Quote:
Originally Posted by salamanderjuice
And you can get basically the same form factor in the Kobo Libra 2 if you really must have buttons for less as well. The current Kindle Oasis is a weird overpriced product.
|
The Oasis is not just about buttons. It's about positioning it as a 'luxury' device in a market that would otherwise lack such a device. Kobo does not product a 'luxury' eReader, and nobody else does, either.
It probably is rather more expensive to produce, and doesn't sell the units that might allow for economies of scale. It's never discounted, again reinforcing the positioning Amazon wants to project ('the best').
Apparently in addition to Kindle customers who are button-lovers, there are people who are not price-sensitive and just want to get/give 'the best', because there have been 3 iterations of the Oasis. The Voyage had a different fate.
But the eReader market is changing, it remains to be seen if Amazon thinks it can be successful with Oasis 4. No doubt there is a prototype, but I would not expect it to roll out until next year: they would rather sell the newest Kindle and Paperwhite during this holiday season.