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To replicate the experience of the Kindle Voyage ‘button’ find an immovable surface in your house: a marble kitchen countertop will do. Place your thumb upon th

To replicate the experience of the Kindle Voyage ‘button’ find an immovable surface in your house: a marble kitchen countertop will do. Place your thumb upon the surface, then press down – deforming your thumb. Not pleasant, is it? I don't follow. It feels like I'm pressing down on something. Of all the things I can think of that would cause an RSI, pinching a pressure-sensitive button seems low on the list. I also don't understand why, if the author loved his first kindle so much, he doesn't just keep using it. They release new ones frequently enough (and old ones keep working long enough) that you can skip several generations and pick out the revisions that you like most.

MBCook 12y ago
I own a voyage, but can't come up with the answer to one simple question. In what way are those stupid little touch strips actually BETTER than real buttons? Since there's no actual physical feedback you can't tell how hard you have to press. They've tried to fix this by letting you set sensitivity levels, but that doesn't work great. Then I thought it would be a good idea to add a pager motor to fake physical feedback by vibrating when you would've made a press. None of this works as well as the buttons on Kindle keyboard , but I bet it cost a hell of lot more money. > that you can skip several generations and pick out the revisions that you like most. The problem is that you really can't. Despite owning the absolute top-of-the-line device the software feels half-baked. Shortly after launch it would often crash itself and require physical restarts. The on screen keyboard is absolutely atrocious, Which they appear to tried to fix with text suggestions. The suggestions are slow and wildly inconsistent which makes it impossible to quickly use them. Even if it suggests the right word you never know where on the suggestion bar to actually going to pop-up. As the author mentions the text layout system hasn't been updated in years despite obvious problems. I waited years for a new version with physical buttons but ended up settling for the somewhat acceptable touch strips. He complains about the lighting system, which is apparently still a problem for a lot of for a lot of voyage users (luckily I'm not one). Also Amazon doesn't seem to do anything to control or improve the quality of e-books. They're often laughably bad. His main thesis is dead on. The project doesn't feel like anyone who actually likes books is working on it. It doesn't feel like a passion, it feels like a terrible afterthought that people rotate in and out of making random changes to try and look like they did some management.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > absolute top-of-the-line device the software feels half-baked. Install alternative reading software on the device (see the other post in this thread).
- nandhp 12y ago
  > In what way are those stupid little touch strips actually BETTER than real buttons? Well, they probably don't wear out. I know someone who replaced their Kindle Keyboard because the next page button wore out after four years. (They love their Paperwhite, both for the touch screen and the front-lighting.)
- delecti 12y ago
  > The project doesn't feel like anyone who actually likes books is working on it. It doesn't feel like a passion, it feels like a terrible afterthought that people rotate in and out of making random changes to try and look like they did some management. You couldn't imagine how right you are.
- jvandonsel 12y ago
  The clicking of the physical page-turn buttons on my old Kindle Keyboard would keep my wife awake at night. No such problem with the pressure-sensitive buttons on my Voyage. I love the unit, despite the lame typography.

MBCook 12y ago

I own a voyage, but can't come up with the answer to one simple question. In what way are those stupid little touch strips actually BETTER than real buttons? Since there's no actual physical feedback you can't tell how hard you have to press. They've tried to fix this by letting you set sensitivity levels, but that doesn't work great. Then I thought it would be a good idea to add a pager motor to fake physical feedback by vibrating when you would've made a press. None of this works as well as the buttons on Kindle keyboard , but I bet it cost a hell of lot more money. > that you can skip several generations and pick out the revisions that you like most. The problem is that you really can't. Despite owning the absolute top-of-the-line device the software feels half-baked. Shortly after launch it would often crash itself and require physical restarts. The on screen keyboard is absolutely atrocious, Which they appear to tried to fix with text suggestions. The suggestions are slow and wildly inconsistent which makes it impossible to quickly use them. Even if it suggests the right word you never know where on the suggestion bar to actually going to pop-up. As the author mentions the text layout system hasn't been updated in years despite obvious problems. I waited years for a new version with physical buttons but ended up settling for the somewhat acceptable touch strips. He complains about the lighting system, which is apparently still a problem for a lot of for a lot of voyage users (luckily I'm not one). Also Amazon doesn't seem to do anything to control or improve the quality of e-books. They're often laughably bad. His main thesis is dead on. The project doesn't feel like anyone who actually likes books is working on it. It doesn't feel like a passion, it feels like a terrible afterthought that people rotate in and out of making random changes to try and look like they did some management.

ekianjo 12y ago
> absolute top-of-the-line device the software feels half-baked. Install alternative reading software on the device (see the other post in this thread).
nandhp 12y ago
> In what way are those stupid little touch strips actually BETTER than real buttons? Well, they probably don't wear out. I know someone who replaced their Kindle Keyboard because the next page button wore out after four years. (They love their Paperwhite, both for the touch screen and the front-lighting.)
delecti 12y ago
> The project doesn't feel like anyone who actually likes books is working on it. It doesn't feel like a passion, it feels like a terrible afterthought that people rotate in and out of making random changes to try and look like they did some management. You couldn't imagine how right you are.
jvandonsel 12y ago
The clicking of the physical page-turn buttons on my old Kindle Keyboard would keep my wife awake at night. No such problem with the pressure-sensitive buttons on my Voyage. I love the unit, despite the lame typography.