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

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.

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.

I bought a Pocketbook Verse Pro last year and it's okay, but has some issues.

There is no PB Cloud support but it uses Dropbox, however that means no syncing progress like with kindle.

It takes a few seconds to start since it's Android and fully turns off.

And highlighting is very clunky.

The software situation with that company is pretty sketchy. From their website both mine and yours are listed as the same OS but seem totally different.

Dropbox syncing is seperate from PocketBook Cloud even though the device calls it Dropbox PocketBook. Your device seems to have gotten all the same recent FW updates as mine on a similar timeframe, so as far as I can tell from release notes and the User Manuals they are running the same firmware and support the same features. Not sure why you have the impression it is running Android, but hopefully you don't have some knockoff?

You do have to setup and login to a PocketBook account to use the cloud synchronization. I have not tried the Dropbox integration, but it only supports a synchronized file folder.

In the user manual for the Verse Pro[1], the setup for PB Cloud starts on page 79 and isn't grouped with the Dropbox sync or email endpoint earlier on in the manual.

The only controversy related to PB Software that I am aware of is that it used to be even more open with a published SDK. It was many years ago that they stopped actively maintaining tne SDK. That doesn't seem to have stopped people from continuing to develop for PB devices, and as far as I'm aware PB have not done anything to prevent this or lock down their devices beyond not continuing public development of the SDK. Certainly theur current lineup of devices allow you to run 3rd party applications and are simple to get root shell access on.

[1]https://support.pocketbook-int.com/fw/634/u/6.8.3796/manual/...

It definitely does not support Pocketbook Cloud; it just isn't an option. I have a pocketbook account and can use it for the app on phones.

Maybe it's a regional thing.

I got that manual from the US support page. What region are you in and have you tried installing the US firmware? Search for"Verse Pro" on the US support page[1] after the device list populates.

I also would have been disappointed with my Era if it didn't have PocketBook Cloud syncronization as advertised since it is functionality I care about. That being said, if it is something locked out of your region you could always install Koreader and setup sync through that.

[1] https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/support