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Amazon's Kindle Voyage May Be Over (cnet.com) 112

Posted by msmash from the silence-before-the-storm dept.
Amazon's Kindle e-reader family seems to have lost a member along the way, with the disappearance of the Voyage from its Kindle Family listing. From a report: The site now lists just three models in its lineup of eight configurations, the Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Oasis. Good e-Reader first noticed this a few weeks back, saying the Voyage seems to have vanished in July. In years past when Amazon has refreshed its Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets, it has done it in the summer or fall. The high-end Oasis was last updated in October 2017, but the most recent midline Paperwhite last saw changes in 2015, and the basic Kindle in 2016. Chances are one or both of the older models will receive an update in the near future.
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Amazon's Kindle Voyage May Be Over More

Amazon's Kindle Voyage May Be Over

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  • Meh (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DarkRookie ( 5030953 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @12:32PM (#57160020)
    Since they started adding ads to the home screen (Even the one without special offers), these were no longer worth buying.
    • I don't have nor have I ever wanted an 'e-book reader', I like printed books much better and always will, so I was unaware of this. They actually did this? You pay cash money for something like that, and they shove ads in your face that you can't do anything about? Sounds like shooting themselves in the foot to me. Well, if that's the case, then on top of the entire list of reasons I already had for never wanting one of these, I guess that one goes near the top.

      • You pay less "cash money" than without the ads, and they don't show up when reading. If you don't mind reading on the epaper screen, Kindles have only gotten better with time - backlights, controls, speed, capacity, and screen quality have all improved.

        • Are you trying to sell me on the idea? Don't waste your time. I like printed paper books and have no intention of changing, ever.
        • https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker... [kinja-img.com]

          There are a total of 6 ads on that page.
          I am pretty sure one is the special offers which can be removed.
          The other and the My Reading list need to go

          Also need a list view without the cover page as well, but I doubt that will ever happen. People like pictures.
          • If you turn off the ads, you won't see them. My books are very personal to me and I've found even just one ad offensive. It would be like interrupting your favorite song with a beer jingle or something. Anyway, you can get rid of ALL the ads if you want to.

      • I moved to e-readers and never looked back. Not having to dispose of piles of finished books, not having to find my place, lower costs for the books, and they don't cause six hour inkfinger syndrome. Also I bought a Sony ereader, and when their ebook marketplace failed, they did have an end of life plan to let me keep my purchases.

        One other huge thing is that Amazon offers ebook credit if you accept slow shipping. I get more than the cost of Prime in free ebooks every year.

        • Also it's a fantastic way to support self-published people and read books that would never ever see print otherwise. There's also a lot of great web serials out there that are too long or offbeat to otherwise make their authors money.

      • I use my phone with the Kindle app. No ads - and I can take my entire library with me wherever I am. No worry about deciding which books to lug around on trips, flipping back to the right page because I lost my bookmark. Everything, all the time - and no ads.

    • Since they started adding ads to the home screen (Even the one without special offers), these were no longer worth buying.

      What are you talking about? I have the Voyage, paid my $20, and the ads went away - ALL of them.

      When I power on my Kindle, all I see is the last page of text I was reading.

  • is truly beyond me. The so-called "copyright" isn't a right, the so-called "intellectual property" is not property.

    These used to be contracts with a pretty narrow meaning - a few years of monopoly on the distribution of your work and all the money you can get for it, but IN EXCHANGE for making it available afterwards.

    Today, the second part of the deal is gone, so there is absolutely no reason to stick to the first one, and especially to accept the sodomizer of the reader that the DRM is.

    No amazon, no kindle

    • because it works to read books in any font size I want with old eyes that have trouble with paper books.

      I can read my kindle books on other devices too if I wanted. Like in browser.

      The DRM doesn't even matter in this case, it's just an appliance. if amazon went away the kindle still works too.

      Been using it for 8 years with no issue.

      • i'm just hoping my DX doesn't ever die, why they stopped the larger form factor reader is beyond me. 6 years and counting, the battery is showing signs of stress, but still usable =/

        • mine is the 2012 model... battery still good

          the naysayers might point to the "Animal Farm" book Amazon retracted when the source company didn't really have rights to it.... but good grief

          There are 48.5 million books available for kindle. 1 out of 48.5 million had that problem and so autists go full on Richard Stallman pulpit pounding? Pfffftttt.

          The paper versions didn't go away, I could read those with a magnifying glass if the day comes all kindles die. But Kindle is convenient, it works, it never fail

          • True naysayers would remember they also remote wiped/denied access to 1984. That one was a little more on the nose.

        • i'm just hoping my DX doesn't ever die, why they stopped the larger form factor reader is beyond me. 6 years and counting, the battery is showing signs of stress, but still usable =/

          It's fairly straightforward to replace the battery. Look on eBay for them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by starless ( 60879 )

        For me (using kindle app. on an iPad mini) it's the ability to effectively carry large number of books when I travel,
        at very little weight. In addition, I'm learning French and it's very convenient to be able to look up words simply by
        highlighting them.

    • Removal of Amazon DRM is trivial in Calibre and you don't need to use DRM ebooks in the first place.

  • e-Ink laptop (Score:3)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @12:42PM (#57160092)
    I'd want an e-ink or split-screen e-ink/OLED laptop, frankly. It could be an e-reader and a general-purpose computing device. With the e-ink display, it could have absurd battery life (days to weeks).

    • You can absolutely kludge up an e-ink laptop or tablet with existing products. A raspberry combined with any number of e-ink screen solutions is quite doable right this very minute, and you can go up from there. But I don't recommend it. There are intractable problems with e-ink's refresh rate, and there's no good way to have color without further screwing with how the white space of the screen looks. You can push the refresh rate on e-ink up a fair bit...but not for long. It'll damage the screen permanentl

      • i said split-screen e-ink and OLED. One half e-ink, the other OLED. Or maybe a foldable split display.

    • e-ink displays, including for laptops, have been around for a while now.

      I came across a blog a couple of years ago that was dedicated to documenting swapping out laptop LED monitors with dual-purpose LED/e-ink monitors. I can't find the link now, however Dasung [dasungtech.com] seem to be a known manufacturer.

    • The Pixel Qi screens were supposedly an attempt at something that could be similar to that, at least with some kind of a dual mode that would be readable in bright light in a monochrome(ish) display and usable as color as a normal display.

      The company appears to be long gone, the domain has generic businessy content for feeding ads, and there's a link from Wikipedia to a small company in Georgia that may still do custom manufacture of those screens.
    • Have you tried ONYX BOOX MAX 2 ?

    • The King Jim Pomera DM100 is pretty much that.

      http://pomeradm100guide.com/ [pomeradm100guide.com]

      Except it's not really e-reader or general purpose computing. More of a writer's tool. But it has absurd battery life on two AA batteries, and is quite nice for typing and doing simple spreadsheets. As long as you're happy with English and Japanese.

      I really wish something like that but running a light weight Linux would be available. Console only would be perfectly fine for my needs.

    • I'd want an e-ink or split-screen e-ink/OLED laptop, frankly. It could be an e-reader and a general-purpose computing device. With the e-ink display, it could have absurd battery life (days to weeks).

      You do know at laptop resolutions the screen refresh rate would be measured in seconds?

  • Not exactly suprising (Score:3)

    by enjar ( 249223 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @02:09PM (#57160716) Homepage

    I was shopping for a replacement for my long in the tooth and increasingly flaky Fire. I pretty much only used it for reading library books I checked out online. When I compared the feature set of Paperwhite versus Voyage it was truly difficult to come up with anything that made the Voyage worth the extra money. Screen resolution was the same, both had backlights for night reading, both were about the same size, both were about the same weight. Battery life was pretty similar. The Voyage had a bit of an edge on the storage side, but since I only ever store a couple books on the thing it's not a big deal. Finding a refurbished Paperwhite for short money sealed the deal in favor of the Paperwhite.

    My only complaint with the Paperwhite is that there isn't a way to access the Overdrive/Libby system from the device itself. Other than that I really enjoy having a device without the ability to browse the web in any meaningful way with very long battery life. Some might say "well, a book can do that", but if it's outside my library's hours, it's hard to go pick one up!

  • and the abolition of roaming charges killed the voyage, because we don't need it anymore.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by enjar ( 249223 )

      The link you provided only shows used models.

      Note: This item is only available from third-party sellers (see all offers).

      If you go to the Kindle frontpage on Amazon [amazon.com] there are no Voyage models shown in the comparison table.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by enjar ( 249223 )
          I had a similar question above from when I was looking to replace a very old and flaky Fire I used for only reading. I couldn't find anything compelling to make the extra money worth it, and chose the Paperwhite.
          • I went for it for the buttons. It has page turn buttons on either side to go forward / back without having to tap the screen. It's not a bad idea, but they positioned to buttons so they're perfect when it's sitting on a desk in a case. If you're (for instance) holding it in your hand it's still easier to tap on the screen to turn the page. I think it originally had a more even light than the Paperwhite but I'd be surprised if that hasn't been worked out.

  • Sad. I like it despite its shortcomings (Score:3)

    by sombragris ( 246383 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @03:50PM (#57161394) Homepage

    Back in 2015 I purchased a Voyage and is still a trusted companion that gave me hours and hours of reading. I have it always close to me and I try to sneak in a read whenever I can.

    If this news is indeed true, the sad part is the PagePress controls, which I love and are very useful to me; the Voyage is the only model to offer them. With its haptic feedback, it felt natural and speedy to me. I was certain it was a win, UX-wise, but looks like I was wrong.

    Besides that, it was obvious that the Voyage would be a dud. The price was too high, Amazon did almost no rebates of the price, so the result was clear: it didn't sell.

    It also shared almost all the shortcomings of other models in the Kindle lineup: poor battery life (with the possible exception of the Oasis), awful font choices (why invest $$ in an e-reader when you are going to read your books with an ugly, utilitarian font such as Bookerly with no better default options and no chance of supplying your own?), and lack of a case (again, save the Oasis).

    I hope they soon lauch something with PagePress and with other drawbacks of the Kindle e-ink lineup removed.

    • But the second generation Oasis has real buttons. Even better.

      The basic problem with the Voyage is that it's caught in the middle. People who want a fully premium e-reader step up to the Oasis. People who want the mainstream offering buy the Paperwhite, and bargain hunters buy the basic Kindle. The Voyage is the Oldsmobile of the Kindle line and has now suffered the same fate that the car line did.

      • I understand and agree with what you said. I think that most people see the Oasis' real buttons and think like you: "Even better".

        But I beg to differ with one point: PagePress is much better IMHO. "Real buttons" are great, but I bet PagePress last much longer than real buttons.

  • I love my kindle and have since day one, so not hating on them I love them, the headline for this however is misleading if you've never heard of the Voyage as the line is written to where it reads as though the kindle is over.
  • Once the second generation Oasis came out, there wasn't much point to the Voyage. (The first generation Oasis vs the Voyage was less clear because of the limited battery life of the bare Oasis without its battery pack cover.) Just about everybody will either pay the additional money for the clearly superior Oasis, or save some money and buy the Paperwhite.

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