Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony1988
There's a ton of smaller ereaders out there
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Yes, and I have many of them.
No one of them is ideal but all the features I want are out there if only someone would put them all together. I want a high-end ereader in a small body and right now I have to settle for one or the other.
A six-inch screen is best for me. For portability of course but also for ease of holding (I have weak hands) and for readability. I wear glasses with progressive lenses and the reading area on them is quite small; a larger screen is harder for me to focus on.
At home I tend to gravitate to my Nook Glowlight 3. The wide rubbery bezel makes it really comfortable to hold; it’s not my lightest ereader but it feels the lightest. It’s a bit bulky to be ideal for carrying around though, it isn’t waterproof, and the software isn’t the best.
My Clara is ok but it’s slippery with a narrow bezel -- it isn’t nearly as comfortable to hold as the Nook, it has no buttons, and it isn’t waterproof.
My H2O2 is also very nice but it’s a bit too big and too heavy for me; I mostly use it for reading in the tub.
I think the asymmetrical bezel on the Oasis One was a brilliant idea because the wide side makes it easier to hold while still saving space on the other three sides. Unfortunately, it’s so slippery and so thin that my hands tend to cramp trying to hold onto it. As brilliant as I think the design is I think the split battery was a big step too far; the connection on mine fails regularly, causing freezes and depleted battery (and the battery life on mine varies a lot anyway). And it was so unnecessary; making it just a bit thicker to accommodate the whole battery would have been much simpler. Also, it’s not waterproof and doesn’t have comfort lighting.
I’m guessing that the original Oasis design was considered somewhat of a failure since it was abandoned so quickly. For me, the failure was mainly the split battery concept but I’m afraid that Amazon (and probably the rest of the world) has decided that the problem was the size/price ratio.
I've managed to resist the Aura One but I really like the asymmetry of the new Forma so I'm really tempted, even though I know I'll probably find it too big and too slippery. I'd order one in a heartbeat if it came in a smaller size.