https://media.wired.com/photos/6938a3ba3f357ab2a44d03b1/mast...
It flopped. It turns out interactive infographics and scrollytelling are fun (and costly) to make but readers don't really like them.
The smashing success story wasn't actually what you can do with the new devices' screen, it was audio. It turns out audiobooks (and podcasts) are a huge hit when the price is right and you make it accessible enough.
The Scribe is interesting, but it's too small. Where's the 13" version? I want to mark up PDFs on a full size (A4 or Letter) display.
I'd take the exact same form factor and screen but with the latest CPU and a new battery, even if it cost $300.
First, I'm already completely locked-in to the Amazon Kindle ecosystem. (Kindle jail.) I've literally purchased >1200 books via Amazon, and it would be serious labor (the work of months) to get them off the platform or, where possible, to download pirate copies. Amazon makes it extremely difficult.
Second, books tend to be generally more expensive on Kobo/Rakuten. A few bucks here, a few bucks there... Over those ~1200 books, even if the average price difference was $3 (and I think that it was historically larger than that,) I'm down $3600. This is what made it hard to make the switch earlier.
Lastly, there are quite a lot of books that are only available on Amazon. A lot of good old-time science fiction writers are now self-publishers. David Gerrold, for instance:
> https://www.amazon.com/Praxis-II-Makes-Permanent-ebook/dp/B0...
These books are available on Amazon, but not on Kobo/Rakuten's platform.
So I'm pretty much stuck. I'd be happy to give Amazon more money if they made a reader similar to the 2019 Oasis. As things stand, I regret not pirating from day one.
Amazon doesn’t care about my super old kindle so I decided to also not care and just moved my collection of purchased books over to the Boox (using Calibre).
Which sucks, because the battery life and performance were the huge selling point for e-readers not just being shitty tablets.
My daughter loves it: she reads on it and does homeworks on it.
It's the "tablet" that kids could he allowed to use: slow refresh rate (no videogames), can only read books and write.
And that's what she does! She reads books and writes on it, along with sketching or drawing mazes.
You CAN write directly, but only to PDFs.
Epub and kindle get the notes slapped in a box of some kind.
The other thing they miss is that most ereaders don't have access to kindle's huge book catalog. A few full-on android devices do, but given the very outdated version of android they have, they night get cut out (as is happening for some) from the Kindle app, so no more books.
Are you saying there are a lot of exclusives in their catalog, or just that Kobo devices (for example) can't access DRM'd Amazon books in the same way Kindles cannot access DRM'd Kobo books?
I've recently started buying books from Kobo even though my ereader is a Kindle just because I can strip the DRM from Kobo books.
You can obviously ignore this fact, but console gamers had to deal with this for a long time and not mentioning it as a feature of the "device" is doing it a disservice.
( if you are not familiar, here is a sample. The device on the left has a color screen. The extra layer causes the background to be darker: https://i.imgur.com/4W7YZu3.png )
I actively use both. I toyed with getting a Scribe because I read a lot of full size PDFs which aren't a great experience with such low refresh rates and small screens, but opted for an iPad instead. I owned a ReMarkable 2 a few years ago and don't really have anything good to say about it.
Personally, I need to not stare at a screen at some point and need to use print. It would be great if Amazon or someone else had a service that would take pdfs and epubs print them as mass market paperback and ships it to you. A lot of content is kindle/digital only these days unfortunately. I would think it won't cost > $20 per-print, I'd be willing to pay twice that plus shipping. Even for older books, you can only get used versions, and even then if you're lucky. It would be nice if the digital versions were available for on-demand printing.
Two critiques: - Kindle would be a much better product if kindle.amazon.com took me to a dedicated UX that is not washed out by the e-commerce bloat that currently surrounds it. - You have to carefully purchase Kindle editions of books. There are definitely Kindle edition books for sale that are digitally scanned, imported, and compiled as a Kindle edition with no proof reading having occurred leaving you stuck with typo riddled messes.
The worst was the free copy of Heinlein's _Space Cadet_ I got from Sony on my PRS-505 because I was browsing their store on a day when they offered a $10 credit --- it was so riddled w/ typos that I had to get a print copy from the library to determine what some of them were.... the hilarious thing is that that "purchase" made me eligible for the ebook price fixing settlement, really should have kept and framed that check.
This is unacceptable. Typo's are not just aggravating but as they accumulate they begin to veer towards mutating the authors original intent.
Don't get me started on the typos in Lost Art Press's _Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley_ --- they mis-spelled the subject's name on the inside cover and duplicated one photo, so a pair of flat pliers is shown twice and there is not detail photo of the iconic twin pair of jeweler's pliers, and didn't do a "cancel" reprinting that page as any reputable publisher would.
I am not familiar with those books or their content but that definitely reads as if the intent has been substantially changed. A typo 100 years ago might have been a letter off in the type setter; the typos these days are rewrites!
barbazoo•16h ago
IAmBroom•16h ago
rjsw•15h ago
abdullahkhalids•15h ago
> Ultimately, if you already have the second-generation Scribe, I don't think you need to upgrade.... you might as well upgrade to a reMarkable tablet.... a pretty big investment for a still-limited device.... neither of them would be my go-to pick.
Don't think reviewers are getting paid to shill for Amazon.
ayhanfuat•15h ago
showerst•15h ago
That said, many of these type of articles are just thinly veiled paid advertorials.
refulgentis•15h ago
Am I understanding you right?
I feel like we have stumbled into a classic HN tarpit, where people try justifying something obviously wrong by adding one observation and implying it can be twisted into one segment of the obviously wrong thing.
It’s a tarpit, because as soon as I point out this doesn’t change anything, you can either point out you were just observing or claim some other claim was what was being implied
akuchling•14h ago
giancarlostoro•15h ago
refulgentis•15h ago
And you’ve been on HN 15 years, just like me?
Something tells me you’re cranky this morning and trolling a bit
superultra•15h ago
kraussvonespy•13h ago
I'm still looking for the very early Wired issue that has an ad that goes something like "they laughed at you when you were growing up because you were different. now they wear a uniform with their name on it. and you don't."
mikestew•15h ago