Amazon Kindle Oasis Is the Best e-Reader I’ve Ever Seen – Review
Pros
- You can adjust the font size to your reading habits
- The reading experience is just great
- The screen quality is the best on the market
Cons
- You can’t connect headphones
- The thick bottom is weird
- Not priced for everyone
The bottom line about Amazon Oasis
Let’s start from the end, the Amazon Oasis e reader is a premium product and probably the best kindle on the market right now. It holds some features you won’t find in cheaper brands like the high quality display and the ability to adjust brightness and more.
But it is not for everyone due to high cost, but hey, if you want the best, you pay for it I guess.
I must admit that I am a huge fan of Amazon’s Kindles, even though at first I was reluctant about leaving traditional reading behind and after the launch of the Kindle Paperwhite, I thought that there’s no way anybody could do a better ebook reader.
I was, of course, wrong and it’s fortunately Amazon who decided to prove the contrary with the announced release of their latest model, the Kindle Oasis. This is the best e-Reader that I’ve ever seen!
Please note: Our blog gets commissions for purchases made through links in this article.
Let’s talk about the design
What is surprising about the Kindle Oasis is that it comes with a new design and a new approach to the world of ebook readers.
It’s a brave move from Amazon who decided not to follow the “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” rule and I personally believe that it was the winning move and exactly what readers all over the world needed.
The new Kindle Oasis, apart from its brand new design, is 30% thinner and 20% lighter than the previous device.
An interesting treat that it has is the leather charging cover which is absolutely amazing, providing months of reading without having to recharge the device again. The leather cover is also removable and comes in black, merlot or walnut colors.
The new Kindle Oasis was released on sale on Amazon on April 27 2019, but you could have pre-order it if you wanted to. And I sure did want to.
The Kindle Oasis is also water resistance and it has been told it could still work even if you drop it in water up to two meters and for up to an hour.
One thing that bugs me is that they didn’t make it with what almost every other e-reader did which is to include a USB C charging port.
Instead, you have the not so dated Micro USB, this means you need to change your charger every time when you charge because most iPhones and tablets today don’t use it.
Another thing that is weird, no headphones jack or speakers, that’s weird right? If you want to listen to audio books you will need to use a bluetooth headphones or speakers, which I guess is ok today as everyone has bluetooth headphones.
There are two buttons at the bottom of the Kindle that are used to turn the pages back and fourth. In previous models you would need to touch the screen to do that, and interestingly enough, using the buttons is actually very convenient.
Let’s talk about the display
The Amazon Kindle Oasis has 60% more LEDs than the previous models, offering a 300 ppi display (which means that it looks like printed pages), all on a 6 inch display.
You can control the brightness of the display from the easily accessible menu, or you can have it adjust the brightness itself like many other devices today.
I found that the refresh rate of the screen is on point, it is obviously not as great as an iPhone or other smartphones, but it is solid.
Let’s talk about the battery
The official battery life according to the Kindle Oasis manufacturer is a whopping six weeks. Yes, six weeks. That’s really crazy right?
In reality the battery lasts much less, and after researching the topic further I understood that to reach this level of battery life you need to limit your usage to only 30 minutes a day and adjust your brightness settings.
Bottom line though, even if you use it how ever you want, it will still last you a few weeks, which is pretty great don’t you think?
Charging the Kindle can take a few hours straight to bring it to full, but considering you only need to charge this thing once in a few weeks, it’s not that bed. Just hook it up at night when you sleep for a few hours and you are good to do.
Let’s talk about the Software
The Oasis Kindle runs with the Amazon software obviously but it is well integrated in the device. So much so it can get confusing sometimes.
If you’re looking for the same smoothness and fastness of smartphones, you will be disappointed. Like most e readers, this device is meant for reading books, so to that goal, it performs great, but for other things? Not so much.
A cool thing that sets the Oasis apart in my opinion is the ability to change the book font. If you simply can’t read a book with any other font than your fav, you’re all set with the Oasis.
Let’s talk about price
If you’re an avid reader, consider making a subscription to the Amazon Kindle Unlimited where you can rent books at two price plans:
With these you can download and store up to 10 books at once, pretty nice right? The downside is that for some reason the Amazon Kindle Unlimited is really kinda limited lol. The library of books is not that HUGE.
A good alternative will be to Amazon Prime users who get access to the Prime books library
The Kindle Oasis itself comes with a price point of between $250 to $350 depending where you buy.