anything in a while.

If Kobo books are crackable, my next e-reader will likely take me away from Amazon. I want that USB-C in my life.

25. loeg ◴[16 Oct 24 18:58 UTC] No.41862550{3}[source]▶
I've literally never run into the problems you are describing. It might be true (it seems implausible but I don't know), but it is not a significant factor in day to day ergonomics.

Text crispness, page turning speed, battery life, physical dimensions are all much bigger factors in an ereader IMO.

26. TnS-hun ◴[16 Oct 24 19:02 UTC] No.41862599[source]▶
There is only a small difference in their size.

Paperwhite 5: 124.6 x 174.2 x 8.1 mm

Paperwhite 6: 127.6 x 176.7 x 7.8 mm

replies(1): >>41864294 #
27. grakker ◴[16 Oct 24 19:19 UTC] No.41862789[source]▶
I had the exact opposite experience. My kindle battery went wonky after a few years, but my kobo has gone on for a lot longer with no issues. It's made me a little wary of buying a kindle again. Aside, or on top of, not wanting to support Amazon.
replies(1): >>41864629 #
28. WillPostForFood ◴[16 Oct 24 19:28 UTC] No.41862876{3}[source]▶
you can sideload, but as soon as you open them in your Kindle, they get an Amazon-DRM; so you can't read the very same files on another e-reader.

Not true and never has been. The Kindle will make no changes to sideloaded files.

replies(1): >>41867080 #
29. carlosjobim ◴[16 Oct 24 19:48 UTC] No.41863091{3}[source]▶
What you wrote is completely untrue. I have myriad of books on my Kindle which are not on Amazon, and they are not deleted. Neither does anything weird happen to them.
replies(1): >>41866327 #
30. heelix ◴[16 Oct 24 20:25 UTC] No.41863482{4}[source]▶
Same, though I don't think it is going to help Amazon the way they hope it does. I moved books over to my kindle and had it nuke my humble bundle collections when I added a purchase from Amazon. I've not connect it again until I figure out how to backup and restore MY metadata.
replies(1): >>41865676 #
31. jjice ◴[16 Oct 24 20:31 UTC] No.41863541[source]▶
It's usually a small marketplace like Leanpub. Tilted Windmill Press (Michael W Lucas) [0] is another one I've done a good bit of purchasing from in the last six months or so.

[0] https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/

32. jjice ◴[16 Oct 24 20:35 UTC] No.41863569[source]▶
Sorry, you're absolutely right. The overhead of it was more than I cared to do (needing to use Calibre instead of a drag and drop of a file), especially since Amazon would then report my newly loaded books back to themselves. That's the part that I really didn't like.

Shame to hear about your Kobo's battery. FWIW, they have great repairability (in newer models at least). That said, the Kindle's battery does smash the Kobo's in my experience as well.

replies(1): >>41864679 #
33. throwaway48476 ◴[16 Oct 24 22:01 UTC] No.41864280{4}[source]▶
I had an issue exactly like this with my iPad.
34. thimabi ◴[16 Oct 24 22:02 UTC] No.41864294[source]▶
Yet Amazon has been consistently increasing the size of the Paperwhite models over time, each one a bit larger than the previous one. They remain portable, but no longer fit into one’s pockets, for instance.
replies(3): >>41864644 #>>41864913 #>>41873127 #
35. donio ◴[16 Oct 24 22:05 UTC] No.41864319[source]▶
I always use my kindles in fully offline, sideload-only. My current one hasn't left airplane mode since I got it in 2018.
replies(1): >>41864533 #
36. timeon ◴[16 Oct 24 22:08 UTC] No.41864335[source]▶
TIL there are DRM books. But I have never owned kindle - just Kobo and Remarkable. I buy at online site of book store or publisher.
replies(1): >>41864682 #
37. thimabi ◴[16 Oct 24 22:13 UTC] No.41864366{4}[source]▶
Rather than a physical switch just for that, why not a few reminders in the UI if one keeps the airplane mode off for a certain amount of time?
replies(1): >>41865296 #
38. mvdtnz ◴[16 Oct 24 22:24 UTC] No.41864453[source]▶
I'm sick of my Kobo constantly crashing and freezing and I will never buy another one.
39. sourcepluck ◴[16 Oct 24 22:34 UTC] No.41864533[source]▶
Another fully-offline, sideload-only, airplane-mode-forever ebooker here. Plus I didn't even buy it in the first place - a relation had one they said they never looked at, so I asked if I could take it off their hands.

Had a funny experience once with a fellow (who was in his third year of computer science at a reputable university), where we just so happened to get on to the topic of ebooks. I told him how I operate my little machine, which I'd only started using. He was shocked, and stated clearly that he thinks it's unethical towards authors to use a "jailbroken" device like that and not get books through the Amazon store...

Sigh.

replies(1): >>41864708 #
40. fastball ◴[16 Oct 24 22:43 UTC] No.41864609{3}[source]▶
It sounds like you are trying to move DRM'd books you bought from Amazon to another Kindle, which is indeed not possible – that is the purpose of DRM. You'd need to strip the DRM for that to work.

But as other commenters noted, if you sideload ebooks which do not already have DRM on them, the Kindle will certainly not add any sort of DRM to the files. This is true both if you sideload via USB or even if you use the "email to Kindle" feature.

41. fastball ◴[16 Oct 24 22:46 UTC] No.41864629[source]▶
Did you try contacting Amazon support? If you had they probably would've shipped you a new one for free.

Why don't you want to support Amazon?

replies(1): >>41866848 #
42. sourcepluck ◴[16 Oct 24 22:47 UTC] No.41864637[source]▶
Excellent list of DRM Free books here:

https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/ebooks

43. fastball ◴[16 Oct 24 22:47 UTC] No.41864644{3}[source]▶
I have the last gen Paperwhite and it still fits in my pocket.

Admittedly I have big pockets.

44. galleywest200 ◴[16 Oct 24 22:51 UTC] No.41864679{3}[source]▶
You can drag-drop the file from the file explorer, at least on my Kindle (2022). I think the OP mentioned Calibre because sometimes you need to convert the file for Kindle if you have a bespoke format.
replies(1): >>41876885 #
45. hexagonalc ◴[16 Oct 24 22:52 UTC] No.41864682{3}[source]▶
Some of the books on the Kobo store are also sold with DRM. They only mention it in small print under eBook Details at the bottom of the page, e.g. Download options: EPUB 3 (Adobe DRM)
46. Aeolun ◴[16 Oct 24 22:52 UTC] No.41864686{3}[source]▶
I think you just naturally end up with that because the things appear indestructible. The first ever kindle I bought (dunno how long ago, it was before paperwhite, so more than 11 years) still works without issue. Even retains all the music I put on it 14 years ago when it was still an experimental feature.

I think the only thing that has been discontinued is the free 3G internet all over the world that they apparently figured was too expensive.

replies(1): >>41865346 #
47. Aeolun ◴[16 Oct 24 22:55 UTC] No.41864708{3}[source]▶
I guess he’s never seen the kind of insane contracts people that publish on the Amazon store need to sign xD
replies(1): >>41864997 #
48. bookofjoe ◴[16 Oct 24 23:24 UTC] No.41864913{3}[source]▶
FWIW I weighed my Paperwhite Gen 5: 201 grams vs. 211 grams for the new Gen 6. So 5% heavier.
49. ValentineC ◴[16 Oct 24 23:39 UTC] No.41864997{4}[source]▶
As someone who has self-published a book on the Amazon Kindle store once, Amazon's cut is something like 70% + bandwidth fees (author only gets maybe ~25–28% of the selling price).
replies(1): >>41865162 #
50. Aeolun ◴[17 Oct 24 00:07 UTC] No.41865162{5}[source]▶
I find it hard to believe you’d ever earn enough on an Amazon book to make any such contract worth it.
replies(1): >>41865524 #
51. freedomben ◴[17 Oct 24 00:34 UTC] No.41865283{4}[source]▶
> I wonder what is behind such a persistent bug.

At what point do we stop giving the benefit of the doubt that it's a "bug"?

replies(2): >>41865453 #>>41865738 #
52. tomrod ◴[17 Oct 24 00:36 UTC] No.41865296{5}[source]▶
Physical switch is less prone to the whims of a capricious, resume-driven product owner who thinks their users may just want to get rid of airplane mode. Most are diving into firmware.
replies(1): >>41866322 #
53. __float ◴[17 Oct 24 00:45 UTC] No.41865346{4}[source]▶
I _loved_ my Kindle Voyage for its adjusting backlight and glass display.

I wish it were less destructible! I upgraded to a Paperwhite (2021) when the Voyage's power button broke. Water resistance is nice, but having to get the "signature" edition for a light sensor and an easily scratched plastic display is quite disappointing.

54. thimabi ◴[17 Oct 24 01:04 UTC] No.41865453{5}[source]▶
You make an interesting point. Maybe facilitating the usage of sideloaded books is not among Amazon’s priorities. Yet I don’t know how much of that comes from malice rather than simply negligence or lack of interest.
replies(1): >>41865687 #
55. jacurtis ◴[17 Oct 24 01:08 UTC] No.41865470{4}[source]▶
I use a combination of a Kindle Paperwhite Signature for novels and mainstream books. THen I use a Remarkable Tablet for PDFs, research papers, my own notes, etc.

I find it to be a good combination. Like you said, the paperwhite is amazing for laying in bed at night (really like the backlight) or on the couch or traveling to read. But it is too small for PDFs or serious notetaking. The Remarkable is perfect for those things. The remarkable also gives you full control over your files to do whatever you want. You can connect it to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc and/or just manage files directly on device (plug it in via usb-c and it shows up as a USB mass storage device).

The two tools compliment themselves nicely. Just my 2 cents.

replies(1): >>41868943 #
56. d0gsg0w00f ◴[17 Oct 24 01:17 UTC] No.41865524{6}[source]▶
70% of $100k = $70k 30% of $1mil = $300k

Scale makes it seem pretty straightforward to me.

replies(1): >>41867453 #
57. mcmcmc ◴[17 Oct 24 01:47 UTC] No.41865676{5}[source]▶
Won’t help with restoring metadata, but if you add books by using the “email to kindle” feature it will keep them in your library through syncs
58. mcmcmc ◴[17 Oct 24 01:49 UTC] No.41865687{6}[source]▶
It’s directly against their priority of influencing you to only purchase ebooks through their monopoly. Whether anti-competitive, anti-user practices are malicious or just a consequence of capitalism run wild, I don’t think there’s much of a difference
replies(1): >>41869179 #
59. notatoad ◴[17 Oct 24 01:59 UTC] No.41865738{5}[source]▶
i'm not really sure what benefit you think they're gaining by breaking the less convenient, less user-friendly way to sideload books.

They're perfectly happy to let you email books to the kindle that you bought at other stores (or stole), as well as sync your progress with those books, backup those books to their servers, and generally have the full reading experience with all the benefits of the kindle ecosystem even if you didn't buy the book through kindle. If they didn't want to encourage the use of third-party files, surely they'd make it more difficult than a bug that randomly deletes books off some people's kindles sometimes.

replies(1): >>41873033 #
60. 110jawefopiwa ◴[17 Oct 24 02:11 UTC] No.41865784[source]▶
> IMO, the Kindle is the premium e-reader when it comes to look and feel. It's just a fantastic experience.

Interestingly, I switched from Kindle to Kobo because it was lacking various basic features that made it not feel premium.

* Kobo epubs can show "pages in chapter" progress so I know how much longer there is until a nice stopping point, while Kindle only shows "minutes left in chapter" which is functionally useless.

* Kobo had blue light blocking night shift before Kindle Paperwhite (I think both have it now?)

* Kobo had a convenient feature where you slide your finger along the side of the screen to change brightness, instead of having to go into multiple menus to do this.

It's possible these things have been remedied, but especially the chapter progress thing put such a bad taste in my mouth that I never wanted to touch Kindle again.

replies(3): >>41865952 #>>41866112 #>>41883056 #
61. MBCook ◴[17 Oct 24 02:43 UTC] No.41865952[source]▶
The kindle hardware is pretty good in my opinion, though they make choices I don’t like.

The ecosystem is amazing and unbeatable.

The software was fine on the original Kindles (well, I had a keyboard), and despite gaining a few features is largely the same since 10+ years ago.

But don’t worry, they added ads to the device that they used to sell you books and they’ve managed not to speed it up one bit!

62. evanreichard ◴[17 Oct 24 02:56 UTC] No.41866020[source]▶
I've got the same generation PW and have it jailbroken running KOReader. I've considered trying other readers out, not because of issues but rather shiny new thing reasons. But at least when it comes to KOReader, it seems like the PW are the best if you can jailbreak the version you're on.

(I want / need it to run KOReader because I wrote a small Lua plugin for it that syncs reading stats (words per minute, minutes read per year, etc) to a centralized server.)

63. MostlyStable ◴[17 Oct 24 03:09 UTC] No.41866075{4}[source]▶
If it makes any difference (although I fully agree it does not excuse past bad behavior), for the current gen devices, Kobo has partnered with iFixit to offer user serviceable parts and guides, including replacing batteries [0]. Although iFixit has had partnerships in the past that have fizzled, as long as user-repair is pretty easy, things like batteries are probably generic enough that they can be sourced even if Kobo doesn't end up sticking with it. If the screen fails though, then yeah, you'd better hope they have committed to maintaining stock of OEM parts, which, even with an iFixit partnership, is in no way guaranteed.

[0] https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Kobo

replies(1): >>41868198 #
64. sundvor ◴[17 Oct 24 03:16 UTC] No.41866109[source]▶
Yeah I got the Signature Edition of the Paperwhite 11 with their black leather cover, and it's just brilliant. It was a huge step up from the 10 that went before it in every regard.

The resolution and size just nails it, and my favourite feature is the warm backlighting for reading at night. Battery lasts forever, and I can just put it on my Samsung phone stand for wireless charging once in a blue moon - not once have I run out of battery.

I fall asleep so easily to this, currently on the Eisenhorn 40k Omnibus book - and a 184 week reading streak.

I used to be excited about new Kindle releases, have had one since the mammoth DXG - but no more, I'm good now with this, so don't see myself forking out $400 AUD for the new one (with a leather cover).

Also bought one (also a SE) for my son, with a different colour magnetic leather cover. :-)

65. ghostpepper ◴[17 Oct 24 03:17 UTC] No.41866112[source]▶
> Kindle only shows "minutes left in chapter" which is functionally useless

The kindle recomputes your reading pace as you go, so unless you prefer to do that math in your head and track your own pages-per-minute moving average, I don't see how it's functionally useless

replies(3): >>41866166 #>>41866529 #>>41869977 #
66. KTibow ◴[17 Oct 24 03:29 UTC] No.41866166{3}[source]▶
I think they're saying that it doesn't show any info like page numbers
67. tomrod ◴[17 Oct 24 04:05 UTC] No.41866322{6}[source]▶
Most are not* diving into firmware, rather.
68. jestersarmed ◴[17 Oct 24 04:06 UTC] No.41866327{4}[source]▶
So, I tested this. You are all partially correct - it's not the Kindle putting the DRM on the files, they already have them when you download them. That said, the DRM code IS matched to the serial number of your Kindle device, so my previous -admittedly not properly tested - assumptions still stand.

I then went to investigate, how all this is done and found this:

https://itstillworks.com/kindle-drm-17841.html

As for the side-loaded books - I still can't open them on any other device (did the DRM check work the same on Paperwhite 1st gen?). No idea why.

replies(1): >>41868591 #
69. gullevek ◴[17 Oct 24 04:23 UTC] No.41866409{4}[source]▶
Keep mine in Aeroplane mode. Download books I buy on Amazon directly from amazon and drop them into calibre. Amazon doesn't get to touch my Kindle ever.

Thinking hard if I ever want to get another Kindle when Amazon can just screw around with what I put on my Kindle ...

70. cyberpunk ◴[17 Oct 24 04:40 UTC] No.41866457[source]▶
The lack of physical page turn buttons is a dealbreaker for me. I switched, begrudgingly at first from my oasis to a kobo libre colour and it’s much better. If you stick koreader on it you can even start a Linux shell from the ui which amuses me :)
71. mmahemoff ◴[17 Oct 24 04:55 UTC] No.41866529{3}[source]▶
I always find Kindle's "minutes left" too low for some reason, so I have to ignore it. I'd find it simpler - and easier to make progress - if it just showed pages read/remaining within the chapter. Absent that, I am often having to go through the distraction of using the overview feature to figure out where I am in the chapter.
replies(1): >>41866649 #
72. bald ◴[17 Oct 24 05:21 UTC] No.41866649{4}[source]▶
If you tap on the minutes left text in the lower left corner of your screen, it will cycle through pages, minutes left in chapter, section and blank
replies(1): >>41867390 #
73. wkat4242 ◴[17 Oct 24 05:37 UTC] No.41866715{4}[source]▶
Since the kindles with 3G have disappeared, the need for airplane mode for actual airplane use is a lot less though. Where I am most airlines permit WiFi use and even offer it themselves in flight. Only mobile network connections still have to be switched off.
replies(1): >>41867117 #
74. grakker ◴[17 Oct 24 06:05 UTC] No.41866848{3}[source]▶
I did not. It was a couple years old, and I wanted to get a bigger screen. As to not liking Amazon, they are anti-union, should be broken up, and their main stockholder is a money hoarding ghoul.
replies(1): >>41878059 #
75. bufferoverflow ◴[17 Oct 24 06:12 UTC] No.41866885{4}[source]▶
I just email epubs (as .txt) to my kindle's email address and they show up on the device in a couple of minutes. Never had any books just vanish.

I find it easier than converting to Kindle format and then copying over USB.

replies(1): >>41868973 #
76. adhamsalama ◴[17 Oct 24 06:54 UTC] No.41867080{4}[source]▶
Other than deleting them.
77. toyg ◴[17 Oct 24 06:59 UTC] No.41867117{5}[source]▶
Airplane mode is mostly a power-saving feature, because WiFi drains the battery pretty hard. As others said, leaving wifi on will kill your kindle in a week or so, whereas it can go on for months without it.
replies(1): >>41868637 #
78. mmahemoff ◴[17 Oct 24 07:57 UTC] No.41867390{5}[source]▶
I do use that, but what I want is some idea of progress or pages remaining within the chapter.
79. ForHackernews ◴[17 Oct 24 08:11 UTC] No.41867453{7}[source]▶
What percentage of books do you think make $m in sales? 0.1%? 0.01%?

https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books

80. thimabi ◴[17 Oct 24 10:28 UTC] No.41868198{5}[source]▶
That’s news to me, thanks for the information! I’ve considered replacing my Kobo’s battery, but the issue seems firmware-related, so I never thought it was worth the hassle.
81. carlosjobim ◴[17 Oct 24 11:30 UTC] No.41868591{5}[source]▶
I get my books from different sources than Amazon. I can transfer these to my Kindle by e-mail or Calibre, without any issue. And they stay there on the Kindle and work fine. I also sync these books from my computer to other devices, Android and iOS, and they work fine also.

Use EPUB file format and your books will work on all devices, including Kindle.

replies(1): >>41872067 #
82. wkat4242 ◴[17 Oct 24 11:36 UTC] No.41868637{6}[source]▶
That's not my experience. My kindle paperwhite (latest version until yesterday) lasts at least 3 months with WiFi on. I never turn it off.
83. chrisweekly ◴[17 Oct 24 12:18 UTC] No.41868943{5}[source]▶
Similar 2-device story here. Love my Kindle Oasis for reading books, and rely on my reMarkable 2 tablet for writing / notes -- driven by a hyperpaper-based daily planner (its navigable pdfs are a game-changer).
84. dmd ◴[17 Oct 24 12:21 UTC] No.41868973{5}[source]▶
Why email epubs as txt? You can just email the epubs. I do it every day.
replies(1): >>41871766 #
85. cowsandmilk ◴[17 Oct 24 12:49 UTC] No.41869179{7}[source]▶
Most likely, it is something they don’t test because it isn’t officially supported.
replies(2): >>41870865 #>>41872298 #
86. andai ◴[17 Oct 24 13:38 UTC] No.41869558[source]▶
>The Kobo can run in a fully offline mode

Really? I had to make an account to "activate" my Kobo, but it wouldn't let me make one because I already had an old account with one of their partner websites, whose auth servers were malfunctioning, so it took like two hours to be able to "activate" the device.

Is there a way to bypass that?

replies(1): >>41871468 #
87. dingnuts ◴[17 Oct 24 14:24 UTC] No.41869977{3}[source]▶
how can it calculate that when I don't turn off the Kindle when I get distracted?
replies(1): >>41870103 #
88. pantulis ◴[17 Oct 24 14:38 UTC] No.41870103{4}[source]▶
Well if you get distracted easily, then the "minutes left" will be accurate ;)
89. lostinroutine ◴[17 Oct 24 15:52 UTC] No.41870810{3}[source]▶
This actually happened to me after connecting to wi-fi but there is a workaround that I found:

Convert your book to .azw3 in Calibre

Instead of sending it to the device in Calibre, locate the azw3 file (Right click -> Open book folder).

Copy the file to your Kindle, but not to the "documents" folder (where Calibre usually puts it) but rather into Downloads->Items

This folder is where books go when you buy them from Amazon or receive them after using the Send to Kindle feature. I have only tried this with azw3 so far but it might also work with .mobi format.

90. pbhjpbhj ◴[17 Oct 24 15:58 UTC] No.41870865{8}[source]▶
It seems a stretch to imagine that the dev team don't sideload books themselves. Of course that wouldn't be official testing, ...
91. zie ◴[17 Oct 24 17:05 UTC] No.41871468[source]▶
You can bypass it, but I forget the details(I just did it a year or so ago with my newest Kobo). A web search should get you there though. The mobile read forums are usually the place where trustworthy details are found.
92. itsrobreally ◴[17 Oct 24 17:29 UTC] No.41871687[source]▶
A kobo loaded with standard e-books (https://standardebooks.org/) in the kobo format is glorious.

I still have a paperwhite which is ok.

My favorite device right now is a boox Go6, smallish, cheap, android. I don't use many apps on it other than the reader but threw a copy of Kiwix on there, and use it as a writing deck using a bluetooth keyboard, hits a lot of semi-offline use cases for me.

93. brunoqc ◴[17 Oct 24 17:36 UTC] No.41871766{6}[source]▶
"You have a serious reading problem"
replies(1): >>41871819 #
94. dmd ◴[17 Oct 24 17:42 UTC] No.41871819{7}[source]▶
I do! https://3e.org/books/
replies(2): >>41878609 #>>41907540 #
95. loeg ◴[17 Oct 24 18:06 UTC] No.41872067{6}[source]▶
> Use EPUB file format and your books will work on all devices, including Kindle.

My Kindle won't open EPUB files, only AZW3. But it is easy to convert with Calibre.

The rest is true in my experience. Loading non-DRM AZW3 books works fine; Kindle doesn't magically add DRM to them nor delete them.

If you're getting books from Amazon with DRM, you don't need to sideload them!

96. mcmcmc ◴[17 Oct 24 18:28 UTC] No.41872298{8}[source]▶
Right. And it’s not officially supported because they are incentivized not to support it.
97. freedomben ◴[17 Oct 24 19:39 UTC] No.41873033{6}[source]▶
The benefit (or potential gain) is that some people will just buy the book from the Kindle store to avoid the pain. I've seen that happen first-hand to my wife.

Also by emailing books or loading through their servers, they can still track and get that sweet sweet data/metadata that Amazon thrives on. When you sideload, you don't even have to connect it to the internet, which makes analytics more challenging.

replies(1): >>41873335 #
98. RMPR ◴[17 Oct 24 20:00 UTC] No.41873194[source]▶
> But my Kobo Forma’s battery completely died after a couple years of usage, and the device became completely unreliable. After that experience, I’ve resigned myself to live with the Kindle’s problems.

Funny that I got the exact same issue but with Kindle instead. I swore I would never buy a Kindle again https://x.com/_paulmairo/status/1453485148490674177

99. notatoad ◴[17 Oct 24 20:18 UTC] No.41873335{7}[source]▶
okay, but this all still seems like a needlessly complicated conspiracy theory.

if they want people to buy books from their store, why do they make it so easy to not buy books from their store?

bugs happen. not every bug is part of jeff bezos' nefarious plan.

replies(1): >>41883071 #
100. DavideNL ◴[18 Oct 24 05:37 UTC] No.41876621[source]▶
> The issue is Amazon and how even if you want to put your own purchased ebooks on it, you have it send it through their servers.

I managed to jailbreak my "Kindle Oasis 3" and install KOreader [1] and Syncthing on it (the process of achieving this, as described on mobileread.com/forums was quite horrible by the way.) Very happy with the result though, books are just synced automatically with my Macbook via Syncthing.

Hopefully somehow a similar setup will be possible with the new Kindles, if they can also be jailbroken.

PS. The Kindle Oasis 3 is still great in 2024, it even automatically adjusts brightness with its light sensor.

[1] https://github.com/koreader/koreader

101. tstenner ◴[18 Oct 24 06:36 UTC] No.41876885{4}[source]▶
FWIW epub is the standard almost every ebook reader supports. AZW3/KFX is the Kindle-only format you mean.
102. fastball ◴[18 Oct 24 10:35 UTC] No.41878059{4}[source]▶
What should they be broken up into?

And does Jeff Bezos hoard money or wealth? Also not sure how he is ghoulish but you are of course entitled to your opinion.

103. deadfast ◴[18 Oct 24 12:05 UTC] No.41878609{8}[source]▶
Bookmarked Ty for recs
104. lukewrites ◴[18 Oct 24 20:15 UTC] No.41883056[source]▶
I should probably post on MobileRead with this question instead, but I wondered if you might have insight into this issue I've been having with my Kobo.

I've noticed that when I read on my Kobo I run into issue with ebook files. When I use Calibre to send .epub files I'll have lots of reliability issues; books will freeze up, pages won't turn, whole sections of the book wind up being unreadable, stuff like that. Having Calibre reformat books in the kobo epub format seems to help some, but I still have page turn issues from time to time.

Have you see any of this behavior before? As far as I'm concerned this would be the perfect ereader if it were just more reliable.

105. jakub_g ◴[18 Oct 24 20:17 UTC] No.41883071{8}[source]▶
It doesn't have to be a nefarious plan to put the bug in, but once it's there, it's guaranteed to be in the very bottom of the backlog to fix it.
106. beavis000 ◴[21 Oct 24 19:28 UTC] No.41907540{8}[source]▶
impressive list. i have a book rec for you not on your list: Battle Mage by Peter Flannery