Amazon Kindle Oasis review - what's the story?

How much money do you spend on books a year? It used to be a straightforward question, if not one that most people could answer off the top of their heads. Once-upon-a-time, the book was both the content and the device, but these days many of us have moved to eBooks, and the cost of reading is now fragmented between your eBooks and eReader. So just how many books do you need to read a year to justify spending £270 on Amazon's latest Kindle?

Yes, that’s £270 for the new Kindle Oasis. Around the cost of 54 traditional paperback page-turners, that amounts to one hell of a summer holiday reading binge. It’s also £160 more than the rather excellent Kindle Paperwhite, which does everything you need in a sturdy, practical package.

Thankfully, then, the Kindle Oasis is in another league. It’s the luxury Caribbean cruise of eReaders, compared to the Paperwhite’s two weeks in the Costa del Sol. Of course, Amazon’s range of eBook devices has always been good, but they've never been that exciting, as even last year’s premium Kindle Voyage, which brought a kind of tablet-like design to the range, was still a bit chunky and masculine for most tastes. The Kindle Oasis, on the other hand, is the most desirable eReader yet, and arguably the first truly desirable eReader ever.

Design

The price of Amazon’s eReaders has always been somewhat misleading, as they're so much nicer to use when paired with an Amazon-made case. The company has obviously realised this, as the Kindle Oasis is only sold complete with a leather-fronted case; for which there are three colour options.

The eReader and the case have been designed together, making it essentially one device that can split apart when required. The eReader part feels almost weightless in your hand, as most of its meagre 131g is offset to one side, making it feel even lighter when it's snug in your palm.

Meanwhile, the cover section attaches securely to the back using magnets, filling the empty space left by the offset design. It includes a far larger battery, quadrupling the battery life from a couple of weeks light use (30 minutes a day) up to a couple of months. The cover battery automatically tops up the main battery when attached, too, so the power is always where you need it.

This means you can benefit from its screen protection and longer battery life while travelling, but when you want to settle down and read at home, you can pop off the case and appreciate the easy, single-handed design and low weight.

Having got rid of page turn buttons on the Paperwhite and dabbled with touch-sensitive ones on the Voyage, Amazon has now come full circle on the Oasis and reintroduced proper buttons. These soft, rubbery ridges sit perfectly under your thumb, and you can use the device left- or right-handed, as the screen will change orientation to match your grip.

The buttons mean you don’t have to tap the screen, which can be distracting, or, worse, leave greasy fingerprints all over it. Of course, the touchscreen is still there if you prefer to swipe or tap through a book or navigate the menus.

It’s worth pointing out that the case doesn't protect the whole device in the same way that the Kindle Paperwhite’s does. Then again, a combined Paperwhite and case weighs a total of 364g (205g and 159g) compared to the 238g (131g and 107g) of the Oasis, and the Paperwhite case has to be wrestled on-and-off, too, so what you lose in protection you make up for in other areas. Overall, the Oasis is an absolute pleasure to use, making all other eReaders seem somewhat lumpen by comparison.

Display

The 6in display is the size as the one you get on the Kindle Paperwhite or Voyage. Thanks to its pixel density of 300 pixels-per-inch, text is finely-detailed and frankly I can’t see the need for anything greater. The Oasis does have more LEDs, though, resulting in cleaner and more consistent lighting of the screen. It also has purer whites than its immediate siblings, which subtly improves contrast, but there’s very little in it.

As mentioned above, you get an orientation sensor with the Oasis, but surprisingly it doesn’t have the Voyage's ambient light sensor. That means it won’t adjust automatically to the lighting conditions, which seems like a step back to me.

However, you do get the same silky-smooth screen finish as the Voyage, which I prefer to the rougher texture of the Paperwhite. The screen is also bezel-less and so appears far more immediate, almost as if the display is floating up off the device when you’re reading in the dark.

Interface

The Kindle Oasis uses essentially the same updated interface as the other current Kindles. You get the slick new homepage with easy access to your current and recent books, plus a wishlist and list of unread titles to pick from. Commonly used settings are far easier to access when needed, and the whole thing is pretty much a joy to use, regardless of whether you want to check back to a previous page, look up a word in the dictionary, or find out where that character first popped up and who they are.

Amazon has recently improved its font range and text setting engine, too, so that text looks more naturally placed across the page without too many extra spaces dropped in to justify the lines. The Bookerly font introduced last year is an all-round great font for easy reading, too.

However, Amazon still lags behind its competitors, such as the ePub-based Kobo, when it comes to text layout options, font size options and generally making an eBook look like a book. I miss book-specific fonts, but even more aggravating are the paltry eight font sizes. Far finer size graduations would have been greatly appreciated. That said, I’ve complained about such things for some time now, and while annoying they don’t quite irritate me enough to push me away from Amazon’s excellent hardware, low book prices and slick service.