4 ms·

> Or paperwhite is simply good enough? I would say "yes." I was fine with my ancient little paperwhite, and surprised to see that they were asking $300 for an

> Or paperwhite is simply good enough? I would say "yes." I was fine with my ancient little paperwhite, and surprised to see that they were asking $300 for an incremental improvement. It would have made more sense to do the Apple thing, dropping the price of the old model and replacing it with the new one at a similar price point. The paperwhite's touch screen is pretty bad, but fine for reading once you get used to it, and the battery lasts long enough that charging is a non-issue. Several years ago, Amazon started making devices that almost perfectly replaced paperback novels: easy on the eyes, light enough to read in one hand, and cheap enough to pay for themselves quickly with the production cost difference between electronic and physical books. The Kindle sucks for books and magazines with significant layout, and I agree with others here that there's room for a larger version to handle e.g. textbooks (which are pricey enough that a $300 reader is NBD). But this thing? I just don't get it.

mynameisvlad 11y ago
> and surprised to see that they were asking $300 for an incremental improvement They're asking $300 for a new product. If you want an "incremental improvement" on your ancient paperwhite, then you can get the newest generation for $119.
- darklajid 11y ago
  What is the 'new product'? It certainly seems like a paperwhite 1.1 to me. A cover that is arguably irrelevant, better(?) backlight where the paperwhite is good already. The big selling point seems to be - the format/size (grip with one hand) I can do that with the paperwhite and often read while walking to the station that way. - auto-rotation for left handed people (only required because of the special format, see above) I love my Kindle. I see no point in this iteration and would strongly recommend everyone around me to pick the paperwhite instead.
  - mynameisvlad 11y ago
    The Voyage is closer to "Paperwhite 1.1" than the Oasis if you want to go down that route, but what it is is a new product in the Kindle family. Just like the Paperwhite was a new Kindle product, and the Voyage, and even the Kindle Touch. They all improve over the previous flagship model, but are fundamentally different in some regard (Kindle Touch - touchscreen, Paperwhite - backlight, Voyage - premium materials/capacitive page turning/first 300ppi screen, Oasis - longer battery life and new form factor) and are sold in parallel for a long time. Just because it has backlighting doesn't automatically make it the successor to the Paperwhite or even an incremental improvement. There is literally one already: the newest generation Paperwhite which has the same 300ppi screen as the Voyage and Oasis and improved backlighting in the same form factor than the 1st generation Paperwhite. It's still being sold, it'll probably still be sold and improved on for many years to come and I can even see it becoming the new "basic" device from Amazon. That's how Amazon does Kindles - multiple lines of products which are differentiated from eachother in some way or another. You can even see this with last year's Voyage. They released it, it looks like a premium Paperwhite, but then they came and brought some of the features like the 300ppi screen back to the Paperwhite. The Paperwhite didn't go anywhere, it was still sold, and it's still being sold now.
    - darklajid 11y ago
      I'm not really invested here, but I don't quite get the 'new product' defense (is it a defense?). For me your argument is similar to stating that Visual Studio Professional and Visual Studio Enterprise are different products. Sure - you can totally explain that. For me those are editions of the same thing, and in the case of the Kindle I find it hard to see any benefits - sure, I haven't seen it live yet, but it's the same form factor, same resolution and .. it's used to read.. - compared to the cheaper versions. If there's a market for this thing I wish Amazon all the best. It just isn't for me and based on this (personal!) position I fail to recognize this as a new product, see it as another iteration at best. Again: This might be the best thing for a lot of people out there and I don't claim they're wrong at all. Still looks like a refresh. EA brings us FIFA 2016, Amazon the Kindle Oasis?
      - mynameisvlad 11y ago
- username223 11y ago
  And that's what I'd do. My point is that the old paperwhite, new paperwhite, voyage, and oasis all strike me as the incremental improvements you would normally see in a yearly update to a laptop or phone at a particular price point. FooCorp's mid-range laptop gradually gets faster and adds features over time, as transistors get smaller and manufacturing more efficient. Maybe Amazon is treating the Kindle like a gallon of milk, whose price stays the same or slowly rises with inflation. I imagine they'll make a killing if people buy into that, but it seems unlikely.

mynameisvlad 11y ago

> and surprised to see that they were asking $300 for an incremental improvement They're asking $300 for a new product. If you want an "incremental improvement" on your ancient paperwhite, then you can get the newest generation for $119.

darklajid 11y ago
What is the 'new product'? It certainly seems like a paperwhite 1.1 to me. A cover that is arguably irrelevant, better(?) backlight where the paperwhite is good already. The big selling point seems to be - the format/size (grip with one hand) I can do that with the paperwhite and often read while walking to the station that way. - auto-rotation for left handed people (only required because of the special format, see above) I love my Kindle. I see no point in this iteration and would strongly recommend everyone around me to pick the paperwhite instead.
- mynameisvlad 11y ago
  The Voyage is closer to "Paperwhite 1.1" than the Oasis if you want to go down that route, but what it is is a new product in the Kindle family. Just like the Paperwhite was a new Kindle product, and the Voyage, and even the Kindle Touch. They all improve over the previous flagship model, but are fundamentally different in some regard (Kindle Touch - touchscreen, Paperwhite - backlight, Voyage - premium materials/capacitive page turning/first 300ppi screen, Oasis - longer battery life and new form factor) and are sold in parallel for a long time. Just because it has backlighting doesn't automatically make it the successor to the Paperwhite or even an incremental improvement. There is literally one already: the newest generation Paperwhite which has the same 300ppi screen as the Voyage and Oasis and improved backlighting in the same form factor than the 1st generation Paperwhite. It's still being sold, it'll probably still be sold and improved on for many years to come and I can even see it becoming the new "basic" device from Amazon. That's how Amazon does Kindles - multiple lines of products which are differentiated from eachother in some way or another. You can even see this with last year's Voyage. They released it, it looks like a premium Paperwhite, but then they came and brought some of the features like the 300ppi screen back to the Paperwhite. The Paperwhite didn't go anywhere, it was still sold, and it's still being sold now.
  - darklajid 11y ago
    I'm not really invested here, but I don't quite get the 'new product' defense (is it a defense?). For me your argument is similar to stating that Visual Studio Professional and Visual Studio Enterprise are different products. Sure - you can totally explain that. For me those are editions of the same thing, and in the case of the Kindle I find it hard to see any benefits - sure, I haven't seen it live yet, but it's the same form factor, same resolution and .. it's used to read.. - compared to the cheaper versions. If there's a market for this thing I wish Amazon all the best. It just isn't for me and based on this (personal!) position I fail to recognize this as a new product, see it as another iteration at best. Again: This might be the best thing for a lot of people out there and I don't claim they're wrong at all. Still looks like a refresh. EA brings us FIFA 2016, Amazon the Kindle Oasis?
    - mynameisvlad 11y ago
username223 11y ago
And that's what I'd do. My point is that the old paperwhite, new paperwhite, voyage, and oasis all strike me as the incremental improvements you would normally see in a yearly update to a laptop or phone at a particular price point. FooCorp's mid-range laptop gradually gets faster and adds features over time, as transistors get smaller and manufacturing more efficient. Maybe Amazon is treating the Kindle like a gallon of milk, whose price stays the same or slowly rises with inflation. I imagine they'll make a killing if people buy into that, but it seems unlikely.