So, my first impressions.
I guess the screen is the first thing we all look at. I’ve looked at it from every angle in every light, with the light off and on, set high and low, with and without my specs! I can’t see any problems - no uneven colouring or lighting at all, so I’m very pleased about that, given some of the reports. Placed next to my PW2 using the same light setting, the Voyage has a noticeably whiter background which is all to the good, though I was happy with the PW colour. I’ve hardly noticed that the bezel is flush - being black, there’s still a clear demarcation between bezel and actual screen. It seems to show finger marks more though, and there’s a slight reflection occasionally – inevitable I suppose when you have glass with a black background. I have yet to get to grips with how the autolight function works, but in the meantime it’s no bother to change it manually as before.
The text seems finer and crisper. I usually use (and have been perfectly happy with) the default Caecilia font on size 4. It’s bigger on the Voyage than the PW though, too big really, so I’ve knocked it down to 3, which although quite a bit smaller than I’m used to is clear enough. The font also seems slightly different, less round perhaps, but that may be just an impression because I can’t get the identical size to compare or because it’s finer. It is a tad disappointing that long after other devices have had many more font choices and even the ability to load one’s own, that Amazon chooses not to implement this – but it’s not a deal breaker for me.
It’s definitely much faster, especially downloading books – and it seemed to index them pretty much immediately, even when I deliberately downloaded a large number altogether. No more leaving it overnight to index as we had to in the early days! My collections synced automatically with no problem and once I’d remembered to tell it to show the collections I wanted in all views, I was good to go. There was also no problem connecting to my Wi-Fi. I’m very pleased to have 3g again too – I just had Wi-Fi on my PW2 and it was the first time I’d ever done that - but have decided that, for me at least, it’s worth the extra splurge to get the 3g. No problems with the 3g signal.
I’ve never missed the page turn buttons and using a touch screen for so long I’m out of the habit of having to hit a precise spot to get the page to change, so I’ve carried on touching the screen as before. The only time they might be useful to me is when changing pages on the home screen etc., where you have to remember to swipe rather than tap - but I keep missing the exact spot on the bezel which gets frustrating! At least having both hopefully keeps everyone happy for a change.
The on/off button being on the back is slightly inconvenient at the moment, only because I have yet to get a suitable cover with the auto on/off feature. I’m using a spare PW2 case to carry it about which doesn’t work with this model so I have to keep remembering to put it to sleep manually when I finish reading – though I guess it wouldn’t hurt to leave it to go off by itself. Once I have the correct cover, I would hope I would rarely need to use it – and the cover may have a hole for it anyway.
I haven’t come across any significant difference between the PW2 and the Voyage as far as the software and settings etc. are concerned – I think it works pretty much as it did before.
In conclusion, I would say that my first impressions are very favourable and I’m happy I decided to upgrade. I’ll be glad to get a cover sorted though – I find I don’t like reading it naked.