Kindle Oasis, a small and expensive breath of fresh air

Kindle Oasis

Many who have followed the evolution of the electronic market we are cured to new products. Little competed, with just two or three major players, the absence of disrupting innovations has caused the e – book suffers from an enhanced that of the tablets syndrome version: even more, their owners are very few reasons to renew them unless lost or break yours.

Moreover, what many people go around asking it is whether it makes sense to buy back an electronic book reader for reading and bet on paper and mobile or tablet, simplifying your life with a device unless they carry?

So when reached Kindle Oasis with its asymmetrical design, small size, and touch screen but with physical buttons and much higher price than Amazon has accustomed us, we have asked yourself is what I needed category to return to speak of it as an innovative space where remarkable devices are created? Let’s see.

The design for reading

A force to be honest, one cannot find a better way to make an analysis of an electronic book reader to tell the experience: how it is to read with him.

With the Kindle Oasis, however, the design choices that made Amazon do make sense at the time to stop before you start turning pages.

Which puts Oasis as a rupturista reader Kindle line is its commitment to asymmetry, a rarity in the world design playing the against everything, that neurobiology preaches our taste for beauty: the human being is the harmony and beauty in the symmetrical.

Kindle Oasis
Image Source: Google Image

However, the Kindle Oasis comes to the rescue of digital book reader to the point at which I suspect most will be more than willing to move from the symmetrical to embrace what this reader offers us the subject with one hand is a delight and this opens up new moments of reading.

The bulk side of the Kindle Oasis allows part of the hand rest with him and can hold the device with vigor. To improve this experience compared to any other book help the weight and size of the Oasis, which improve so very noticeable foregoing Amazon and its competitors?

To this, add a new decision to applaud in terms of design, the return of the physical buttons. After several years with Paperwhite as a reader – I am one of those who remain in the commitment to read digitally with pileup ad-hoc – had just convince me that the touch screen could provide a sound experience, but never better than physical buttons.

It is not the only personalistic feature in the Oasis. To have it is very appreciable hump with which have equipped. In this aspect it is difficult to discern whether they wanted to make up all the space lost by the battery for it’s smaller than its predecessors and add thickness was a solution or, thinking about the subject with one hand, took the opportunity to add this irregularity that improves grip.

Be that as it may Kindle Oasis if anything can boast is light and thin. The process of shrinking the reader makes the Oasis the third big jump in the line of Kindle: The first started with the original, the second nation Paperwhite hand with backlit screen. Oasis opens the way to the “invisibility” of the reader … and here comes in the accompanying battery.

This section of size, weight and thickness is not trivial. With a mission to reach the reader the experience of reading a book, but to use those areas in which the device can be better than a book. We have the classic section how we can carry with him (Oasis with its four gigas not upgradeable brings us to the thousands, not needed anymore), but in the subject for hours we have another point of possible improvement: Oasis with its 3.4mm of thickness and weight of 133 grams (240 grams with case) is not to compete with a paperback book of 300 pages, is that it is still lighter.

In another sense we can speak of sacrifice in size and therefore in autonomy from Paperwhite. Amazon has wanted offset by the inseparable Oasis of the sheath with inversely to the hump of the reader. The cover not only have an aesthetic and protective function, has its own battery that can charge next to Oasis through the microUSB of this (without the Oasis sheath cannot be loaded single).

Without the new Kindle cover, it loses autonomy from Paperwhite. Amazon continues to point to two weeks, but in my case has been about ten days of usewith a couple of hours or three and a half brightness. The model is the 3g and have kept the connection: lower brightness and using airplane mode (which much prefers Kindle user, to share can distract), is increased appreciably. With the case comes to be above average in the category, in fact Amazon states that are nine weeks! In the duration of this test, we have not been able to exhaust it after having exhausted once the Kindle Oasis unsheathed, so we can only ensure that at least it will give four weeks with the previous pattern of use.

In any case, the inclusion of the case is also a symptom of the commitments that Amazon comes with Oasis. With current technology are not able to maintain the standards of previous autonomy, when the new Kindle is used with extreme lightness she loses that although can always be used with one hand.\

Reading with the Kindle Oasis

We mentioned in the section design that the return of the physical button was an element to applaud. Amazon makes a trip to the past to rescue before the line was imposed Kindle Touch buttons.

This time the buttons are not placed on the edge like years ago, nor are false and Voyage capacitive buttons, but stand highlights the wide side of the Oasis. His return ensures that the experience with one hand is round and, above all, breaks with the time that you “out of reading” which is none other than not right with gesture and adequate movement on the touch screen causes do not take the right page.

In this, some may seem maniacs, but there is nothing more important that you ask an eBook reader. We are users who buy a gadget that does only one thing and hope that in this use case has an irreproachable behavior.

Moreover, the great virtue of the book reader is all it does. Do not interrupt with notifications, offering no tempts you add videos or music (could discuss whether it was good decision to leave audio support and thus audiobooks), has no games or messaging or anything. An ideal reader is the least in your way when reading.

Amazon fell prey at the time frame dictated by touch screen phones and its rise as hegemonic gadget industry. In that way, much improved several key experiences, from selection and emphasis to share fragments of books. However additional complexity by mixing them in the same interaction element was added that the case of critical use, page turning.

The return of the physical button, much as it seems a step back, is great news when trying to get that dive in the book that users of such clunkers demand.

Something to note is that the top button is used to move forward and the bottom page to return to the previous … as we catch we catch the Kindle Oasis. Thanks to the built -in accelerometer, the reader senses that we are holding hand and configures itself to both use the buttons to the screen, providing identical experience to lefties and righties.

Looking back at the screen we have the aspect that there is greater continuity regarding previous Paperwhite and Voyage. The remain 300 PPI electronic ink backlit already know, that effect which can be read without light yet not output this directly to the reader’s eyes – – and for a user Paperwhite a curious effect: by comparing together your screen and Oasis it is true that the latter is clearer, proven and bright, but as a user until that moment did not feel a great need for improvement.

One aspect in which the improvement itself was sued is in the uniformity in brightness. In Paperwhite this is not entirely succeeded in Oasis and the improvement is remarkable. Amazon claims that due to the increase of LEDs, either way, is the point where the screen was still pending when approaching the subject reading on paper.

You may also like to read another article on TheKindle3Books: Does it make sense Kindle Oasis so expensive? We review the evolution of Amazon readers

An important point is that something that Amazon joined the line Voyage is lost, the ambient light sensor with the display option automatically adjust their brightness depending on it. Paperwhite return to the point of having to adjust every time if we want to optimize the experience. In my case, after years of use my impression is that adjusting the brightness to medium outstanding experience in almost any environment is obtained, so it is something that I forget as I take time with each new Kindle.

In addition to all the aforementioned benefits, there are some points still obscure the Kindle experience. One is recurrent, the (softer certainly less rough with Oasis, in other readers) touch screen continues to offer a user experience that can hardly be classified as acceptable: select and move on yet, write not so much and both far from we have today a tablet.

That would add a step back to the Oasis. If we read and we return soon, in less than an hour, the “return to the page that would” happen quickly; if you spend more than an hour the device enters a state of “hibernation” (again have autonomy for thinness and size) that causes to want to return to reading within two or three seconds. This may seem a “little silly to find fault in the analysis,” but when a device has the mission objective to approach reading on paper, this is what we must demand. In addition, so far no paper book has required me three seconds since open it until I see the words before.

Business and price

Until now, the business of the Kindle seemed a “no business” to Amazon. The price of each reader was so low that ended throwing almost any other player in the sector. High quality, as good as the best in the competition (and here I think longingly of readers Sony)

As with their tablets or your “console / set top box,” Amazon’s strategy has always been within the framework “we do not do business with the hardware, we cheap hardware to do business with the content.”

Seeing the price of Oasis can see two scenarios. One is that Amazon looking almost alone in the market begins to flirt with the idea of making money with readers of books; the other is that the costs of doing Oasis have meant a step up, something that started more timid with Paperwhite and especially with Voyage.

A third scenario would not rule out the machinery of Amazon. It is a classic psychology price if before we have two options, customers will opt more for the cheaper compared to a scenario in which there are three options, in which the middle one (more expensive previous) no longer seems so much. On the ground, this translates Kindle to offer the Oasis can get customers to choose more Paperwhite that the cheapest and basic model and therefore, the average selling price improved to Amazon.

Anyway, the Oasis is in another league price. It is an outstanding device, with great design (reminder: not understanding the design as mere aesthetics) despite the asymmetry and hump will grant a very strong personality that not everyone will like. Amazon is asking him that for a single use case – reading books and well formatted content or even PDF documents – pay much more than it takes years telling us that worth a reader e – books.

At least this time there are more successes and steps forward than the previous attempt, Voyage, Amazon, intelligently, and barely shows. For more visit http://madblogz.com/.