“Amazon trying to build a better Kindle is kind of like Superman joining a gym: Nice idea, knock yourself out, but it’s not like you need it,” David Pierce writes for Wired. “By any measure, Amazon won the ebook war. According to one report, it makes three of every four ebook sales in the US. Not everyone who buys ebooks buys a Kindle, of course. And since Amazon is famously stingy with its numbers, you can’t say for sure, but it’s not like Jeff Bezos wakes up sweating in the middle of the night worrying about the Kobo Aura H2O.”
“From the $69 Kindle on up to the $199 Kindle Voyage, its e-readers are attractive and easy to use, their batteries effectively last forever, and they’re the closest thing you’ll find to a paperback this side of the center aisle in your local Safeway,” Pierce writes. “But Amazon seems to think people want more. Or, rather, less. And so everyone there works toward a singular goal: Make Kindles that feel like paper. Which is to say, Kindles that feel like nothing. Kindles you never think about, you just read.”
“Which brings me to the new Kindle launching today, the Kindle Oasis,” Pierce writes. “At $289, the Oasis is the most expensive Kindle in years, four times the price of the entry-level Kindle, which does all the same things. But damn is it tiny. The smallest Kindle yet at less than five ounces and just 3.4mm thick at its smallest point. Got two quarters? Stack them. That’s how thick the Oasis is. It makes an iPhone 6 look porcine.”
“Kindle is for reading. Nothing more. Everything about its performance, its design, its software, reflects that. You want to do other stuff? Buy other stuff,” Pierce writes. “The astronomical price includes one cool new accessory: a flip-cover case that includes a battery that extends the battery life from weeks to months. Months, plural. (Apparently as many as 20) …This is the closest Kindle to paper yet, no question.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Kindle Oasis is definitely the new “King of the Kindles” (but we still love our Kindle Paperwhites just the same).