SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Due to holiday sales, I was looking at the latest Kindle Paperwhite & Oasis.

I have two questions:

1) Battery Life: I read several reviews that say the battery life does not last for weeks for either the Paperwhite or the Oasis. Specs state that they last up to 6 weeks between charges.

- How long does a full charge last for you?
- Do you read on it for several hours at at time?

2) Other Languages : I'm really interested in the fact that you can change the language setting to various languages & that is suppose to translate your books to that language.

- Can someone who reads a different language test that function? I would like to see how a story that was published in English would translate to a different language and whether or not it would make sense. I figure it would be a tossup because it looks like they're using Bing translator.

If the translations are decent, I can see a really big appeal for buying one of these e-readers. I haven't worked on reading a language in a long time but this would be a nice little push to do it now if this function works well.

Bonus: If you can read Korean, Chinese or Japanese and can test out the language setting, that would be awesome.

Soo wrote: "Due to holiday sales, I was looking at the latest Kindle Paperwhite & Oasis.

I have two questions:

1) Battery Life: I read several reviews that say the battery life does not last for weeks for ei..."

I have a paper white, and although it probably doesn't last 6 weeks now, it's definitely three or so. Depends how much I use it.

Leonie, do you read on it for several hours at a time? Reviews say that it doesn't last for more than 4-5 days and the person reads for about an hour or two a day.

*Reviews for latest Paperwhite.

I rarely read for hours on my Paperwhite as I usually read on my phone. If it’s fully charged and I let it lie on the shelf it lasts a couple of months (unlike my phone which will have decharged itself in a day or so without using it). However I did notice that if I read 2-3 of hours on my Paperwhite it definitely eats the battery many times faster. 5-6 days sounds reasonable.

Soo wrote: "Leonie, do you read on it for several hours at a time? Reviews say that it doesn't last for more than 4-5 days and the person reads for about an hour or two a day.

*Reviews for latest Paperwhite."

On an aeroplane I'd read for hours normally, with no issues. I read at least an hour a day, sometimes more, and I've never had to worry about recharging more than fortnightly.

I have the last year version of Paperwhite and I read daily on it. I haven't taken time so far, but I'd say I have to recharge it once a week.

I read on my Paperwhite for 4-5 hours a day, a full charge lasts me around 2 weeks.
It's currently 6 months old.
P.S. I charge when its down to the last 5-10% range

I have the latest Oasis and I’ve been very happy with it. The explanation on the product page says the battery life estimate is based on half an hour of reading per day, with wireless and Bluetooth off, and the light setting at 10 (a little less than half of the max brightness). So for the typical reader in this group, I doubt the battery life would last anywhere close to six weeks.

Unfortunately I can’t give you a solid answer as to how long my battery life lasts because I charge it regularly. I have read it for hours while traveling and still had plenty of charge left. However, on a normal day, I throw it on the charger I keep by my bed every evening while I’m going about my nightly before-bed routine, maybe 15-20 minutes, and it’s usually fully charged by the time I take it off to read a while before bed. It charges very quickly, and it definitely doesn’t consume batteries as quickly as something like a phone or a tablet.

I’m not familiar with a setting that will let you translate an entire book, but I only speak one language so maybe I’ve overlooked it. I do know you can highlight a word or a phrase and it will translate that from one language to another, usually detecting automatically the language that it’s in and automatically translating it into English (or, I assume whatever language you have your device set to). I use that fairly often and it works well. It’s nice to know for sure what those random phrases mean rather than just guessing by context. It doesn’t translate Latin phrases, although sometimes a common Latin phrase will bring up a Wiki article.

Would this be your first Kindle, or an upgrade or change from a different brand?

Kindle Paperwhite user here (6th generation I believe)
4-6 weeks is in standby mode. It's like with a smartphone. If you don't make a call/send a text in that timeframe, it'll last over 7 days on one charge. Use it frequently and you might need to charge it daily.

What's more relevant would be "reading time". E-ink display, by what I know, takes power when it re-draws the page, passive battery drain is minimal. Wi-Fi then takes some battery life (maybe the most). I believe my 2,5-years old Kindle Paperwhite can last for maybe 30 hrs of reading if it's done without a long break (so minimal passive battery consumption).

Charging is pretty quick, when plugged into the USB port of my PC, it charges in ~2hrs from "low battery" warning (something between 10 and 20 % I guess). It might be even faster from the wall plug or a power bank.

Translations, no idea. Use only English.

EDIT:
The newest generation was given Bluetooth headphone support and text-to-speech (or something) so you can go audio if you want. Leaving Bluetooth on will increase battery drain.

I have a Kindle Paperwhite, but it isn’t the newest one (the waterproof one) so I’m not sure how helpful this is.

I love the Paperwhite and I think it’s absolutely worth whatever the price tag is. I don’t feel like I charge mine hardly ever and it gets quite a bit of use.

I think I’ve charged it maybe 4-5 times this year. I’ve read almost 100 books and about half of them were ebooks.

Things to consider: half my ebook reading is probably done on my phone and/or computer (I have a lot of downtime at work most of the year), I keep the brightness settings pretty dim and at the bare minimum if I have light to read by. The WiFi is off a lot of the time and the only thing you need it for is to download the actual book. Once it’s downloaded it can be shut off. I never use Bluetooth.

How many reviews were saying the battery was bad? I almost have to wonder if they received defective kindles?

I have the Kindle first generation since five years ago and it works fine until now *fingers crossed

I read two hours a day and charge it maybe once a week? or slightly more.

I don't think mine has the language translator thingy. just a built-in dictionary.

I just got the newest Paperwhite (the 2018 waterproof edition) so I'm not sure about the battery life on that one, which may be slightly less than previous models since it's larger capacity (32gb vs 2gb) and has audiobook / bluetooth support.

But I read for hours at a time on my old Kindle Paperwhite 6th gen, and my battery lasts between 1-2 weeks. To be clear, that's with the light on at about 50% most of the time (at night, or in full sun or bright light, I drop it down a bit).

I LOVE my kindle though, so even if Amazon advertises 6 weeks based on an unrealistic 1 hour reading a day, I would still recommend it highly.

If you're unsure, you could get a used one and see if you like it?

I read on two Kindles (Paperwhite 6th gen and Voyage), and sometimes also on my phone, so it's hard to say how much I read on each during a week. I also charge both Kindles when I notice they're below 50% (often it's much lower), because I hate when it suddenly turns off during reading, which happened to me a lot when I got my first Kindle. I'd say I charge them both about every other week.

I've also never heard about it translating books, and I can't imagine an automatic translator working well enough to actually use for that purpose. It requires a reboot to change the language, so I'm too lazy to try, sorry!

edit: My light is at setting 10.

Actual verbage from the product details:

Battery Life

A single charge lasts up to six (6) weeks, based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless off and the light setting at 13. Battery life will vary based on light settings, wireless usage. Audible audiobook streaming over Bluetooth will reduce battery life.

(6 weeks X 7 days in a week) X .5 hours = 21 hours

and that's with wifi off, light set at 13. I get less than 21 hours because I usually set my light at 20 and I do lots of other things that affect battery life like: looking up definitions, reading faster than average (more page turns per minute), highlighting and reporting typos, going to footnotes, etc. I usually charge mine every other day as I don't like to let the battery get too depleted (letting it totally run down is bad for the battery).

When I'm home base area, I have several tablets that I use to read/listen. When I'm traveling, I use a tablet & my phone. Usually, I stay away from the Kindle tablets because the specs are so-so & only good for Amazon products. I prefer my ebooks to be in epub format vs mobi.

Now that I use a ton of Amazon products & own a bunch of freebie/cheap Kindle books, I figure I would use the tablet enough to be worth the money. I like the longevity of the product. It looks like people own one for 4+ years. I'm also interested in it being waterproof & ink-display. I work on a computer all the time and having a device where I don't have to adjust the screen for glare would be nice.

It's more of my geeky I want to try it out deal vs I need it. I prefer my LG & Samsung tablets because they're multi-functional.

I have several kindle fires, an ipad and iphone and I read on them only if I have to. The kindle paperwhite is so much easier on my eyes. I am a big fan of a dedicated ereader.

I travel with my Kindle Voyage and my Fire HD 8. The Kindle for reading and the Fire for internet/email. I have one sleeve that fits both:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B...

The Fire fits in the main section and the Voyage fits in the smaller section.

Also, memory should not matter much. I believe Kindle uses something like SD memory card which has minimal power consumption.
32GB is enough for a family library unless you read comics.

Tomas wrote: "Also, memory should not matter much. I believe Kindle uses something like SD memory card which has minimal power consumption.
32GB is enough for a family library unless you read comics."

I know - but I mentioned it because my goal is to load as many books on there as I can, and my thinking is that scrolling through the library to figure out what I want to read next would be a much longer process when I have thousands of books loaded vs hundreds, and thus would impact the battery life.

I think I probably would've been fine with the 8gb version, but I felt a little Tim Taylor about it. LOL

CBRetriever wrote: "(6 weeks X 7 days in a week) X .5 hours = 21 hours

and that's with wifi off, light set at 13. I get less than 21 hours because I usually set my light at 20..."

Same here. I keep my light at 18 or 19 (Kindle Voyage from when they first came out) when I'm reading indoors but turn it down/off outside. Wi-Fi was on by default when I bought it and there was a marked improvement when I shut that off. It's really only necessary for me when I'm downloading a new book or an update; I don't use the Wi-Fi otherwise.

However, I typically get 6 weeks or more of battery life on it because ... I now read most of the time on my phone. I only use the Kindle when I'm at the beach because Paperwhites rock outdoors whereas smartphones blow in bright light.

First, thanks to everyone who responded! It's nice to get feedback.

Update: I bought the Kindle Oasis & here's what I figured out for me.

Pros:
- Display is easier on my eyes & causes less strain.
- Lightweight
- Easy to read in sunlight.
- Fast Charging

Cons:
- Clunky & Limited Interface
- Bloated software that still can't handle large collections well.
- Poor Organizing Capabilities to None on Device
- Bad Battery Life - I have to charge every other day.
- Expensive for OS & Actual Use of Product

I've decided to keep it just for the screen & resigned myself to awkward interfaces for loading books to read. The reality is that none of the ink display tablets are great and I have the most books in the Kindle cloud library. That's why I settled on testing out a Kindle tablet vs others. I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that the Oasis lasts for 5+ years. That way I will feel like I have gotten my money's worth from it.

I don't mind the clunky OS, I do all my organizing on the app on my phone, and the Kindles sort themselves out automatically. But how is it possible that the charge doesn't hold longer than a day?!

You’re right about book organization- it never bothered me much because I think my library is relatively small.

There is a way to organize them via Amazon into collections but it’s time consuming too.

If you hold your finger on a book title on the kindle it opens up a window that lets you add the book to an existing collection, or create a new collection.

I have a large collection. It's too time consuming to do it the way Amazon has it set up on either web or app. Oasis is basically the app with a few more functions.

My elibrary is organized by Fiction/Non-Fiction, Author, Series, Titles, etc. What I have has been organized that way. I'm not sure what I'll do about future purchases because I found out that the ebooks are going into a hidden folder and you can't access the actual file to save or transfer without cracking the system.

It's one of the reasons that I bought the Oasis for a test run. I like to save my digital purchases in my own library and not just rely on the cloud service. It's the only way to guarantee you will have a copy of what you purchased. If I have to rely on a cloud system, I figured I would see if I like one of the devices & if it's actually useful for me.

Anna wrote: "I don't mind the clunky OS, I do all my organizing on the app on my phone, and the Kindles sort themselves out automatically. But how is it possible that the charge doesn't hold longer than a day?!"

First test runs, I left the WiFi on but bluetooth off. I read a book off & on and the battery ran down to 40% from a charge.

Current test run, I turned off both WiFi & Bluetooth. I think I'll get 3-5 days of reading from that. Maybe more but I won't know until I try it.

Oh is it without the extra battery cover? I haven't got any kind of Oasis so I don't really know, but from what I understand it's got a really small battery, that's why it's so light? I guess it makes sense then.

The battery for the Oasis is suppose to last up to 6 weeks if you read 30min a day with the WiFi & bluetooth turned off. Reading 1 hour a day would knock the battery life down to 3 weeks.

I left the WiFi on and read for 4-5 hours with a lot of breaks. The battery went down to 40% within a day of a charge.

I haven't read anything about an add on battery. Not that I'm interested. I have backup batteries that I can use to charge up when I travel.

I have the older Voyage and I find the battery life really depends on the use of backlight and wifi. I usually charge it every few weeks, but if I have it on airplane mode and light off or low will last much longer. I do read for hours on end on it. The older kindle I own (keyboard maybe was the name?) which didn't have a light would last a solid month, even reading for hours daily, I would charge it about every month give or take.

About the translator, my native language is Spanish and I usually read in English. Every now and then a word would come up that I want it translated, that function is not good. Is acceptable for words, I never tried it with full sentences and I wouldn't, less alone a whole book. I'm not even sure you can, because you need to highlight what you want translated.

Soo, have you thought about using an ebook management program like Calibre? I'm sure there are others, but that's what I use and I love it, but the majority of my ebooks are from other sources than Amazon, so mainly I just use it for file conversion and loading and removing books from the Kindle. It should recognize your Kindle books, make them viewable and organize them how you want, both on your computer and device.

ok, if you have the Home page st to:

All | Downloaded ___ All Items ___ Collections

then there is no hidden folder and books that are not in Collections will nicely sort themselves by recent after the Collections. This of course depends on two things:

1. The Books (purchased from Amazon and the Docs (books from sources other than Amazon plus personal documents) are stored on your account

2. If you previously had Collections et up, you added them to your Home page by first using this set up after connecting via wif and syncing (menu option or icon):

All (highlighted) | Downloaded ___ Collections ___ Title

and for every Collection name that does not have a star beside it, you long press on the name until a menu comes up and select Add/Download to Home page (I forget the exact wording). You then switch back to the layout in #1.

If you do this, every new device will easily be able to import the Collection definitions.

An easy way to add books to a Single Collection is to open the Collection, tap on the menu and select add/delete to Collection (this is useful for Author Collections if you're sorted by author), scroll through your list and tap on every book you want in that Collection and then tap on Done. I did this for over 1200 books in less than two hours.

Ah, one thing to keep in mind is that books can be in multiple Collections without the need to download duplicates. I have some Andre Norton books in Read_SciFi and Andre Norton and Baen (source).


@Victoria, the Instant translator doesn't do too bad with French phrases and sentences, but you are correct in that you cannot translate a whole book before you hit the copy limit (usually 10% of the book)

@CBRetriever, I also use Calibre and love it

Soo, when you first download your books, they will all need to be indexed by the system and this can take quite a while and will eat up your battery rather quickly. There's one bible that supposedly takes almost 24 hours to index. I had an updte once that required an re-index of all my books (200 on the device) and it took 8 hours and dropped my battery to 15% in that time period.

Also, if you like to take notes and highlight bits of books, if you store them in calibre or on your computer, those notes/highlights will not be backed up and saved on your Amazon account.

Another problem you will run into doing that, is that when you download a book it is, in most cases, DRM protected to only open on the device to which it was originally downloaded. This is at the insistence of the publishers and is not something that Amazon insisted upon. A few publishers like TOR sell Kindle books without DRM.

Calibre is great!

It's great from what I understand, but the DRM issue can trip you up unless you're willing to break Amazon's Terms of Service and break the DRM on books purchased from them.

I don't think it'd be a problem. If she bought them, downloaded them to her Kindle, and just manages her collection via Calibre, it should be fine, DRM or no. Accessing those files on another device wouldn't be possible, without dealing with the DRM lockdown, but otherwise it should not be a problem to move and organize them.

I haven't run into a DRM book that will only be read on the device it was purchased on. All of the ebooks that I've purchased are loaded onto each of my devices that I may use for reading: laptop, cell phone & tablets.

I'm familiar with Calibre but haven't needed to use it in a long time because I use an eReader app that will read multiple formats.

Before I purchased the Oasis, I tried to find out how to access ebooks that I've bought on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles & Kobo. I use Windows OS & Andriod devices. Before, I could easily download a copy & put it into my eLibrary regardless of format. Now, the ebooks are placed into a hidden folder that cannot be accessed on my laptop or Android devices without cracking the software. I don't want to hack my laptop or devices to just access ebooks I paid for. It's annoying that I can't make an easy copy for my own use. I will adapt.

I enjoy learning so this isn't all bad.

Kindle Oasis - I don't plan on downloading all of my Kindle books. I've tried to have 300+ Kindle books downloaded on a tablet & it doesn't work well. I'll just install a handful of books I plan to read and change it up as I need to. This device doesn't do everything that I want or am used to for functionality. That's okay. Like I said earlier, I do see a value in the screen and that's good enough for now.

My cell & tablets have all of the books I'm interested in reading. I prefer epubs to mobi for a variety of reasons. On my tablets, I have the customization & functionality I want from an ereader. The Oasis will be a limited device but it will save my eyes from getting overtired and that's an important factor for me.

You know what? I'll test out Calibre again. If it'll search my laptop and populate the ebooks out of the hidden folders so I can put them into my own eLibrary organization, that will save me from dealing with the hidden folders, etc.

I'll have to try it out in a few days.

If you're using the cloud and syncing them to your devices then that makes sense. Kindle books can be read on multiple devices and apps and synced between them.

But I hardly ever deal with DRM so I might be out of the loop on that aspect.

Soo wrote: "I haven't run into a DRM book that will only be read on the device it was purchased on. All of the ebooks that I've purchased are loaded onto each of my devices that I may use for reading: laptop, ..."

I have about 400 Kindle books (300 of them purchased from Amazon) on my Voyage (precursor to the Oasis) and it works just fine.

Have you tried using the send via usb method? That odes not pu them in hidden folders.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...

This method places them in your download folder, but unfortunately, it has to be done one book at a time. Menu options from the Your Content and Devices Actions [...] button on the Amazon website)

Deliver to Default Device (or) Others
Delete
Download & transfer via USB <------------------
Clear furthest page read
Read Now
Loan this title
Manage Family Library
Gift Now
Add to collections

Thanks, CB!!! That will take forever but it would do the job too.

I have Kindle Oasis and the battery cover. I didn’t really pay attention for the recharging time...anyway, it is way longer than the one I have before. And Oasis is slightly bigger, I feel it’s the perfect size for Japanese manga.

I didn’t know about the translation function...I mean even I changed the language setting, an English book is still in English.

you highlight a word or phrase and, if you're connected wirelessly, one of the options is Instant Translation into and out of 16 different languages. It's why I always bought my Kindles with 3G and could thus use them in a park, on the train, etc.

for a single word, it's often easier to use one of the translation dictionaries. These are the ones Amazon has given me for free:

ABBYY Lingvo Comprehensive Russian-English Dictionary (Russian Edition)
Oxford Hachette French - English Dictionary (French Edition)
Oxford Hachette English - French Dictionary
Modern English- Chinese Dictionary (现代英汉词典)
A Modern Chinese-English Dictionary (现代汉英词典) (Chinese Edition)
Chol Tamil-English Dictionary (Tamil Edition)
Chol English-Tamil Dictionary
Texlang Marathi-English Shabdabhandar (Marathi Edition)
Texlang English-Marathi Shabdabhandar
Oxford English to Arabic dictionary
Oxford Arabic to English dictionary (Arabic Edition)
Oxford Paravia English - Italian Dictionary
Oxford Paravia Italian - English Dictionary (Italian Edition)
Prabhat Advanced Hindi English Dictionary (Hindi Edition)
Prabhat Advanced English Hindi Dictionary
Oxford German - English Dictionary (German Edition)
Oxford English - Spanish Dictionary
Oxford Spanish - English Dictionary (Spanish Edition)
Oxford English - German Dictionary
Priberam's Portuguese-English Dictionary (Portuguese Edition)
Dicionário Priberam de Inglês-Português
Gujarati into English dictionary (Gujarati Edition)
English into Gujarati dictionary
Progressive English-Japanese Dictionary(プログレッシブ英和中辞典)
Progressive Japanese-English Dictionary (プログレッシブ和英中辞典第３版) (Japanese Edition)
Progressive English-Japanese Dictionary (プログレッシブ英和中辞典)
Groot woordenboek Nederlands-Engels (Dutch-English Dictionary) (Dutch Edition)
Groot woordenboek Engels-Nederlands (English-Dutch Dictionary)

CBRetriever wrote: "you highlight a word or phrase and, if you're connected wirelessly, one of the options is Instant Translation into and out of 16 different languages. It's why I always bought my Kindles with 3G and..."

Thank you!

Just thought I'd mention that the Kindle Oasis is not a tablet and was never intended to be one. It's a dedicated e-reader. The only Kindle tablet is the Fire.

Battery life on my Oasis 2 is laughable. Only reason I tolerate it is that it charges very quickly and I don't read for hours at a time.

did you check to see if you have books stuck indexing? Text in Books should = 0 if you search on a nonsense word

As far as battery goes: "A single charge lasts up to six weeks, based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless and Bluetooth off and the light setting at 10. Battery life will vary based on light settings, wireless usage. Audible audiobook streaming over Bluetooth will reduce battery life."

(6 weeks X 7days) X .5 hour a day = 21 hours. The following behaviors can make the 21 hours even less:

1. Most people I know use a higher than 10 light setting.
2. Wifi on, especially if riding in a car, changing locations, using public transport, etc will require the device to constantly be scanning for open networks.
3. Taking lots of notes and highlighting a lot will take extra battery power
4. Looking up word definitions will do the same
5. Indexing newly downloaded books ditto
6. Going to a footnote ditto
7. This one gets me all the time: Reading faster than most people and or using a large font (more page turns = more battery power)

I charge mine at 40-50% battery every 2-3 days (4 if I'm lucky). The Fires are far worse: "Up to 10 hours of reading, browsing the web, watching video, and listening to music. Battery life will vary based on device settings, usage, and other factors such as web browsing and downloading content. Actual results may vary. Certain software features or apps may reduce battery life.". I often have to charge twice a day if I'm plying graphics intensive games

That's all kind of beside the point. Those recommended settings are laughably unreasonable. "Yes, your Kindle will last 21 hours (debatable anyway), but only if you basically don't use 80% of its features".

LOL - Yup. I told my friend that I'm keeping my overpriced lump of plastic just for the screen.

Round 2 of Test Run:
No WiFi
No Bluetooth
Light Set @ 9

Full charge lasted less than a day. I read fast.

I hoped that I would like the Oasis more than I do. I don't. It does about what I expected and I will use it to read for the screen. It's not a device I would suggest for quality. Print screen quality - sure. Everything else? Nah.