The physical:
As I have previously reviewed the current Kindle (7th Generation) and also reviewed the official Kindle Voyage Origami Cover, I refer to those for comments on covers and how the Kindle Voyage came packaged, which is very similar to the Kindle (7th Generation). What differs between these two and their official Amazon covers is the fact that the basic 7th Generation has a book-like cover that attaches by friction from its sides, whereas the Kindle Voyage official cover is a top-opening origami stand that attaches to the reader by magnets, not traditionally from its sides.
The cover has the automatic on/off feature, but if the Voyage timeouts and turns off while on the table with its cover open, the case covers the unfortunate rear power button and you have to open the cover back to get to it, whereas on other Kindles you just press the power button that's next to the micro-USB port, which remains exposed no matter what the status of the cover. If they can put buttons on the side of a thin smartphone, they should be able to do that with a Kindle Voyage as well... Safe to say, in my use, a side power button would be much superior to a rear one.
The Kindle Voyage is small, although when placed next to Kindle (7h Generation), both in their covers, it doesn't feel quite as small as I expected. It is much better proportioned than the 7th Generation though, as the latter has that big "jaw" underneath - Kindle Voyage is very well proportioned all around and as a device looks nice. Two physical things I find odd about the Kindle Voyage, one is the rear power button (of course familiar sight from Kindle Fires) and the use of glossy plastic on the rear top part - Kindles have a nice history of using rugged materials and I fear glossy plastic may scratch faster than usual, whilst also being a fingerprint magnet (the origami cover mostly covers this area though).
Speaking of fingerprints, as the top of the Kindle Voyage is flush, a large piece of glass from corner to corner with black underneath the bezels, its bezels attract much more fingerprints than even the quite glossy black $69 Kindle 5 does. In fact, these glossy borders pretty much make using a clip-on reading light impossible with the Kindle Voyage, should one want to do something like that, because the bezel area is a glare-fest. I tried it with the nice Verso clip-on light I use with the basic Kindle and it just wasn't working because of that. One could try the DecalGirl route to rectify this, perhaps, but I'm not too keen on that. (DecalGirl would also cover the PagePress button markings, which might be a benefit as I find them a little distracting when reading in not-dark.) The magnetic, top-opening origami cover also makes it pretty hard to nicely clip the clip-on light to the set. Using some other cover, perhaps one that covers the bezels as well if one likes those (I don't), could help too.
Weight of the Kindle Voyage and the official cover compared to some other devices (in grams):
Kindle Voyage without cover: 179 g
Kindle Voyage with official origami cover: 312 g
New Kindle (7th Generation) without cover: 191 g
New Kindle (7th Generation) with official cover: 300 g
$69 Kindle 4B/5 without cover: 168 g
$69 Kindle 4B/5 with official lighted cover: 313 g
Paperwhite 1 3G: 220 g
Paperwhite 1 3G with official cover: 355 g
Paperwhite 2 Wi-Fi: 208 g
Kindle DX "Graphite": 536 g
Kindle DX "Graphite" with official cover: 900 g
The screen:
The big thing about Kindle Voyage is of course its new, sharpest-on-a-Kindle-yet screen, with flush glass, new frontlight lightguide and capacitive touch on top. Kindle Voyage is, basically, a Kindle Paperwhite 3 in the Kindle family parlance, just a bigger change than Paperwhite 1 to 2 was.
As I did with the Paperwhites, I find the Kindle Voyage screen controversial. On the upside, the improved resolution feels to me a bigger step forward than Paperwhite was compared to non-lit Kindles that all have a lower-resolution screen. The text on the Kindle Voyage definitely is sharper and more beautiful than on the Paperwhite, nor is it as muddied as it sometimes feels on the Paperwhites. Contrast is also up, as is text blackness, especially compared to Paperwhites - perhaps even keel with the late-generation non-lit Kindles that have always trumped the Paperwhites on text blackness. So, on contrast and sharpness, the Kindle Voyage screen is definitely the best Kindle screen I have ever witnessed. No doubt about it.
Now, onto the controversy that makes me wonder if I'm playing the exchange game or what. The light layer does have a few bright specks on it, when displaying bright light on a dark background. One pin-hole is especially evident every time you boot up and the light is at a high level, as it is a shining speck smack in the middle of the black hillside on the Kindle bootscreen. I've witnessed some of this on all front-lit Kindles I've seen, some better, some worse, and exchanged a Paperwhite 2 for similar reasons. This, I guess, comes with the territory like dead pixels on LCDs. These specks do not show when light levels are lower or when reading text, so unlike some of the more glaring defects that e.g. made me swap a Paperwhite 2, I'm not sure if this alone is a deal-breaker.
What is more puzzling to my mind is the unevenness of the light itself. When I turn the light all the way off, the Kindle Voyage has a pretty yellow screen, just like Kindle Paperwhite 2 (Paperwhite 1 and non-lit e-ink Kindles have more grey screen generations). This is not an issue for me, reading Kindle Voyage in daylight would probably be pretty nice. My problem is that I read 99% in the dark, in bed. When you flip on the light, the lower portion of the Voyage lights up considerably more than the top part. This is really evident when comparing with a Paperwhite 2, which may be a little darker in the middle, but is well lit both bottom and top. Kindle Voyage is well lit on the bottom and less lit on the top - there is a distinct gradient or even a bottom half/top half thing going on.
What's more, the LEDs make the yellow e-ink screen cooler tone in the bottom, but are not powerful enough to cool the top tones, so the top remains more yellow while the bottom gets a whiter tone on the background. From a day and a night of reading, I can't say I'm personally too bothered by the color shift, though. What troubles me is that I can't seem to get a comfortable balance where the bottom and top would be lit just right - push it up so that top is nice, the bottom is too bright, push it down so bottom is nice, top is too dark. Time will tell if I can find a balance, if I'm bailing or trying the replacements game. FWIW, the screen is not crooked, though.
Finally, for those saying the text in Kindle Voyage feels like it is on top of the glass, I can not share that experience at all. Place dust or something on the screen and the distance from the text and the top of the glass is such that the dust actually shines a shadow on the e-ink screen "far" underneath. So, just like on Paperwhites, Kindle Voyage definitely distances the e-ink screen from the top of the screen glass due to the layers in between. There is now even an added layer: e-ink, light guide, capacitive layer and top glass (compared to just e-ink on the Kindle 7th Generation). For those who like the paper-like text right on top, Kindle Voyage may not be the right choice. This said, when reading in dark using just the frontlight, it is harder to notice this than it would be with a top-down light shining on the reader. Not that I could use a top-down light with the Voyage in any case, without a bezel-cover at least, due to the fingerprint/glare situation.
There are a few innovations in the screen light area, including a night reading option (gradually lowering light as you read) and an ambient sensor. From my initial experience, I turned these off as the ambient sensor would boost up the light too much for me, as I prefer low levels. In longer term, I understand getting a better grasp would require more fiddling and experience, so I'll just leave these as a mention.
The exprience:
The second big thing about Kindle Voyage is the return of the page change buttons, of sorts. Two pushable pressure-sensitive areas line the screen on both sides, with pressable page forward/backward areas on either side. When I first got a Paperwhite 1, I worried that I would miss the page change buttons I so loved on previous Kindles, but turns out I liked the touch just fine. Still, I would have welcomed physical page change buttons back... I'm just not sure these are it.
Not only are the PagePress pressure area markings a little distracting when reading, they are so close to the flush screen (although not a problem when reading in darkness), I find the touchscreen still a nicer way of changing the pages. I get it that the PagePress works well if you just hold Kindle by the page press area with one hand and press down to change page, but that harmony breaks the minute you need to go back a page - and I do that quite often personally. On the upside, the PagePress feature does have quite a bit of configurability with several pressure levels and also adjustable vibration feedback (which works well if you like that). If the Kindle Voyage will become a daily reader for me, I guess this is an area where I just need to experiment. Luckily you can also turn PagePress off, although arguably you would also loose one major reason of getting the Kindle Voyage in the first place...
One thing where I'm finding the Kindle Voyage a bit confusing are the menus. Amazon has been adding all sorts of stuff already on the Paperwhites compared to where they started from, and now the new screen and button features on the Voyage add even more, that settings and stuff are a bit all over the place. I don't find the placement of many of the new settings or newish things like Goodreads/Vocabulary Builder and so forth at all logical. I think it might be Amazon some good to really overhaul the UI to think of natural places for everything, instead of just adding stuff where there is spare room.
The verdict:
At the moment, I find it unlikely this particular Kindle Voyage setup will end up as my daily driver. The contrast and sharpness of the screen is nice (best in a Kindle and thus very inviting), as is the size and shape of the device, and I can live with the somewhat floppy and less-than-perfect-for-me origami cover - its magnetic action is pleasing enough and it doesn't flail around when reading at least.
What bugs me most is the not even the color unevenness of the screen (although that is evident from the moment one turns it on), it is just the fact that the bottom half of the screen is so much brighter than the top half, that it is hard to find a balance. Those pin-holes don't help either, although that is more of a perfectionist notion than a real problem. I would forget about the pin-holes, were the light evenness good enough.
I might also consider, or at least suggest to others pondering this, if DecalGirl and clip-on light might work for Kindle Voyage - perhaps with some other cover that is more suited to clipping a light onto it than the origami is. As it is, I couldn't use a clip-on light with the Kindle Voyage, but with such changes, it might work. You can't turn off the screen light completely, but turn it max down and auto brightness off, an external light will easily overpower it and you have a very nice e-ink screen experience (although with some additional glare and layering from the glass top). I might also consider some of the other cases or replacing the Kindle Voyage.
In the end, I have to end another frontlit Kindle early review with mixed feelings and a note that I hear Kobo Aura H20 has a very even frontlight. Maybe I should check it out. Whether or not I'll return or replace the Kindle Voyage, I don't know yet. If and when I have something more to add, I will.
Edit: Fixed typos.
As I have previously reviewed the current Kindle (7th Generation) and also reviewed the official Kindle Voyage Origami Cover, I refer to those for comments on covers and how the Kindle Voyage came packaged, which is very similar to the Kindle (7th Generation). What differs between these two and their official Amazon covers is the fact that the basic 7th Generation has a book-like cover that attaches by friction from its sides, whereas the Kindle Voyage official cover is a top-opening origami stand that attaches to the reader by magnets, not traditionally from its sides.
The cover has the automatic on/off feature, but if the Voyage timeouts and turns off while on the table with its cover open, the case covers the unfortunate rear power button and you have to open the cover back to get to it, whereas on other Kindles you just press the power button that's next to the micro-USB port, which remains exposed no matter what the status of the cover. If they can put buttons on the side of a thin smartphone, they should be able to do that with a Kindle Voyage as well... Safe to say, in my use, a side power button would be much superior to a rear one.
The Kindle Voyage is small, although when placed next to Kindle (7h Generation), both in their covers, it doesn't feel quite as small as I expected. It is much better proportioned than the 7th Generation though, as the latter has that big "jaw" underneath - Kindle Voyage is very well proportioned all around and as a device looks nice. Two physical things I find odd about the Kindle Voyage, one is the rear power button (of course familiar sight from Kindle Fires) and the use of glossy plastic on the rear top part - Kindles have a nice history of using rugged materials and I fear glossy plastic may scratch faster than usual, whilst also being a fingerprint magnet (the origami cover mostly covers this area though).
Speaking of fingerprints, as the top of the Kindle Voyage is flush, a large piece of glass from corner to corner with black underneath the bezels, its bezels attract much more fingerprints than even the quite glossy black $69 Kindle 5 does. In fact, these glossy borders pretty much make using a clip-on reading light impossible with the Kindle Voyage, should one want to do something like that, because the bezel area is a glare-fest. I tried it with the nice Verso clip-on light I use with the basic Kindle and it just wasn't working because of that. One could try the DecalGirl route to rectify this, perhaps, but I'm not too keen on that. (DecalGirl would also cover the PagePress button markings, which might be a benefit as I find them a little distracting when reading in not-dark.) The magnetic, top-opening origami cover also makes it pretty hard to nicely clip the clip-on light to the set. Using some other cover, perhaps one that covers the bezels as well if one likes those (I don't), could help too.
Weight of the Kindle Voyage and the official cover compared to some other devices (in grams):
Kindle Voyage without cover: 179 g
Kindle Voyage with official origami cover: 312 g
New Kindle (7th Generation) without cover: 191 g
New Kindle (7th Generation) with official cover: 300 g
$69 Kindle 4B/5 without cover: 168 g
$69 Kindle 4B/5 with official lighted cover: 313 g
Paperwhite 1 3G: 220 g
Paperwhite 1 3G with official cover: 355 g
Paperwhite 2 Wi-Fi: 208 g
Kindle DX "Graphite": 536 g
Kindle DX "Graphite" with official cover: 900 g
The screen:
The big thing about Kindle Voyage is of course its new, sharpest-on-a-Kindle-yet screen, with flush glass, new frontlight lightguide and capacitive touch on top. Kindle Voyage is, basically, a Kindle Paperwhite 3 in the Kindle family parlance, just a bigger change than Paperwhite 1 to 2 was.
As I did with the Paperwhites, I find the Kindle Voyage screen controversial. On the upside, the improved resolution feels to me a bigger step forward than Paperwhite was compared to non-lit Kindles that all have a lower-resolution screen. The text on the Kindle Voyage definitely is sharper and more beautiful than on the Paperwhite, nor is it as muddied as it sometimes feels on the Paperwhites. Contrast is also up, as is text blackness, especially compared to Paperwhites - perhaps even keel with the late-generation non-lit Kindles that have always trumped the Paperwhites on text blackness. So, on contrast and sharpness, the Kindle Voyage screen is definitely the best Kindle screen I have ever witnessed. No doubt about it.
Now, onto the controversy that makes me wonder if I'm playing the exchange game or what. The light layer does have a few bright specks on it, when displaying bright light on a dark background. One pin-hole is especially evident every time you boot up and the light is at a high level, as it is a shining speck smack in the middle of the black hillside on the Kindle bootscreen. I've witnessed some of this on all front-lit Kindles I've seen, some better, some worse, and exchanged a Paperwhite 2 for similar reasons. This, I guess, comes with the territory like dead pixels on LCDs. These specks do not show when light levels are lower or when reading text, so unlike some of the more glaring defects that e.g. made me swap a Paperwhite 2, I'm not sure if this alone is a deal-breaker.
What is more puzzling to my mind is the unevenness of the light itself. When I turn the light all the way off, the Kindle Voyage has a pretty yellow screen, just like Kindle Paperwhite 2 (Paperwhite 1 and non-lit e-ink Kindles have more grey screen generations). This is not an issue for me, reading Kindle Voyage in daylight would probably be pretty nice. My problem is that I read 99% in the dark, in bed. When you flip on the light, the lower portion of the Voyage lights up considerably more than the top part. This is really evident when comparing with a Paperwhite 2, which may be a little darker in the middle, but is well lit both bottom and top. Kindle Voyage is well lit on the bottom and less lit on the top - there is a distinct gradient or even a bottom half/top half thing going on.
What's more, the LEDs make the yellow e-ink screen cooler tone in the bottom, but are not powerful enough to cool the top tones, so the top remains more yellow while the bottom gets a whiter tone on the background. From a day and a night of reading, I can't say I'm personally too bothered by the color shift, though. What troubles me is that I can't seem to get a comfortable balance where the bottom and top would be lit just right - push it up so that top is nice, the bottom is too bright, push it down so bottom is nice, top is too dark. Time will tell if I can find a balance, if I'm bailing or trying the replacements game. FWIW, the screen is not crooked, though.
Finally, for those saying the text in Kindle Voyage feels like it is on top of the glass, I can not share that experience at all. Place dust or something on the screen and the distance from the text and the top of the glass is such that the dust actually shines a shadow on the e-ink screen "far" underneath. So, just like on Paperwhites, Kindle Voyage definitely distances the e-ink screen from the top of the screen glass due to the layers in between. There is now even an added layer: e-ink, light guide, capacitive layer and top glass (compared to just e-ink on the Kindle 7th Generation). For those who like the paper-like text right on top, Kindle Voyage may not be the right choice. This said, when reading in dark using just the frontlight, it is harder to notice this than it would be with a top-down light shining on the reader. Not that I could use a top-down light with the Voyage in any case, without a bezel-cover at least, due to the fingerprint/glare situation.
There are a few innovations in the screen light area, including a night reading option (gradually lowering light as you read) and an ambient sensor. From my initial experience, I turned these off as the ambient sensor would boost up the light too much for me, as I prefer low levels. In longer term, I understand getting a better grasp would require more fiddling and experience, so I'll just leave these as a mention.
The exprience:
The second big thing about Kindle Voyage is the return of the page change buttons, of sorts. Two pushable pressure-sensitive areas line the screen on both sides, with pressable page forward/backward areas on either side. When I first got a Paperwhite 1, I worried that I would miss the page change buttons I so loved on previous Kindles, but turns out I liked the touch just fine. Still, I would have welcomed physical page change buttons back... I'm just not sure these are it.
Not only are the PagePress pressure area markings a little distracting when reading, they are so close to the flush screen (although not a problem when reading in darkness), I find the touchscreen still a nicer way of changing the pages. I get it that the PagePress works well if you just hold Kindle by the page press area with one hand and press down to change page, but that harmony breaks the minute you need to go back a page - and I do that quite often personally. On the upside, the PagePress feature does have quite a bit of configurability with several pressure levels and also adjustable vibration feedback (which works well if you like that). If the Kindle Voyage will become a daily reader for me, I guess this is an area where I just need to experiment. Luckily you can also turn PagePress off, although arguably you would also loose one major reason of getting the Kindle Voyage in the first place...
One thing where I'm finding the Kindle Voyage a bit confusing are the menus. Amazon has been adding all sorts of stuff already on the Paperwhites compared to where they started from, and now the new screen and button features on the Voyage add even more, that settings and stuff are a bit all over the place. I don't find the placement of many of the new settings or newish things like Goodreads/Vocabulary Builder and so forth at all logical. I think it might be Amazon some good to really overhaul the UI to think of natural places for everything, instead of just adding stuff where there is spare room.
The verdict:
At the moment, I find it unlikely this particular Kindle Voyage setup will end up as my daily driver. The contrast and sharpness of the screen is nice (best in a Kindle and thus very inviting), as is the size and shape of the device, and I can live with the somewhat floppy and less-than-perfect-for-me origami cover - its magnetic action is pleasing enough and it doesn't flail around when reading at least.
What bugs me most is the not even the color unevenness of the screen (although that is evident from the moment one turns it on), it is just the fact that the bottom half of the screen is so much brighter than the top half, that it is hard to find a balance. Those pin-holes don't help either, although that is more of a perfectionist notion than a real problem. I would forget about the pin-holes, were the light evenness good enough.
I might also consider, or at least suggest to others pondering this, if DecalGirl and clip-on light might work for Kindle Voyage - perhaps with some other cover that is more suited to clipping a light onto it than the origami is. As it is, I couldn't use a clip-on light with the Kindle Voyage, but with such changes, it might work. You can't turn off the screen light completely, but turn it max down and auto brightness off, an external light will easily overpower it and you have a very nice e-ink screen experience (although with some additional glare and layering from the glass top). I might also consider some of the other cases or replacing the Kindle Voyage.
In the end, I have to end another frontlit Kindle early review with mixed feelings and a note that I hear Kobo Aura H20 has a very even frontlight. Maybe I should check it out. Whether or not I'll return or replace the Kindle Voyage, I don't know yet. If and when I have something more to add, I will.
Edit: Fixed typos.