I am really liking the oasis v2 a lot. This one is finally recommendable. The bigger size is significant — for balance, for in-hand feel, for single simple device battery life, etc. Metal casing also makes it feel so much more like a premium device. 👍
Also I would swear it is a bit faster, anyone know cpu specs?
I cannot ditch our horrid oasis v1s fast enough at this point. Burning is too good for them.
This is kind of where I’m at. My Paperwhite is really impressive and has held up well for over 3 years and several dozen books. It’s comfortable to hold, has very good light and contrast, and a battery so long lasting I often forget it even needs charging. It’s everything I could have wanted.
I still kind of want the new Oasis though, because I’m a gadget nerd. Everything about it would be as good or a slight upgrade, with the exception being having to rotate it to swap hands which in my mind is kind of odd but maybe in reality isn’t a thing worth mentioning. It’s a lot to invest in something that isn’t really arguably better for what I use the Paperwhite for (books only, not comics, magazines, or audiobooks (audiobooks are what my phone is for, which is also my podcast device) but I love the way it looks and I like it’s features (faster processing, better uniform lighting, adaptive light especially, and the larger size will be really nice as I read at lot at the gym and resting the device on the shelf is a bit far away so I usually have to bump the font size up one) but I’m not completely sold on it. It’s also out of stock looks like, so maybe I’ll wait and see. Too bad I can’t handle one in real life, no one I know has one.
I’m finding that ebooks are increasingly coming with graphics of some kind - even just chapter headers and such end up bloating a book that could be <1 MB to 2+. 32GB is still massive overkill for them, of course, but the 2GB or whatever that the Paperwhite comes with and I had assumed would be impossible for me to fill up has been a limit I’ve been actively straining against for months now. (Granted, I also have almost 1000 books on it and I actively want to read all of them, and have already deleted the ones I have read…)
After 1 night of reading, I like the larger screen, but am somewhat disappointed in the lighting, not much, if any, better than Voyage. It seems a little darker in one corner, I was hoping for completely even lighting, although it’s not really a big deal.
How’s the inverse lighting?
Haven’t had a chance to check that out yet, will try this evening and report back.
Inverse lighting looks pretty good, kind of solves the uneven lighting because most of the screen is dark…but I switched back to normal because it feels weird to me reading like that.
Yeah they switched to Qualcomm… ;)
It seems about the same speed as the old Paperwhite:
But I’m not sure the CPU would matter so much, wouldn’t the big bottleneck be the refresh speeds on the e-ink displays?
Probably that @Profanicus too bad that video did not compare Oasis 1 and 2. Hard to say where the bottleneck would be, ideally each new gen of their premium device would have improved eInk panels as well.
Anyone try it with Audible yet? I am a bit bummed that there’s no headphone jack. Probably coming in the next version as a selling point.
Yep, tried it with Audible and it works fine. You can swap back and forth between reading and the audiobook just by tapping the headphone icon. Doesn’t show you the current book text while you’re listening, though.
Can’t really see a scenario where I’d use that instead of my phone, unless I was trying to conserve phone battery.
That’s kind of a shame. Seems like that should be an option.
That video saved me $250 since I have a paperwhite and it never gets wet. Thanks man, I was reay on the fence here.
Aww but the new Oasis looks so slick… the metal back, the flush front, the weight reduction. :)
I must say I was tempted to upgrade my Paperwhite too. But it’s a lot of money for me atm for those benefits.
For me it may come down to the new Oasis going on sale over the holidays. I may get it then.
I want the inverted text and I’d like the Audible feature – my phone is old and the battery’s not so great, and I have no desire to get a new phone, so I’d rather use the Oasis for Audible. The slightly larger screen would be nice too. And the waterproofing, while I don’t really need it, it would be nice to have in case of spills.
I am also curious about how it feels in the hand. The way the weight is distributed might make it easier to hold? How does that compare to the Paperwhite for those of you who have it?
Tip for Paperwhite owners: If you contact Amazon and attempt to return/exchange it despite it being way out of warranty, if your device has a legit issue they may still give you credit towards the purchase of a new Kindle device. I did this a while back when the charge port was failing so much that I thought I could no longer charge, and have a $40 credit sitting in my account waiting for me to pick up a new device. Soon after that call, I discovered that certain cables would actually touch the connection pins properly, and I was able to charge again. Since the Oasis features aren’t quite enough for me yet, I’ll be coasting on this old Paperwhite until finally gives up the ghost.
Contact enhancers (pens, sprays) are a thing. Good manufacturers apply a coat to most connectors during manufacturing. Difficulties with old, finnagly plugs are often a thing of the past after a little treatment.
One thing that sucks, the official Amazon Oasis cases are pricey and also massively out of stock to the tune of 1-2 month backlogs.
All the unofficial cases are unsatisfactory because for some bizarre reason they all insist on “encasing” the entire rear of the device, rather than elegantly docking against the battery bulge, like the official Amazon cases do:
Compare to Amazon’s cases:
I literally cannot find one single aftermarket Oasis 2 case that follows the Amazon model here. They’re all super lame “encase the entire device and make the battery bulge EVEN MORE of a battery bulge” affairs.
On the plus side, I did evict both Oasis 1 models out of my house. That thing sucked so fucking much, Jeff Bezos should come to my house and personally apologize to me for its bullshit. It was a god damn downgrade, for twice the price.
The Oasis 2 on the other hand, is great. Everything the initial Oasis should have been. Loving it.
(I did get $100 plus $20 kindle credit for each Oasis 1 model in Amazon’s trade in program, at least)
I received my Paperwhite today and I really like it. I am missing the physical buttons from my Kindle 4, but not enough to spend the money for the high-end version.
I ordered it as part of the Black Friday sale. Last night I was reading in bed for a long while and drained the battery on my iPad down to half. My big complaint about the Kindle 4 is I can’t read it at night without the light on. I am also accepting that part of how I read on the iPad doesn’t help me sleeping. I will read a few chapters, check the internets, and read a few chapters. With the Paperwhite I’m going to leave the iPad in my office unless I am reading a magazine.
The UI on the Paperwhite feels strange. I feel like intuitively, I’m gong to the wrong places. My brain will say, “oh, I should go here to do this.” But “there” doesn’t really work. Some of it is a little muscle memory from the Kindle 4 interface.
The screen is lot better than the Kindle 4, thats for sure.
Overall, I’m happy with spending $90 on it.
A lot of people would prefer to have the entire back of their device protected as well, not only the screen.
