Kindle update - PDF support, increased battery, and more

[whitepaper]

Disappointed. After 6 months of development, they just released such a useless update (at least for DX). and isn't the update for Kindle 2 is simply a cop from DX? What the programmers are doing in half of year. It simply ignored the primary defects, such as folder, pdf index, good bookmarks and fonts. Battery life, is it so critical? what's the difference between 4 days or 6 days? No use.

[stevenmoy]

Originally Posted by whitepaper

Disappointed. After 6 months of development, they just released such a useless update (at least for DX). and isn't the update for Kindle 2 is simply a cop from DX? What the programmers are doing in half of year. It simply ignored the primary defects, such as folder, pdf index, good bookmarks and fonts. Battery life, is it so critical? what's the difference between 4 days or 6 days? No use.

Quote for preservation sake.

[exreader]

Originally Posted by whitepaper

Disappointed. After 6 months of development, they just released such a useless update (at least for DX). and isn't the update for Kindle 2 is simply a cop from DX? What the programmers are doing in half of year. It simply ignored the primary defects, such as folder, pdf index, good bookmarks and fonts. Battery life, is it so critical? what's the difference between 4 days or 6 days? No use.

the PDF cropping alone is worth it for reading marginal PDFs, think: those with vision issues.

in terms of the kindle2, it's a marked updated - the PDF feature is new new new, hot hot hot. old news to DX users since June, right? good stuff.

i'll take extra battery life, thanx muchly.

supposedly first thing 2010 we'll have folders/tags/something like that. that's HOT HOT HOT. coming soon - they said so.

sure, it would be great to address trivial complaints too most of the other eReaders have a lot of issues too. not getting fixed either

it'd be awesome to have ePub and other formats, but you know? even the K1 is still quite usable. just don't get these whingings.

ex

[RobbieClarken]

Wow! Terrific update. I have barely touched my iRex DR1000S since I got my Kindle 2i and now the Kindle has PDF support its pretty much the ideal reader for me. ePub support would be nice but calibre does such a good conversion that it would really just be a convenience.

Btw... easiest update ever! I read this thread at work and was wondering what to do with the .bin files that Nate linked to. But as soon as I get home and turn on my Kindle I find it had done the update by itself in my absence.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Am I missing something, or is this still basically the equivalent of a really basic image viewer for PDFs, but now with a crop feature?

It's still a joke, otherwise:

NO ability to search within a PDF;
NO dictionary use within a PDF;
NO hyperlink capability (which means that TOCs, footnotes and indexes are useless within a PDF.)

So, why is Amazon sitting on its large collective behind, and failing to implement these most basic features?

And why are people so happy with this miserable update?

Phew!

I agree. PDFs on any e-reader are horrible.

[Ea]

Oooh, this is brilliant! Longer battery life and native PDF - just what I wanted

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

...
If I were creating a pdf specifically for the device, I'd make sure the font was suitable for the screen. Since I create pdfs from word docs and use Primo pdf to "print", this will work really well for me.

UPDATE: I gave this a quick test using some genealogy software to generate a file. Setting the page size to "A5" -- which is abt 5 x 8 -- creates a presentable, readable document. Woo-hoo!

'A6' is pretty close to the physical screen size. I need to experiment a bit more, but it looks like a 9x10.5 cm page size fits the screen well.

Originally Posted by whitepaper

<snip>... It simply ignored the primary defects, such as folder, pdf index, good bookmarks and fonts. Battery life, is it so critical? what's the difference between 4 days or 6 days? No use.

I'll take all extra battery life I can get. It didn't go four days with wireless on, for me. I like the current font, but more size choices would be nice, and and I can understand if other people get a better reading experience with a different font.

Originally Posted by kennyc

I agree. PDFs on any e-reader are horrible.

Please... It all depends on how the PDFs are formatted. I prefer it for recipes, for example, as it easily allows me control over what's on the page. It's nice to have the whole ingredient list on one page.

[pagansoul]

I have more ebooks in pdf than any other format so this update to my Kindle2 is very much wanted. I've been sending my pdf's via email and have them converted for me with @free.kindle.com even though I have Calibre on my Macpro.

[EowynCarter]

Well still no ePub
The day amazon add ePub, annotation support for pdf, sell the kindle DX internationaly, then they have totally sold one to me. Keyboard seams the way to go for text typing.

But the way it's going , others might have moved first....

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I agree. PDFs on any e-reader are horrible.

I must respectfully disagree. A4/Letter PDFs on my iRex DR1000S are superb.

[exreader]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I must respectfully disagree. A4/Letter PDFs on my iRex DR1000S are superb.

They're pretty darn nice on the DX.

If the source material is broken, the display device doesn't matter.

I've seen some horrible nasty PDFs that didn't look good on a PC, or printed. Worse than bad faxes. An eInk display isn't going to do any good there.

As well, I've seen fantastic PDFs that are eye poppingly wonderful on the DX, and they don't look too shabby on a PC or printed either ;> In particular, these PDFs were made by people who knew what they were doing.

Garbage in, Garbage out... ==> Perfection in, Perfection out

and given in some cases that the ONLY choice for the document is PDF? i'd rather have that than nothing. conversion isn't always an option (some PDFs cannot convert properly to mobi for instance)


ex

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I must respectfully disagree. A4/Letter PDFs on my iRex DR1000S are superb.

Ah well, certainly I've not experienced any the larger readers but what I've seen on my Sony, Astak and Kindle is pretty poor.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Ah well, certainly I've not experienced any the larger readers but what I've seen on my Sony, Astak and Kindle is pretty poor.

Really? I often create PDFs for my 6" ereaders and it looks perfectly fine to me.

[HarryT]

Yes, it's certainly true that there is just no satisfactory way to display an A4 PDF on a 6" screen.

[dwallbaum]

This being a _firmware_ update, I take it there is no way to save the current version of the firmware to allow you to revert if you don't like the results?

And Im assuming that when you "Check for Updates and Synchronize" you will get the update whether you want it or not?

I would hope they would have included justification options.. <sigh>

Oh, well...PDF support was never a biggie for me, but justification and ePub support, THAT would be nice!

Don

[weatherman]

I'm disappointed in the lack of epub support, but I guess I can understand the business logic behind it (even if it is flawed). What I cannot understand is why there are no font or screen saver options in the new firmware. These are the two most popular "hacks" to the Kindle, and they are the ones that make most users feel more connected to their device. I'm sure he was a nice man, but I don't want a picture of Ralph Ellison on my Kindle, I want my own authors or pictures of my choosing!

Also, I'm surprised that there is no font scaling on the PDFs, at least as far as I've tried it. That makes the PDF option almost pointless.

I guess the battery life will be a nice improvement if it turns out to be true - my Kindle used to get about 2 days with wireless on, or about a week and half with the wireless off (but updating daily for the NYT). If I can leave the wireless on and have it update itself without dramatically decreasing battery life, that would be convenient.