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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday October 12 2017, @04:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-I-can-read-in-the-pool dept.

Amazon has made its premium Kindle Oasis e-reader an inch larger and given the device an IPX8 waterproof rating (in this case, immersion in up to 2 meters of fresh water for up to 60 minutes):

Amazon has been selling Kindles for 10 years now, but "waterproof" hasn't appear on its list of incremental technological advancements until now. The company just announced a new version of its popular e-reader that builds on last year's Kindle design and now has an IPX8 waterproof rating.

The new Kindle Oasis — the same name as last year's premium Kindle — has jumped up in size, moving from a 6-inch screen to a 7-inch screen. It has an aluminum back, which gives it a more premium look and feel than the Kindles with soft-touch plastic.

It supports AZW, TXT, PDF, MOBI, and PRC, but lacks EPUB support. Storage starts at 8 GB ($249) but there is a 32 GB option. Amazon has brought back physical buttons for page turning as an alternative to the touchscreen, and comes with an accelerometer to automatically change page orientation.

Still no color e-ink.

What's that book to the right of The Hobbit? Does it support that book?

Also at CNET and TechCrunch.


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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:30PM (2 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:30PM (#581267) Journal

    The main (only?) electronic book format for books in Barnes and Noble's ecosystem is ePub. The main (only?) electronic book format for books in Amazon's ecosystem is azw. I highly doubt either competitor is going to be natively supporting the competitor's format on their device designed to sell books from their own ecosystem.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:50PM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:50PM (#581284) Journal

    Getting EPUB/DRM-free books onto Amazon Kindle is not hard. You just use Calibre [wikipedia.org].

    I have done it with a Kindle and Amazon made no fuss about the free/pirated ebooks within the device.

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    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 12 2017, @07:01PM

      by Freeman (732) on Thursday October 12 2017, @07:01PM (#581289) Journal

      I have used Calibre before, for reading e-books on my computer. While it's nice that it has the ability to get the epubs on a Kindle. It's not so nice, that Amazon, blocks use of such a widely used format for the average consumer. Amazon created their own proprietary format to essentially create for themselves a similar ecosystem to Apple.

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      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"