Comments on: Amazon apparently discontinues Kindle Touch in favor of Paperwhite

By: biogeeklogy

biogeeklogy — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:09:36 +0000

I have a kindle touch, and I like the look of the paperwhite, but see no reason to upgrade when there will be a whole-new breed of the things next christmas. XP If anything I am getting a cheap used kindle keyboard for travel and because the kindle touch sometimes likes to ‘skip’ several pages while reading. It also does not allow you to highlight text over a pagebreak like the older kindles do. Luckily I can put the same library on both.

Neither are all that great for reading PDF’s, which I have to do for school, work and research using peer reviewed journals. For that I’d go with a version of the Nook Color or a tablet, no doubt.

By: james smith

james smith — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 01:39:41 +0000

****Mike***** Enquire about reductions on traditional Audio books–Here in England at the very least sales tax would not apply, that normally would

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 00:25:37 +0000

FYI, the paperwhite doesn’t have the read text aloud feature.

By: stacy

stacy — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 23:11:04 +0000

well im upset because my best buy stores dont have any kindles at all. i have been calling back everyday but no one seems to know when they”ll be in. im really upset over this. i want my kindle already. its just unacceptable.

By: TRE

TRE — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:43:33 +0000

I love PaperWhite. I prefer the e-Ink type of technology over the bright back-lit screen stuff that hurts my eyes. Though, those LED/plasma screen devices cannot be avoided for work applications. Long live PaperWhite for pleasurable reading (and the Kindle read-text-aloud feature).

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 05:54:39 +0000

Actually, all the new Kindle Fires have the text-to-speech option, so that’s 3 NEW models with TTS. In addition, Amazon did not remove text-to-speech capabilities from “its” books, that function is set and governed by the publisher. Please get the facts straight.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 19:32:02 +0000

I messaged Amazon yesterday pretty upset because I found out that Best Buy had Paperwhites in stock and I preordered and still have not received mine. They upgraded me to 1 day shipping and waived the entire shipping cost, but I still think its wrong that big merchants are getting them in store before people who preordered! And now to hear that people don’t even have the option to get a Kindle Touch to not have to wait, ridiculous!

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:11:49 +0000

The Touch was discontinued because it was the only model which had digitized text to speech. The Authors Guild opposed it because they would rather sell you an Audio Book at $20.00 -$30.00, vs. the $8.00 for the typical Kindle title.

I found this out because a family member had a stroke which limited her ability to read. This is a major setback for many of the visually impaired who depended on this feature to be able to read and who are low income and can’t afford the higher priced Audio Books…

Amazon has also disabled the existing TTS ability on some of its books, but it is noted under the title notes whether the feature is enabled or not.