My Kindle Oasis Has Arrived

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by Mr. Goodbar

I was thinking the same thing, but I just watched a Chinese youtube video that showed every flick of the finger putting a significant mark on the brown cover. Seemed a little too prone to marks as opposed to just taking on that aged patina look. I just ordered a Merlot from BestBuy that is supposed to be here Monday so I'll likely cancel my brown order from Amazon.

Speaking of the cover, I think at least with the Merlot, it is probably the least satisfying part of the Oasis. The Merlot cover amounts to a thin, very dry shoe leather bonded to cardboard. The cloth meant to protect the screen feels more "premium" than the leather does. It sounds like the Walnut is actually not much more premium, but handled differently so it at least feels better. In some ways, I'd rather have something like the polyurethane covers Apple offers for the iPad than call this type of leather "premium". It would also have given Vegan folks an option.

That said, after an evening with the Oasis, I actually like it quite a bit. Even though it is heavier than the Voyage and in the same ballpark as the Paperwhite with the cover, I actually find myself leaving the cover on more than I thought I would. It's still easier to use one-handed than the Voyage with the cover on, and it's excellent with the cover off. I can certainly see myself taking the cover on trips for the protection and battery life. And around the house, I can leave the cover off if I want.

The major complaints I have are with the leather which I've already talked about, and the accelerometer. I wish you could lock it in place using something like the Airport Mode switch. I've seen when it will switch, and I can see it being an annoyance once and awhile, but not often enough to really matter. It's more of a nitpick level annoyance.

Overall, this is really what I was wanting from the Voyage initially. Page turn buttons, more comfortable to hold one handed (despite being heavier), and a nice sharp screen. The fact that it winds up feeling smaller, even though by volume it really isn't, is nice. The volume is just distributed better. If it was the Voyage replacement at the Voyage price point, it'd be a very easy recommendation.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by Jason90

But don't they just use the hides of cows for example after they have been slaughtered for meat.

I don't see a problem if they just use the remains,why waste it?

Erm, vegans certainly won't be eating the meat so they have no reason to want the skin

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by Jason90

But don't they just use the hides of cows for example after they have been slaughtered for meat.

I don't see a problem if they just use the remains,why waste it?

On the otherhand if they kill an animal for the sake of it's hide and throw away everything else that is a sin.

Except, Vegans don't eat the meat, so I can totally see why it would be hypocritical to support the leather side of things. The Vegan would basically be doing the same thing you mention in the last paragraph there. Veganism is in part that animals should not be domesticated/leveraged for our use (hence no wool, no dairy, etc).

You could have a whole discussion on Veganism, but that's probably best left to another thread.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Yolina. That's what I get for crafting a specific response. :P

[eschwartz]

Moderator Notice

A just-in-case reminder:

Discussion about the ethics of killing animals and using their bits belongs in the opt-in Politics and Religion subforum.
In fact, there is already a thread there about Amazon's new case.

Thus far this discussion has more or less been an innocent and acceptable degree of standard (it is not a problem to merely mention the existence of veganism), and I'd like it to stay that way.

[aceflor]

From what I have read so far, the Oasis including the cover is worth 220, 250 USD tops. 299 is just outrageous.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by aceflor

From what I have read so far, the Oasis including the cover is worth 220, 250 USD tops. 299 is just outrageous.

They should give an Oasis free when you buy one of those tuna strainer thingies

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by aceflor

From what I have read so far, the Oasis including the cover is worth 220, 250 USD tops. 299 is just outrageous.

Different people place different values on things. $299 may outrage you; plainly the many people who have bought it are not outraged by it.

[BenG]

I paid close to $300 for my first Sony Reader.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by BenG

I paid close to $300 for my first Sony Reader.

Me, too.

I still consider that a price that was more than justified, at that time.

[badgoodDeb]

Anybody have experience with the battery life on the Oasis-without-its-cover yet? I mean, I know the published "2 weeks" equates to 7 hours. How well does that work for a fast page-turner?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Yes and no. If you make the ebook with the latest version of Kindle previewer or a certain calibre plugin, you can have the KfX features.

Of course, but it takes a certain amount of motivation and time to engage such solutions. I just want to read, I'll take hyphenation as it comes (I find what Amazon does 'good enough').

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Anybody have experience with the battery life on the Oasis-without-its-cover yet? I mean, I know the published "2 weeks" equates to 7 hours. How well does that work for a fast page-turner?

I know I read most of a 600-page book yesterday and the battery dropped to about 50%, but since the thing was also indexing like mad (I've dumped my sideloaded stuff on there), I'm not sure that's remotely meaningful: meaningful stats may have to wait until indexing has finished, not that there seems to be an easy way to tell when that is these days, now that the search panes never tell us if books have been indexed or not. Left it connected to the cover and the internal battery was back at 96%-and-not-charging when I looked again less than an hour later.

Performance was impressive, though -- I noticed this on the PW1, too. The rewritten indexer in fw 5.6.x has completely solved the 'put new books on, now the thing runs like a dog for hours and the battery vanishes at horrifying rates' problem. This just goes to show how inefficient the old indexer must have been.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by NullNix

I know I read most of a 600-page book yesterday and the battery dropped to about 50%, but since the thing was also indexing like mad (I've dumped my sideloaded stuff on there), I'm not sure that's remotely meaningful: meaningful stats may have to wait until indexing has finished,

That sounds promising!

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

That sounds promising!

Yeah. I was worried that if I read like mad I'd run the battery down long before the day was over, but instead I read like mad (working! I was *working*!) and it only got halfway. Not bad at all, indeed.

It does seem like it's a good idea to at least have the cover in the same house as the device at all times for recharging, but given that you probably put the cover on when you go out with it (well, I do, anyway), this should happen without anything at all needing to change.

[emellaich]

Originally Posted by NullNix

I know I read most of a 600-page book yesterday and the battery dropped to about 50%, but since the thing was also indexing like mad (I've dumped my sideloaded stuff on there), I'm not sure that's remotely meaningful: meaningful stats may have to wait until indexing has finished, not that there seems to be an easy way to tell when that is these days, now that the search panes never tell us if books have been indexed or not. Left it connected to the cover and the internal battery was back at 96%-and-not-charging when I looked again less than an hour later.

Is that 600 pages or page turns? And without the cover?