Comments after one week with the Oasis

[NoHolyGrail]

Thanks for the photos, Hollow Man!

The Oasis is really the first Kindle I've been able to consider since the KK, because the page-turn buttons are such an important feature for me. (I'm an outlier though in my general discomfort with touchscreens; that would almost certainly pull me out of the reading experience.)

My only concern is the weight of the fonts, but it's good to know that you haven't found it to be too cumbersome of an adjustment.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by NoHolyGrail

My only concern is the weight of the fonts, but it's good to know that you haven't found it to be too cumbersome of an adjustment.

The Helvetica font is pretty dark on the Oasis, but it's sans-serif and many people dislike it for this reason. Personally, I've always used Helvetica, even years ago when I only had basic non-touch kindles. As it looks even better on the Voyage and the Oasis (imho), I didn't have to adjust much.

[Josieb1]

Hollow Man that's a really nice Oasis.

[Atunah]

For me, if I lay the keyboard, or the basic kindle with buttons next to my oasis or voyage, during bright daylight, I prefer the basic and Keyboard font. I believe its the resolution also. The higher it got, the thinner the fonts got. I guess my eyes prefer the more fuzzy but 'thicker" look. But its a moot point as I need the light now. I read my basic, which is similar to the keyboard in screen, outside sometimes. On the balcony. But I read mostly inside and for that I need the light. And unless I have them side by side in broad daylight, I wouldn't notice.

I prefer the look and layout of bookerly, but find caecilia to be a tad thicker. So I always switch back and forth.

It means nothing to me what Kobo does as I have a kindle, so also a moot point. I can only work with what I have.

Side by side in real life it is not as noticeable as the pictures show, as has been explained. I know as I have all those devices also.

I would like bookerly to be a bit bolder, but not actually bold. The new bold font they gave us is useless to me as I can't read san serif fonts. So the only option right now are bookerly and caecilia. I don't have a bold caecilia on my devices.

I pretty much only read on my Oasis and I have bad-ish eyes. Its a pleasure to read with it. Both for the fantastic ergonomics and the screen.

[Hollow Man]

Originally Posted by NoHolyGrail

Thanks for the photos, Hollow Man!

You're welcome. The photos don't do it justice, to be honest. It really is a great device. The resolution increase, front light, light weight, and many other improvements, really make it such a pleasure to read on.

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Hollow Man that's a really nice Oasis.

Thanks! If there's anything else I can say or do to help people, just let me know!

Originally Posted by Atunah

I prefer the look and layout of bookerly, but find caecilia to be a tad thicker. So I always switch back and forth.

Agreed, although lately I tend to stick mostly with Bookerly, because of the improved layout.

-HM

[barryem]

Originally Posted by NullNix

If you're coming from something as far back as the KK, *everything* will be an improvement, except I suppose for the lack of keyboard.

To me the lack of a keyboard is one of the major improvements. I can't count how many times I accidentally pressed a key while reading and broke my concentration.

Putting a physical keyboard on an ereader makes about as much sense as putting a MacDonalds in your car so you can eat on the way to work.

Barry

[Barty]

The text on the KK is not only thicker because of the low res, but darker. The text on the oasis looks grayer. With the light on, the oasis has lighter background, but also lighter text.

[Hollow Man]

Originally Posted by Barty

The text on the KK is not only thicker because of the low res, but darker. The text on the oasis looks grayer. With the light on, the oasis has lighter background, but also lighter text.

This is not true. I own both, and I can say with certainty that the font is heavier on the Kindle Keyboard, which gives it the illusion that it's darker.

-HM

[NoHolyGrail]

Originally Posted by Atunah

And unless I have them side by side in broad daylight, I wouldn't notice.

I pretty much only read on my Oasis and I have bad-ish eyes. Its a pleasure to read with it. Both for the fantastic ergonomics and the screen.

This is very reassuring, along with Hollow Man's comments.

Originally Posted by barryem

To me the lack of a keyboard is one of the major improvements. I can't count how many times I accidentally pressed a key while reading and broke my concentration.

That's interesting, I'm the exact opposite. I almost never accidentally press a physical key on the Kindle, but on similarly-sized touchscreen devices I find myself accidentally hitting things on the screen constantly. I'm assuming this issue won't arise with the Oasis, though, because of how it's held.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Barty

The text on the KK is not only thicker because of the low res, but darker. The text on the oasis looks grayer. With the light on, the oasis has lighter background, but also lighter text.

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

This is not true. I own both, and I can say with certainty that the font is heavier on the Kindle Keyboard, which gives it the illusion that it's darker.

-HM

Any chance you could post a high res screen shot of both Kindles side by side with a black image displayed? I would be interested in seeing who is correct.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

The posting guidelines are clear: "Images included in posts must be no more than 600x600 pixels."

And I suspect that no photo is going to change your mind regarding the image quality of the Voyage vs. the Oasis.

-HM

As long as they're Attachments to a file (as yours currently are), then it's no problem.

Don
(Moderator)

[Hollow Man]

I'm going to steer this back to my original intent of this thread: my impressions of the Oasis. More than half a dozen novels read on it, still good.

-HM

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by Barty

The text on the KK is not only thicker because of the low res, but darker. The text on the oasis looks grayer. With the light on, the oasis has lighter background, but also lighter text.

If the text is being lightened by the light, the light is up too high: it should be just bright enough to lighten the *background*. (It's a real shame the Voyage's light auto-adjustment couldn't be carried across to the Oasis, but from what I hear it doesn't exactly work perfectly either maybe having a white-background e-reader without fiddling with light levels is a lost cause?)

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by NullNix

If the text is being lightened by the light, the light is up too high: it should be just bright enough to lighten the *background*. (It's a real shame the Voyage's light auto-adjustment couldn't be carried across to the Oasis, but from what I hear it doesn't exactly work perfectly either maybe having a white-background e-reader without fiddling with light levels is a lost cause?)

Yes. If the light is too high, for me the contrast gets worse actually. Plus its annoying to see it glow. So I set my light below where I see it glow so to speak. It pretty much never goes above 10. That way I keep the contrast at the best level while having the backround just bright enough to read for me in inside light situations. It just looks like paper for me. My husband uses my old Paperwhite and he has the light so high I can't even look at it at night. If I wanted to be blinded like that, I'd just use a tablet.

I personally had turned off the auto light on the Voyage. It worked ok for a while then every time I tilted towards a side lamp, it kept changing. I move around much when I read as to not get stiff. 10 is a good one to stay at for me. At night in bed I might go down to 9. So I just leave it at the same level most times.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

I always read with bold Caecilia. I don't want a thinner/lighter font. Some people don't mind. I do.

It is possible to compile a kindle format ebook to contain the a bold font. Maybe try that and see how it looks. Somebody here has probably uploaded an ebook with the heavier font included. It would be interesting to see how you feel about the heavier font on the Oasis. I understand the new FW does include a bold font, but apparently Amazon chose an unpopular font to make bold.

Using Calibre, you can easily embed the font of your choice if the eBook is DRM free. Give ChareInk a try.It's my modified version of Charis SIL that looks really good on eInk. I've upped the weight so it looks good on eInk.

See the following thread to get the font. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=184056