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.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:30PM (2 children)
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.
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"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:50PM (1 child)
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.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 12 2017, @07:01PM
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.
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"