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

(www.aboutamazon.com)
572 points bookofjoe | 8 comments | 16 Oct 24 13:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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andrewla ◴[16 Oct 24 15:28 UTC] No.41860226[source]▶
No update to the Oasis; I guess when I refresh I'll get a Boox or other Android-based device with page turn buttons and run the kindle app on it.

I have a first generation Kindle Oasis, which is a great device, in no small part because of its asymmetric design and page turn buttons. The newer Oasis (still last refreshed in 2022) have better lighting (temperature adjustable) and inverse text mode, which are both nice but have not been enough to get me to upgrade. It lacks the battery cover of the original oasis, which while kind of a pain was nice because it gave a very natural way to hold the device.

I'm sad to see that the Oasis line is not mentioned here. I have little to no interest in using my kindle as a writing device, and honestly would prefer that the touchscreen was as little used as possible -- an unresponsive or slow screen is the worst case for a touchscreen, since the feedback loop is terrible.

I don't know if they'll have an OS update to go along with this. I have found successive updates to be worse and worse -- my pages are all crammed with ads (not actual ads since I paid to have them removed, but "recommended books") and large page covers. I can barely fit five titles from my library on a screen; I would much prefer to have just the title/author/progress and fit twenty on a page.

The integration with the Amazon ecosystem is probably the best selling point, but until somebody shuts down Libby I've switched my habits to be almost entirely rent-based rather than buying books.

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IPTN ◴[16 Oct 24 17:20 UTC] No.41861480[source]▶
You should check out the PocketBook Era. It's what I moved to from the Kindle Oasis and I've really enjoyed it. The device isn't as svelte as the Oasis since it isn't subsidized by Amazon, but has an assymetric design and even more physical buttons which you can fully customize the control scheme. Also like the Oasis it gets amazing battery life with it's light weight OS compared to the Android based e-readers.

The PocketBook cloud is just as seamless as the syncing with Amazon if that is something you use. Only time I notice problems is during the weekly maintenance window which just looks like an outage. It has bidirectional sync for your progress as well as syncing new books and has a web interface and a phone app. Also offers the same email endpoint service as Kindle and you can set up Adobe DRM to use with library borrowing as well as other places that distribute ascm. The builtin store probably doesn't have the same availability of titles as Amazon but I haven't used it since I manage my library with Calibre and buy my books from various stores.

Best of all is the customizability. Don't want to use their store or cloud? You can turn off (really just not setup and hide) all the features and integrations individualy to make it an "offline" reader but still bring it online for things like Wikipedia lookup and web searches. You don't even need an account to set it up. You can also load additional dictionaries, fonts, and even applications on it. It has a healthy if small development scene.

There is a new color version but if you don't read things that require color I would get the original; Based on reviews it has the the same downside as Kobo and others that use the Kalaido screen where it's relatively dimmer in ambient light compared to the B/W one and so needs a higher average backlight level to compensate.

Overall I've been really happy with my switch and can't see myself going back to Kindle.

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andrewla ◴[16 Oct 24 17:25 UTC] No.41861525[source]▶
I have a significant library with Amazon -- does this have any support for Kindle books? The Android-based ones let you run a Kindle app, which, while not ideal, at least lets me access the library.

I've considered doing a sweep to download all of my kindle books and de-DRM them so that I have an archive, but this is a tortuous process if your library has over a thousand titles, as mine does.

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1. IPTN ◴[16 Oct 24 18:07 UTC] No.41861926[source]▶
Not seemlessly because Amazon has their store locked down to Kindle. But you can export all your books from the Amazon web interface or use the desktop Kindle app to download them all. You would then use Calibre with a couple plugins to deDRM them. At that point you have plain ebook files in Amazon's format to do what you want with. Calibre can convert them to any one of the open ebook formats (I personally prefer epub) and sync them to your device(s)). Those ebooks are treated like any others and fully supported by PocketBook cloud if you use it. The convenience of Amazon's store for Kindle is nice, but it's also how they lock you in to their ecosystem and devices so you keep only buying/paying for a subscription with them.

The process is really not bad at all if you use the desktop Kindle app to download your library before importing to Calibre. Each step is fully automated with the only manual parts being setting it up and doing each step in sequence for the whole library but not each individual book.

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2. drilbo ◴[17 Oct 24 03:07 UTC] No.41866065[source]▶
I haven't been able to find any sort of option to export from the web interface, and poking around at it with dev tools I don't see a non-trivial way to grab whole books. Am I missing something obvious?
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3. IPTN ◴[17 Oct 24 06:42 UTC] No.41867015[source]▶
The last time I looked into it, you had to have a valid target device or client registered to your account, typically a kindle reader. Then an option to download for transfer with usb would show kn the menu for entries in your library. It will download a kindle format ebook (there are multiple generations and even a new format) that is compatible with that device that and is also DRMd using that devices serial as a key.

So no, I wouldn't say you missed anything obvious, which is a feature not a bug as far as Amazon is concerned.

4. criddell ◴[17 Oct 24 16:50 UTC] No.41871342[source]▶
Amazon's latest file format (KFX, I think) hasn't been cracked. You can't reliably strip DRM from new Amazon books. The tools work on some of the books some of the time, but you can't rely on it working.

The workarounds mostly involve getting Amazon to give you the book in an older format, but then you lose the typography improvements that KFX gets you.

Apple's DRM format (Fairplay?) has never been cracked but I believe Adobe's has. Buying from the Google store of Kobo store is probably the best bet.

The book DRM problem requires a legislative solution.

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5. IPTN ◴[17 Oct 24 18:24 UTC] No.41872258[source]▶
For exporting a library of books you already own/read there aren't going to be many titles that have any improvements in KFX that you would care about. It certainly doesn't hurt to just try it and see what if any of the titles in the library have issues with being deDRMd.

I second buying from Google Play. Outside of a period of time last year where they had a bug that prevented exporting many titles in their catalog (some error in their backend service), I have never had an issue with purchases from there. I will happily continue getting my books from sources that allow true ownership after purchase regardless of any touted benefits Amazon adds to future DRM schemes, just need the words on the page.

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6. criddell ◴[17 Oct 24 18:36 UTC] No.41872413{3}[source]▶
Everybody has different things they care about when it comes to typography and layout.

For me, the kerning, hyphenation, and spacing improvements in KFX are pretty big. I also like that I can choose justified or ragged right.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kindle/comments/viqxjj/heres_the_fo...

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7. IPTN ◴[17 Oct 24 20:26 UTC] No.41873410{4}[source]▶
Maybe I'm missing something, but those all sound like things that are display layer and shouldn't be dependent on KFX to be able to accomplish. I do know that that you can run preprocessing on epubs to adjust some of the layouting to your preference. The rest should just be determined by the reader application you are using and any shortfall in customization of those aspects would be addressed by improvements to that application.

Regardless, my point was that: A - most of the books already in the library were likely enjoyed/acquired without knowledge of hypothetical improvements from Amazon rolling out a new ebook format and DRM scheme. And B - even if there is some magic that Amazon had to include in KFX to support the improvements you listed and can't be reproduced without them; I personally would not consider those or most any improvements to be worth losing ownership of books that I purchase. The most valuable part of an ebook is the text and ownership of a copy of that is what I'm paying for. It is fairly easy for me to be principaled on only buying ebooks that I know I can own a copy of due to the diverse distribution that exists for most titles. Even when I had an Oasis, I didn't purchase anything through Amazon and loaded all my books over USB.

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8. criddell ◴[18 Oct 24 12:28 UTC] No.41878782{5}[source]▶
> those all sound like things that are display layer and shouldn't be dependent on KFX to be able to accomplish

Seems like that's how it should work, but it doesn't. Maybe that's by design or maybe it's fallout from poor choices Amazon made earlier in Kindle history. I really don't know.