Last month a rumor about a new waterproof Kindle surfaced online along with a questionable photo of the alleged new Kindle.
At this point the rumor is starting to look less likely with each passing day. Unless Amazon announces a new Kindle within the next couple of weeks, then it’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
The thing with a waterproof Kindle is it makes no sense whatsoever to release it after summer.
If Amazon has plans to release a waterproof Kindle they would most certainly do so at the start of summer when demand for a waterproof device is at its peak.
Waiting until fall to release a waterproof ereader just doesn’t make sense when people are going to the beach and pool all summer.
Another factor that makes a new Kindle seem unlikely anytime soon is the fact that Amazon just announced a new Echo Show device and two new Fire tablets over the past two weeks, so that makes it seem like new Kindles aren’t part of the plan or they would’ve announced them already.
Furthermore, Amazon just introduced new Kindle Travel Bundles two weeks ago for the Paperwhite, Voyage, and Oasis, which makes it seem very unlikely that those Kindles are going to get replaced anytime soon with a new model.
Granted a waterproof Kindle could be branched off into its own separate line but offering five different 6-inch Kindles would just be ridiculous considering all the overlapping features.
I hope Amazon releases a new waterproof Kindle for summer but the odds aren’t looking very promising at this point. That leaves Waterfi Kindles as the only option for waterproof Kindles, and they aren’t cheap.
A waterproof kindle isn’t very essential for me. And I’m definitely not paying $230 plus tax for one.
The picture is from the Amazon page for the Waterfi. It’s the last picture.
https://www.amazon.com/Waterfi-Waterproofed-eReader-eBooks-Connectivity/dp/B014VD8XX2/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1495984656&sr=1-1&keywords=waterfi
Indeed. That’s where I got the picture. 😀
I honestly believe it’s time to give up on Kindles. I mean Amazon seems to have given up on it so why not us? It seems as their main focus right now is the echo and Alexa as it perhaps is a more lucrative market with a lot more potential. Besides they are already own Ereader industry so as long as kobo doesn’t sell in US retail stores and Google and Apple continue to sit on their ass nothing is going to change.
An obvious point is that with Google now and Apple Siri Amazon is trying to break waves with Alexa because competition is stiff and breeds Innovation something that is unfortunately not happening with E-ink. Its time to embrace Kobo and what they’re doing right now and forget about Amazon. No matter how much more polished and streamlined the operating system is, the reason we want the larger Kindle in the first place is because of how much we love the Kobo Aura One.
I have no need for a waterproof Kindle, I want the larger screen, and audio like my beloved Kindle Keyboard. Still rocking the KK, I also have the Voyage, added the voice update to it, but it’s clunky with the otg cable & audio thingy + headphones hanging off the bottom. I’m​ just biding my time to snag a Kobo Aura One at my preferred price point.
Amazon is a mass marketer, and configures its products for the mass market. Amazon has concluded that not many people want to use their e-readers in a wet environment.
I am not on the lookout for a waterproof e-reader. I confine my reading to dry places. As I see it, a bathtub is for bathing, not for reading: in and out quickly.
I am not willing to pay extra for a waterproof e-reader. I have no need for waterproofing, given my usage patterns. Amazon has concluded that most people who use e-readers have a similar usage patterns.
Amazon is a mass marketer which is why they don’t release a waterproof Kindle? That is about the dumbest comment I have ever heard.
I doubt people use their phones in the bathtub while they are bathing and yet that does not stop manufactures from releasing waterproof cell phones, especially Apple which mass produces more iphones than Amazon does Kindles.
This has nothing to do with studies as Barnes & Noble and Kobo have already released waterproof eReaders. No, this has more to do with Amazon not giving a damn about its customers and being lazy with Innovation due to a lack of competition. Point blank. Whether or not people require a waterproof device is besides the point, but the option to give it to them is what matters.
Well, waterproof Kindle could be nice, but without price increase, because I don’t need it, to be honest.
Audio output seems to me useless these days, cell phone what everyone has is faster and have much better SW for play audio. If I want to listen audio books I will prefer my cell phone.
Larger screen, not for me. But I can imagine the reason, reading PDFs.
(Sorry for my English I am not native speaker)
E-ink readers are going to be around for a very long time. I can imagine a day when paper books will almost vanish from the shelves. I have many many paper books that I have read that I will never read again filling up space on my wall only good now for insulation from the outside environment.
I think Amazon knows this as do other manufacturers… sorting out what people want, designing and building the platform is an expensive task, but like I said e-ink will be around for a very long time and I believe most are waiting to see what the other guy comes up with… eventually I can see an indispensable platform emerge and become the new paradigm for all e-ink devices. This will include color and being able to take notes, some devices have this now but not perfected.
We come a long way from reading e-ink books on Palm Handheld readers, and we have a long way to go still.
Kindle is really only relevant these days if you want it to be.
Choose a better alternative (Kobo) and waiting for Amazon to finally become competitive again with a new model becomes … well … kind of silly.
It’s not that simple. There’s more than just an ebook reader to consider; it’s the whole ecosystem, software, and additional features as well. Amazon’s ebook selection, their support for PDF, sideloaded content and other software features are miles ahead of Kobo. Aside from the Aura One, Kobo’s hardware isn’t even that good. In fact I would consider their other two models, the new Aura H2O and Aura 2, well below average. They have a cheap design with no page buttons or memory card slot. By comparison the InkBooks that I just reviewed were much nicer, even the low-end $79 model. Your dislike of Amazon is clouding your judgement. Kobo is far from perfect, especially for people who’ve already invested in buying a number of Kindle ebooks.
Best way to read PDF’s on any device is to do the following…
– Download the “Send to Kindle” app for your desktop, Either PC or Mac.
– Once downloaded, Go into the Settings and check the box where it says “Convert to Kindle format”
– Drag the PDF into the app, you can then choose the option to deliver it to a certain Kindle device and also have it sent to your content library.
– Convert it! You then have the PDF converted to AZW Kindle format. You can read it as any other Kindle book.
The format is converted nicely but you may have to open Calibre and adjust spaces between paragraphs for a cleaner look. You can also extract the file on your Kindle eReader and convert it to other formats such as KFX, epub or Kepub.
I also use calibre to convert some PDFs to e-pub or mobi to read on my Kindle and Sony e-readers. It’s a good trick.
However, it is not perfect, this technique really only works for books, where you don’t care about the layout. So good for some books, and not so good for others.
If you try and convert a PDF on Calibre it will look horrible. What you need to do is convert the PDF with the Send to Kindle app first. The Send to Kindle app if followed as outlined above will convert most PDF books nicely.
Prefer big screens than waterproof kindles anytime.
+1.
#1. Larger (relatively inexpensive) e-reader for PDFs!!
#2. Software improvements around reading PDF documents on 6″-ish e-readers
#3 Expandable memory (or at least standard 8GB). Useful if you have a lot of PDFs.
Water proof or water resistant would be nice, but fairly low on my list, and the monetary value I would attach to this feature is maybe a few dollars.
In mid-May I talked with an Amazon sales rep who happened to be in my local Best Buy and he said that Amazon was going to be discontinuing the Oasis and Voyage models in favor of a new model coming out later in 2017 which merged some of the features of the features of the Oasis and Voyage. Beyond that, he said he had no more info.