I've got the 2013 Kindle and I'm wondering how much faster the newer versions are for looking up words.  A nicer screen would be ok but not enough to upgrade, however, I get kind of tired of highlighting a word and waiting while the Kindle thinks and thinks.. maybe it's in the dictionary.. then finally it pops up. If it's in the dictionary.

I don't know about the Kindle, but I use my Android tablet for reading, since dictionary look-ups are almost instant.
I have an e-book reader, too, but just like you I find it too slow to enjoyably read when looking up words.
So I guess my suggestion is to try reading on a tablet, if you have one that is.

I have an iPad and an iPhone. What I dislike about those devices and the kindle app is that when I go to look up a word it has to highlight it first and then I can click the highlight and it looks that up. It also doesn't do a good job with conjugations. Does the android app work better for you?

Ehhh it works pretty well if you tap between the kanji instead on the first kanji (as if it were rikai sama). Glad I found this out.

I don't use the Kindle app. I use 多看阅读HD because I'm learning Chinese. But I bet there is something similar for Japanese.
What I like about it is, that is has a Chinese-Chinese and a Chinese-English dictionary, has links to wikipedia etc. and does a pretty good job of selecting whole words or 成语.

It looks like this when I tap on a word:
(image gets clearer if you open it in a new tab..)

(2016-02-17, 4:37 am)kraemder Wrote: I've got the 2013 Kindle and I'm wondering how much faster the newer versions are for looking up words.  A nicer screen would be ok but not enough to upgrade, however, I get kind of tired of highlighting a word and waiting while the Kindle thinks and thinks.. maybe it's in the dictionary.. then finally it pops up. If it's in the dictionary.

I got at 2015 kindle and I fint it to be very slow looking up words. Sometimes it hangs for say 10-20 seconds. I like the Kindle for many things, but the slowness of looking up words is really annoying.

I got a 1st gen 2013 Paperwhite, it takes about 2 seconds for the definition to appear.

And that is because a short touch is a turn page (Paperwhite doesn't have physical turn page buttons), so it requires a long press to differentiate the touch as "search this", otherwise I think it could be just as fast as the e-ink screen allows.

An 2016 Voyager should be theoretically faster.

I've also got a 1st gen Paperwhite, and looking up words is really fast, like visualsense mentioned.

Hmm, maybe something is wrong with mine. I will look intro trying to reset it or something.

I had the same issue a while ago, and after a google search I saw I wasn't the only one.

Basically there are two solutions:

1) keep the power button pressed for 15 seconds to do a soft reset (this didn't work for me);

2) Go through the setting to find the hard reset option, which will bring your Kindle to its initial state, like when you bought it. This will remove all your content and settings. (This method worked for me)

Ater this I noted that it was fast in the beginning, but after a lot of dictionary lookup it tended to slow-down again. After the first hard reset though, it was enough to do a soft reset to speed up it again. But it was still annoying the fact I had to reboot it once in a while...

So I read it could be caused by some poorly indicized dictionaries, and at the time I had a user-made jmdict dictionary.
I tried to remove it and I did an hard reset again.

After that I never had that issue again. Hope this will help you to resolve it too!

(2016-02-18, 4:07 am)cophnia61 Wrote: I had the same issue a while ago, and after a google search I saw I wasn't the only one.

Basically there are two solutions:

1) keep the power button pressed for 15 seconds to do a soft reset (this didn't work for me);

2) Go through the setting to find the hard reset option, which will bring your Kindle to its initial state, like when you bought it. This will remove all your content and settings. (This method worked for me)

Ater this I noted that it was fast in the beginning, but after a lot of dictionary lookup it tended to slow-down again. After the first hard reset though, it was enough to do a soft reset to speed up it again. But it was still annoying the fact I had to reboot it once in a while...

So I read it could be caused by some poorly indicized dictionaries, and at the time I had a user-made jmdict dictionary.
I tried to remove it and I did an hard reset again.

After that I never had that issue again. Hope this will help you to resolve it too!

Which dictionary are you using? I probably have some bad dictionaries I need to delete since I pretty much just buy every dictionary I can find I case it's better.

(2016-02-18, 10:42 am)kraemder Wrote: Which dictionary are you using? I probably have some bad dictionaries I need to delete since I pretty much just buy every dictionary I can find I case it's better.

I don't remember he exact names, but they are the two default j-e and j-j kindle dictionaries.
The j-e one is called something like "japanese english progressive dictionary", while the j-j one is the "daijisen".

I realize the screen quality might be an issue for some, but have you considered the new 7" Fire?  It should go back down to 35 or 40 bucks pretty soon, and ever since I got one for Christmas, I've gotta say, it's absolutely amazing for Japanese study. The screen size is just right (and the quality really isn't all that bad), and when you side load the Google Play Store, you can get just about anything, and with the Micro-SD support, it's hard to ask for much more at that price point..  You'll want to set your language to Japanese, though, since it displays the Chinese variants of most characters when it's set to English.

(2016-02-19, 4:01 pm)Raulsen Wrote: I realize the screen quality might be an issue for some, but have you considered the new 7" Fire?  It should go back down to 35 or 40 bucks pretty soon, and ever since I got one for Christmas, I've gotta say, it's absolutely amazing for Japanese study. The screen size is just right (and the quality really isn't all that bad), and when you side load the Google Play Store, you can get just about anything, and with the Micro-SD support, it's hard to ask for much more at that price point..  You'll want to set your language to Japanese, though, since it displays the Chinese variants of most characters when it's set to English.

I agree. I love e-ink readers, but I think that a cheap tablet like the Fire it's a better choice for japanese studies.
I have an Asus Memopad with comparable specifics and it has revolutionized my learning process, it's really that convenient.
When I want to read a novel, I use Jade Reader (immediate looking up of words, with another tap you can save them to a list already formatted to be exported to Anki); for mangas I use OCR Manga Reader, that has similar functions and, in addition, connects directly to a dictionary like Aedict; as dictionaries, like I said I use Aedict and JiShop, an amazing app that can find even the most clumsy hand-drawned kanji; for anime and other videos you can use almost any player.
You can even install an app like Last App Switcher, that creates an unobtrusive button in a corner of the screen with which you can switch between the running app and the last opened one. I tend to use it when I have an english version of the novel I'm reading and I want to compare the translation, or to open aedict when the OCR can't find a word in a manga.
These are all free apps except Aedict (3€) and Jishop (7€), so it's a cheap setup.

(2016-02-20, 5:15 am)Moregon Wrote: You can even install an app like Last App Switcher, that creates an unobtrusive button in a corner of the screen with which you can switch between the running app and the last opened one. 

You can also set a button to do that.  I have it so double clicking the home button does that.

(2016-02-20, 1:21 pm)cracky Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 5:15 am)Moregon Wrote: You can even install an app like Last App Switcher, that creates an unobtrusive button in a corner of the screen with which you can switch between the running app and the last opened one. 

You can also set a button to do that.  I have it so double clicking the home button does that.

Even on Android 4.3? Due to the Memopad crappy hardware I've avoided to upgrade to Kit Kat

(2016-02-20, 1:55 pm)Moregon Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 1:21 pm)cracky Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 5:15 am)Moregon Wrote: You can even install an app like Last App Switcher, that creates an unobtrusive button in a corner of the screen with which you can switch between the running app and the last opened one. 

You can also set a button to do that.  I have it so double clicking the home button does that.

Even on Android 4.3? Due to the Memopad crappy hardware I've avoided to upgrade to Kit Kat

Not totally sure, I think apps like Home Button Launcher and Home2 Shortcut would work though.