Saturday, July 2, 2016

My Kindle OASIS

Few days after having a "dead" Voyage, I was surfing Amazon again last few days and was surprised to see they in-fact have another new Kindle. I knew I must have missed out so so much.

They called it the Kindle Oasis.

Kindle Oasis is the next IN thing for Amazon, LIGHTER, THINNER, longer BATTERY life, more white LEDs. Oasis even has a gyrometer that will "rotate the screen following the way you hold the Kindle, automatically".


Amazon's price starts from USD289.99, kind of steep and probably not anyone will consider this.


Comparing pictures of Oasis and my Voyage, Oasis is a super duper sexy and tempting.

Verdict? Definitely is "BUY".

I finally click on the "Buy" for my next Kindle,  Kindle Oasis.

The next thing to do is only "Wait", wait for the package to send from Amazon to my "US Address", then from US to Singapore.

Shall try to post more pictures once I get my hand on my very own Oasis, till then, enjoy pictures I "borrowed" from Amazon.

My "dead" Kindle Voyage

One fine day after a long period of not using my Kindle Voyage 3G, I decided to pick up my Voyage and thought of making some reading. Battery was totally flat.


Put it to charge over night as have not been doing any good readings for months. Next morning, I tried to power up the Voyage and it just stay on the Main Page. I was SHOCK......

I tried many times restarting, charge it for 2 days, pressed hold 20s to "reboot" the Voyage and seems helpless.

One night, I make a online chat with Amazon Helpdesk about my case. Well the lady was very helpful to give me tips on what to try out to see if workable. But all the stuff she mentioned, I tried but no help. In the end, as my 1 year warranty was just 2 months over, she mentioned as warranty period is over, they cannot make a FOC replacement. However, she can help to request a USD20 discount on the model if I make a repeat request since just over the warranty period. Very kind of her but I felt the USD20 was just too low as I need to spend another couple of hundreds......

I decided not to buy.

After months of not making any serious readings, late night movies. I tried charging my Voyage to give it a last try, it didn't work as hope. I proclaimed my Voyage "DEAD".

Rest in Peace.....

Monday, December 22, 2014

My Kindle Experience and My new Kindle Voyage

Had a very busy busy year 2014 and it is almost coming to the new 2015. Haven't been reading for quite a while and end up my wife took over my 1st Gen Kindle Paperwhite.

One fine day, mid November 2014, went to surf Amazon.com, came across this beautiful new Kindle but it was not name as Paperwhite. Curious me dig further to only then realise it is call the Kindle Voyage. Amazon has released a new series of Kindle paperwhite in the name of Kindle Voyage

As my 1st Gen Paperwhite and the new Kindle Voyage is 2 series away, the new Voyage does stands out ALOT. Not to mention, thinner and lighter... On top of that ;
1) High resolution 300ppi display - read even more like printed page (even when I asked my 5 year old daughter, she said the page looks exactly like a piece of paper)

2) Reimagined page turns - Pagepress enables you to turn the page without lifting a finger
- simply means pressure sensing buttons for next page and back page.

3) New adaptive front light - provides ideal brightness, day or night
- yet to really try but the "Auto" brightness works a brilliant and also the lights looks much more evenly spread compared to my 1st Gen Paperwhite.

4) Thinner, Lighter and Faster processor
- any selection or clicks made is so much faster and feels more responsive without thinking that it may have hang up.



Kindle Voyage, 6" High-Resolution Display (300 ppi) with Adaptive Built-in Light, PagePress Sensors, Wi-Fi - Includes Special Offers

Overall, I would advise to go for the New Kindle Voyage if you do not own a Paperwhite or die hard fans to get hold of the new Voyage like me. Once you get hold of the new Kindle Voyage to read, you will never want to turn back to other device to read Books.


My Kindle Experience
1) Amazon Kindle Paperwhite
2) My Kindle Voyage 3G
3) Origami Black Leather Cover
4) Books and Kindle eBooks I read
5) How I bought My Kindle
6) How I bought My eBooks
7) Updating My Kindle Voyage
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1) Amazon Kindle Paperwhite


Never did I thought I would pick up reading, don't even think of eReading.

While following my subscription on Youtube one day, I came across one of the link that mentioned about the new Kindle that Amazon developed. I watched the product launched video. Afterwhich, I fell in love with the Kindle Paperwhite.

I bought the Kindle Paperwhite 3G (with 3G and without Special Offers) together with the Onyx Black Leather Cover. With the help of BorderlessBuys, it probably took around 5 days to reach my office address. That cost me about USD16 for the shipment. As BorderlessBuys only accept American Express Card Holder to sign up, those without can always use comGateway instead. BorderlessBuys is powered by comGateway anyway.

Kindle Paperwhite 3G, 6" High Resolution Display with Built-in Light, Free 3G + Wi-Fi

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2) My Kindle Voyage 3G

My Voyage was delivered together in separate packaging with the Origami Cover. They came in separate box and also separate Courier Bag.

 

 





 

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3) My Kindle Origami Leather Cover

This new covers has lots of magnets that simply snap to each other. From holding the Voyage to folding the Footing, they are simply all magnetise.
I bought the official Onyx Black Leather Cover. It fully covered up the Amazon Protective Cover for Kindle Voyage, Black, only exposing the USB port and hard button to facilitate charging and eBooks transfer. The cover is also very 'Smart', the Kindle will turns off or wakes up automatically whenever you close or open the cover. Secret is there is a magnet on the cover.
 

 
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4) Books and Kindle eBooks I read



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5) How I bought My Kindle

Prior to creating a Amazon Account, there is a need to do something else. As Amazon does not deliver Kindle and eBook to Singapore, need to ensure "Ship To" is a US address.
- Create a Account with BorderlessBuys (or comGateway). This will be your 3rd Party Forwarder
- Login and you should see your US address somewhere at the left side of the screen

Now over to Amazon.
- Create an Amazon Account or login if already have an account with Amazon.
- Go to Account Setting and set up address. Make sure to key in the same US address as that from your 3rd Party Forwarder, this will be your Home address.
- Next enter the Payment Setting, I used my American Express Card as the Payment Card and used my Singapore real address as the Billing address.
- Search on Amazon for Kindle, selected the Kindle Paperwhite 3G and the Leather Cover. Put them to my Cart.
- Check Out and select the proper Payment Card.
- Becareful when selecting shipment mode as some products comes with free shipping, but probably will takes a little longer than usual.

That's it. Done. The rest will be just waiting for DHL to come to the Door Step.
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6) How I bought My eBooks

- Setup 1-Click setting under the Amazon Account page
- Selected US address as the Home address, Payment Card will be my Amex with my SG address as teh Billing Address.
- Search the desired Title, Authors, Tags or Genes.
- Click on "Purchase using 1-Click" and will see the eBooks delivered through Whispernet to my Kindle Paperwhite 3G in less than 60s. As I had the 3G version, eBooks will be delivered to my Kindle anywhere as long there is network, absolutely free (Thanks to Amazon and AT&T)

DO NOTE that there are reported cases whereby Amazon Accounts are freeze or questioned by Amazon. This could be a case of Account Holder is not from US. For such scenario, non risk taker may want to consider to use of VPNs and Gift Cards. (I will not explain so much on VPNs and Gift Cards as I personal never tried using either of them. You may want to hop over to Jeffyen's blog as he explained that very well. I have also learnt from his blog during my initial experience with Amazon)
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7) Updating My Kindle Voyage

Updating Kindle's software is as easy as 123. It's merely takes 3 steps to update the software on my Kindle Voyage

Download - Download the latest software from Amazon's Software Update Page.

Transfer - Connect the Kindle to the Computer using the USB cable and make sure the Kindle is on. Drag and drop the new update file from my computer onto the Kindle drive. Remind myself not to drop the file into one of the folders within the Kindle drive.
After the file has transferred successfully, eject the Kindle to safely disconnect my Kindle from my computer. Disconnect the USB cable from my Kindle and my Computer.

Update - On my Kindle: From Home, tap Menu, then Settings. Tap Menu, then Update Your Kindle. (This option will be grayed out if the most recent update has already been installed or if the file transfer was not successful.) Tap Ok to perform an update and will see the Kindle is Updating.
Once the update is completed, my Kindle restart automatically. Check back from the Device Info and I will be able to see that it states the latest Firmware that I downloaded from Amazon.
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