Amazon announces Kindle Oasis

[Steve H]

Originally Posted by Shane R

Do you believe the Kindle ecosystem needs to be reinvigorated?

Not the ecosystem-The Kindle team.The exclusive books realm continues to expand, especially in fiction. And overall book pricing usually the lowest.

IMO what needs to happen is to get out of their own, somewhat elite heads and review forums for ideas. If that device was 8" possibly a third of us would be admiring this device(affordability is another issue). What I think they missed is low hanging fruit...It would take very little effort to offer more formatting and font options. I see opinions in favor of those options all of the time.

Len Edgerly of the Kindle Chronicles has a sort of interview with Team Kindle members out today. In it they express the driving desire for extreme lightness, small as possible form factor and a paper-like experience. To my mind that drive for small and light keeps us from larger units. I will email Jeff Bezos and the Kindle Team later today with my thoughts.

That said I am getting the Oasis

[ottdmk]

Well, I'm happy that Canada isn't an afterthought for once (took us a long time to get the Voyage.)

Still though... I know the Canadian dollar is rather weak against the greenback currently, but $399.00?

Makes the recent price jump in the H2O look reasonable.

[Steve H]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Nate thinks the screen has a plastic substrate.
Check the comments.

http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/0...will-cost-290/

If it really has a plastic substrate it may be worth the money to enough people to justify it's existence.

Points to consider:

First Kindle sold at $399. Until the 4 hour price war, when B&N moved the walled gardens to near-cost pricing, ereaders sold at solid markups in the 40% range, typical of their limited market size (you really need to be a heavy reader to justify prices north of $200.)

In the past couple of years average selling prices have actually crept up a bit both on Kindle and Kobo. Mostly through "premium" models. Not sure Nook is selling enough to make a dent and the ebook market is well seeded by now so moving away from near-cost pricing makes sense (for different reasons) to all the vendors.

Now, Oasis: I love the ergo design. It is a fitting evolution of the rocketbook and PB360, both of which I have and love. Ergonomics are important and I'm pleased to see its return to the reader design criteria.

I'm not buying it, though, until they unbundle it.
I agree that calling it a charger cover implies that it will recharge the reader even if the cover isn't being charged. With that proviso, the pricing isn't obscene:$200 for a light ergonomic reader, possibly with non-glass substrate and $90 for an oem leather cover ($50-70) + a battery cherger ($20-30) is about right.

Unbundled they could get away with $229 for the reader alone but the bundle gives them a nice magin boost. They can always unbundle once early adopter sales start to dry up.

It's a standard business practice.

I understand what they're doing.
But I'm not biting.

Plenty of people will, though.
Once they're done voting their wallets and the unbundled version goes on sale, I'll pull the trigger. Until then, I'm covered.

Fjtorres,
You may have a challenge if the device is unbundled. It is said to have only a couple of weeks/30 min per day of charge. So significantly less battery than any of the other models without the cover.

[tovare]

Originally Posted by June

Did you try the .de store, they often ship to Scandinavia when the others don't.

Thanks a lot. I had no idea.

Der neue Kindle Oasis mit Ladehülle aus Leder in Bordeaux, 15 cm (6 Zoll) hochauflösendes Display (300 ppi) mit integrierter Beleuchtung und WLAN

1 Artikel wird versandt an Tov Are Jacobsen von Amazon EU S.a.r.L. Lieferung voraussichtlich: 28. April 2016 - 30. April 2016

Endbetrag: EUR 321,71

NOK 3 107,25*


That was a bit expensive. :-)

Going for the Boudeux color this time ... I had some awesome dress shoes in that color many years ago.

[selianth]

My husband just totally bullied me into preordering the Oasis even though I was dithering because of the price. He's all... "It's the device you use the most often." "You should just buy it if you want it, don't worry too much about the price." "Page turn buttons! I know you want those!" ....and then finally he pulled out the nuclear option: "You sound like your mother."

So, uhhh, yeah, I immediately went and ordered it with the merlot cover. And will sell my Voyage to help offset the cost a bit.

[Zeebra]

Those early leaks about "20 months standby" time were totally inaccurate. According to Amazon's site:

"A single charge with cover lasts up to eight weeks, based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless off and the light setting at 10. Battery life will vary based on light and wireless usage."

[SWCaffeinated]

I have the Voyage and have preordered the Oasis 3g version.
Pluses (for me):
1. Lighter (counting Amazon's covers) and smaller footprint?
2. Physical page buttons.
3. Knowing I can take it on a weekend trip, read non-stop, and never worry about battery/charging it.

Things I will miss from the Voyage:
1. The stand up feature of the origami case.
2. The slimmer width (making the Voyage more pocketable to me).

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Steve H

Fjtorres,
You may have a challenge if the device is unbundled. It is said to have only a couple of weeks/30 min per day of charge. So significantly less battery than any of the other models without the cover.

So ... 2 weeks times 7 days times 30 minutes == 7 hours estimate? Therefore, if I read on a naked Oasis for 7 hours each day, and put it into the cover at night, the Oasis will recharge. Then, I only need to attach a cable and actually charge up the whole configuration once every few ... weeks? Or at least, once a week, say? That sounds bearable.

I currently won't remove my Voyage from the cover, because it's not particularly easy to do. I only charge it as needed. But I could read the Oasis "naked", and put it into the cover at night to recharge. And then recharge the package as needed, yes?

[Steve H]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Wouldn't mind seeing a simlar Kobo device, myself. I primarily buy epubs from Kobo right now, so if there WAS a new epub-equivalent device with a similar ergo setup to the Oasis with page buttons (and a non-breakable substrate), I'd probably go that way. Much easier than retooling back to Kindlebooks. But when it comes to epubs, the truth of the matter is: I'm having a hard time seeing me using anything but Mantano to read them with anyway.

My guess is that you have a better chance of getting a larger device from Kobo than an ergo device like the Oasis-with a separate battery. I hope they do -maybe that would push Amazon out of size complacency,

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The thick side is wider at one end - why did they do that?

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

That I know, but looking at those pics, one end of the thicker side appears wider than the other end of that same side. It looks to be angled.

Never mind. After watching some videos, the width is the same at both ends. The photos made it appear it was angled - wide to narrow.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by DSpider

Those are not the ideal reading proportions... Apple got it right with 4:3 for their iPads.

It's an optional landscape mode.

All current 6" and 6.8" e-readers are 4:3. I don't know why you're implying that only Apple uses 4:3.

[newkindlefun]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

So ... 2 weeks times 7 days times 30 minutes == 7 hours estimate? Therefore, if I read on a naked Oasis for 7 hours each day, and put it into the cover at night, the Oasis will recharge. Then, I only need to attach a cable and actually charge up the whole configuration once every few ... weeks? Or at least, once a week, say? That sounds bearable.

I currently won't remove my Voyage from the cover, because it's not particularly easy to do. I only charge it as needed. But I could read the Oasis "naked", and put it into the cover at night to recharge. And then recharge the package as needed, yes?

The cover has about 6 weeks of charge, or 21 hours. So if you read it for seven hours a day and put it in the cover to recharge, the cover will have three additional days of charging before you will have to charge the whole thing again.

The total Oasis battery time is comparable to a Paperwhite.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

So ... 2 weeks times 7 days times 30 minutes == 7 hours estimate? Therefore, if I read on a naked Oasis for 7 hours each day, and put it into the cover at night, the Oasis will recharge. Then, I only need to attach a cable and actually charge up the whole configuration once every few ... weeks? Or at least, once a week, say? That sounds bearable.

I currently won't remove my Voyage from the cover, because it's not particularly easy to do. I only charge it as needed. But I could read the Oasis "naked", and put it into the cover at night to recharge. And then recharge the package as needed, yes?

Originally Posted by newkindlefun

The cover has about 6 weeks of charge, or 21 hours. So if you read it for seven hours a day and put it in the cover to recharge, the cover will have three additional days of charging before you will have to charge the whole thing again.

The total Oasis battery time is comparable to a Paperwhite.

How does that relate to a Voyage? (that's my current) [And I can only read this much on the weekend, or vacation, as I still work. So once a week is still not a bad "figure of speech".]

[June]

I am intrigued by the Oasis, although the por batteri life on the device itself (2 weeks at 30mins per day, see batteries here http://youtu.be/zSVo3_cmKpI). And the lack of a stand in the cover. I read at least four hours a day...

Does anyone know if the automatic screen flipping can be switched off easily? I predict an annoyance reading in bed with the Oasis lying on your side...

[newkindlefun]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

How does that relate to a Voyage? (that's my current) [And I can only read this much on the weekend, or vacation, as I still work. So once a week is still not a bad "figure of speech".]

It's more than the Voyage. Paperwhite and Oasis are rated at 8 weeks/30 minutes per day. Voyage is rated at 6 weeks/30 minutes a day.

Edit: Sorry, Paperwhite 1/ 2 and Oasis have 8 weeks. Paperwhite 3 and Voyage 6 weeks.