First gen Oasis owners...

[Deskisamess]

I’ve never seen the first gen Oasis, but followed old threads about it on Amazon. I had the impression that it didn’t have a screen orientation that could be locked...it would auto-rotate as you moved the device, and also that it didn’t have a landscape mode.

Are those two impressions correct?

I looked at the User Manual for the new Oasis and it refers to having a landscape mode with the controls for that in the font menu. If this is going to be correct for the new one, that it locks the chosen orientation, I may consider buying one.

I know no one has one yet , obviously. I’ll poke around for videos because someone mentioned seeing the black/white inversion demonstrated, so there must be videos available.

Still amazed only 8 font sizes are on the device.

[Buran]

I just looked for you and didn't see a way to lock it. However, I've had no problems with the orientation flipping when it's not supposed to. The only time it randomly flips is if it's in my lap, I lean forward to grab a drink or a bite of snack and it tips a little bit, and the screen will flip thinking I put it in my other hand. But as soon as I pick it back up it flips back. It works fine for reading when lying sideways in bed -- it'll use whatever orientation was last set. If I want to flip it I just pick it up, tilt it til it does, and then set it sideways again.

There is indeed a landscape mode in the font menu's Page tab - I'd forgotten about it until I started composing this reply. When in landscape mode the orientation sensor will switch between the top of the page being on the side with the page turn buttons and the side with the cover hinge.

The sensor will not rotate the page in 90-degree intervals -- only 180. So either portrait to portrait or landscape to landscape.

An upcoming firmware update will add more font sizes, though when I checked today it wasn't available yet. "In the coming months", I think. This hasn't been a big issue for me personally yet though I think I'll be using a size slightly larger than what I use now but smaller than the next size up on the current firmware.

This video shows the invert-colors option in a few places:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO7rul8rykI&t=1s

This will not change battery life since eInk only consumes energy when the state of the pixel is changed -- light to dark or dark to light. The LEDs are on regardless. I don't know yet whether I'll use this mode or leave it dark-on-light as it is now. It's something to experiment with.

I hope this helps!

[Deskisamess]

Thanks. My issue would be when I lay in bed to read, I prop my Kobo on its side. There is no screen rotation on the Kobo, which isn’t a problem. With my Paperwhite, it was the same, in landscape on its side, so me laying in my side kept the screen at the proper place for me to read.

If you lay the Oasis on it’s side, it doesn’t try to rotate? Moving the device 90 degrees doesn’t trigger it then?

I understand what you meant about 180 rotatation.

I may just order the new Oasis. If it doesn’t meet my need, I’ll return it.

I didn’t see anything about a future update offering more font sizes, I’ll have to read the product page more thoroughly.

[knc1]

When speaking of firmware behavior, keep in mind that all of the i.MX6 Kindles run the same firmware version.
For instance, as of this morning, 5.8.11 was include on the web page of each (other than the 9th. Generation Oasis - which this morning didn't yet have a device specific page for its firmware update)

From the wording of the new Oasis description, it will be shipping with 5.8.10 (or earlier) and they expect to have 5.8.11 finished and posted by the release date (Oct. 31).

And as of 5.8.10, the FONT_RAMP option was still working (and the CJK_FONT_RAMP was still not working). That option does not require a jail break but only works with some of the book formats.
(I don't use it, so I don't recall which ones it effects.)

We will have to wait for 5.8.11 to be released to see what they have done about the voice view file packaging.
Since they are pushing the audio abilities, they are going to have to do something to get those file packages to install.

Our first hint, is that on the 5.8.10 build for the KT3 (the build with Bluetooth support) Amazon has just re-enabled the package type used for the voice view files.
Which has the side effect of re-enabling our current jail break for the KT3 devices running the current 5.8.10 build.

I strongly suspect that will be the situation with the first batch of KOA2 devices running 5.8.10 (or earlier) also. They only had time to drop the protection from the build.

There is nothing that I can find on which to base any speculation on what they will have done with 5.8.11 - either changed the VV packaging or just re-enabled the VV package type (along with our jb).

Of course, we have to wait until the actual, physical, KOA2 devices are shipping before we can hope to find a copy of the "factory initial" firmware. That is just how our firmware package contacts work.
And this time I would like to keep it out of the hands of the Chinese.
No sense in making their Kindle/Android installable on the KOA2.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Thanks. My issue would be when I lay in bed to read, I prop my Kobo on its side. There is no screen rotation on the Kobo, which isn’t a problem. With my Paperwhite, it was the same, in landscape on its side, so me laying in my side kept the screen at the proper place for me to read.

If you lay the Oasis on it’s side, it doesn’t try to rotate? Moving the device 90 degrees doesn’t trigger it then?

I understand what you meant about 180 rotatation.

I may just order the new Oasis. If it doesn’t meet my need, I’ll return it.

I didn’t see anything about a future update offering more font sizes, I’ll have to read the product page more thoroughly.

It won't flip putting it sideways. So if you lay down sideways in bed, you'd turn it 90 degrees. I just tested and I have to turn it around another 45 degrees before it jumps to the other orientation. I never have it flip when I didn't want to.

[Buran]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

If you lay the Oasis on it’s side, it doesn’t try to rotate? Moving the device 90 degrees doesn’t trigger it then?

Correct. I'm left-handed so when sitting up to read I hold it so the buttons are on the left. (And for two-handed reading, it feels best with the cover attached).

But if I decide to lie down and read (usually on my left side), I turn it over so the buttons are on the right side. Then I lie down and it's still in portrait mode with the buttons on the right.