The $290 Kindle Oasis Wants to be Your Refuge in a Reading Desert
We have had so many leaks over the past couple weeks that the launch of the Kindle Oasis is almost an anti-climax, but there is still more to report.
Amazon’s latest ereader went live this morning both on Amazon’s site and was announced via a press release. It costs $290 and comes with a battery-case, a 300ppi Carta E-ink screen, and page turn buttons to one side of the screen, as we expected.
Thanks to Paul Durrant of MobileRead, I can point you to the quick start guide and the user manual. I also have a bevy of links to first-hand reports, but first let me answer one question which had been vexing me.
Yes, the Oasis has a USB port.
There was some unhinged speculation over at Teleread a few weeks back to the effect that Amazon might drop the USB port from the next Kindle, and that has not happened. Len Edgerly of The Kindle Chronicles said that both the battery-case and the Oasis have their own charging ports. (He was at the launch event last week.) A photo from Engadget showed the USB port on the upper edge of the Oasis next to the power button.
Here’s a list of the reviews. The posts by Mashable, Re/code, TechCrunch, Fortune, and TNW are not really worth your time.
If you are short on time then read The Verge’s piece, or what Slashgear says about the construction. There’s also a discussion on Slashdot.
So tell me, are you going to get one?
I am sorely tempted.
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