• Home
  • /
  • General
  • /
  • New E-Reader Reviews: The Amazon Kindle Oasis

New E-Reader Reviews: The Amazon Kindle Oasis

kindle-oasisWe all look forward to springtime when we can dress lighter and stop lugging around those bulky coats, thick gloves, and heavy boots. Apparently the engineers at Amazon have a case of the spring fever, too. Beginning April 27, 2016, the company that gave the world the first-ever e-reader gadget will begin selling the newest, lightest, and thinnest Kindle ever offered. To keep you updated and help you make smart consumer decisions, here is a sneak preview – and a quick review – of the Kindle Oasis.

Ultimate Portability

  • The Oasis is lighter than a paperback book, tipping the scales at around a skinny quarter-pound or slightly more. The dimensions are approximately 6 inches by 4.8 inches. That makes the Oasis smaller than most paperbacks and only slightly wider and taller than a smartphone – but still large enough for comfortable reading without straining your eyes.
  • An innovative, more ergonomic handgrip puts the center of gravity or balance in the middle of your palm, so you can rest the Oasis in your hand the way you would do the spine of a traditional book. That exquisite balance also makes it easy and comfortable to hold your e-reader with just one hand. The page orientation also automatically rotates to give you the proper view, depending on which hand holds the Oasis.
  • To turn the pages, you can use the touch screen display or the dedicated page turner buttons on the device, which are located on the front of the handgrip. There is also a page-flip feature that lets you skim page-by-page, from chapter to chapter, or to jump right to the end.

Powerful Battery Life

The Oasis also sports the longest Kindle battery life, and it comes with a removable leather charging cover that can help boost the life of the battery. (In addition to the charging cover, each device comes with a USB 2.0 charging cable.) How that works is that the device and cover both charge simultaneously while snapped together and plugged in to a power outlet. When you are unplugged, the cover will automatically recharge the device. The cover attaches with a dozen small magnets, so if you want to really go lightweight you can easily remove it. Amazon also incorporated a new “hibernation mode” that minimizes power consumption whenever your Kindle is inactive.

Crisp Viewing – Even in Sunlight

The display is high-resolution with crisp text on real-looking electronic “paper,” and readability is excellent even in direct sunlight. There’s also a built-in adjustable light for consistently even illumination regardless of lighting conditions. One of the major selling features of the Oasis is that it actually offers 60% more LED lights than previous Kindle versions, and it features a front light that spreads the illumination evenly across the page. That is different from conventional back-lit devices that shine the light in the direction of your eyes, which can produce more eye strain. A micro-etched glass screen reduces glare and also makes the surface of the screen feel like real paper.

The Not-So-Good News

If you like to combine your e-reader with activities like reading and sending emails, texting, or keeping up with friends on social media, that isn’t possible with the Oasis. It was designed exclusively as a reader. Eliminating all those other bells and whistles made it possible to design such a small and exceptionally high-quality e-reader device. (On the plus side, the Oasis is completely wireless, so that you never have to plug it into a computer to download books and other content – which it can download using it own internal Wi-Fi capability. There is also 4 gigs of storage, so you can carry thousands of books on the Oasis.)

Then there is the price, which will likely be a hot-button issue for critics and consumers who feel that it is too steep for such a little gadget. The Oasis is currently priced at $289.00. That’s about $200 more than the highly acclaimed Paperwhite Kindle, for example, which may not be quite as compact and cool but is also not nearly as expensive.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is this: The Amazon Oasis is a fantastic e-reader, and it literally puts e-books into the palm of your hand. The longer battery life and superior portability due to its size and featherweight design make it the ideal e-reader for Amazon to bring to market at the start of springtime – when so many customers are on the go and want to travel light. But it will become more popular if and when the price drops by a significant amount. Meanwhile, that hefty price tag threatens to undermine the allure of those positive features – and will likely be a weight that drags down sales volume on the weight-conscious Oasis for the time being.

Share Article:

free-ebooks

Free-Ebooks.net Blog

All Posts

3 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Welcome to the Free eBooks Blog!

Discover 1000’s of New Authors in Hundreds of Categories, Fiction and Non-Fiction – Free Every Month!

Follow On Instagram

True Stories
Dystopian Stories
For Youth

Three Proud Women is a fiction and alternate history novel which is the sequel to my And An Angel Sang. It tells the continuing adventures of three outstanding women…

 
Edit Template