11 Kindle Oasis (9th Generation) Features: All that is New and Exciting

Amazon has unleashed its 10^th anniversary special Kindle edition, the 9th generation Oasis (2017), which is certainly big news (and a big upgrade) for all you ebook readers out there. This year the e-commerce giant has made some significant changes to its e-reader flagship model (many for the first time) and that makes the new Kindle very exciting. Let’s talk about what’s new in the Kindle Oasis  2 (2017) compared to original Kindle Oasis or other Kindle models.

Amazon Kindle Oasis (2017) India Price and Availability

The base 8GB storage + WiFi model will retail in India for Rs. 21,999 and the 32GB storage + 3G variant will retail for 28,999 INR. Both variants will be available on Amazon.in starting October 31. You can also pre-order them starting today

Also Read: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (10th gen) Review – Should you buy it?

Aluminum build

For the first time, Kindle is getting Aluminum casing instead of plastic. Compared to the last year’s Oasis, the 2017 model is neater and without those external pins required for the battery case.

7-inch screen, Large Display Mode

After sticking to the 6-inch size for several years, Amazon has now moved on to a 7-inch screen for the Oasis 2. This implies that moving forward, you will be able to fit more text on your screen while enjoying the same 300ppi sharpness.

To make full use of the large display, the Kindle Oasis (9th generation) also has a large display mode that can be used if you feel more comfortable with bigger fonts and more details in the menu.

Auto brightness

Amazon has also increased the LEDs for the front light from 10 to 12 for a more even display lighting. The new Kindle also supports Automatic brightness adjustment which was last seen on Voyage (but didn’t work very well back then). The new Kindle will hopefully adapt to the changing ambient lighting more efficiently.

Waterproof (Yay)

The Kindle Oasis (2017) is also IPX8 water resistant, which makes it more water resistant than your conventional IP67 and IP68 smartphones. You can submerge it under up to 2 meters of hot or cold water for 2 hours. This is something consumers have been asking for a long time. Now you can enjoy your ebooks while relaxing in a pool.

Bigger battery with fast charging

Last year’s Kindle Oasis wasn’t very promising on the battery front and thus Amazon bundled a battery case with it. Looks like that won’t be needed anymore.

The new one can survive well on its own. Amazon claims 6 weeks of battery life if you read for 30 minutes every day. You can also top it up from 0 to 100 percent in 2 hours.

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Audible built in, Bluetooth connectivity

Another big change is inbuilt Audible playback support. If you have the audible and ebook versions of a title, you will be able to switch between the two seamlessly. There is no audio jack, but you can pair your speakers or headphones with Oasis via Bluetooth.

Audible support has also been passed on to the basic Kindle and the new Kindle Paperwhite.

Heavier

Amidst the sea of upgrades, the Kindle Oasis loses one of its key advantages. It’s no longer as light as it used to be. The bigger screen and battery pushes the weight to approximately 193 grams, which makes it just 10 grams lighter than the Kindle Paperwhite (Still the heaviest Kindle). In comparison, the last year’s Oasis weighed just 130 grams.

The increase in weight is surely undesirable, but it’s an expected trade-off for the increased size, and besides, the initial reviews claim that the heft is well balanced.

All Kindle e-reader’s weight in grams:

More Storage

Amazon has also augmented storage to 8GB (from 4GB). A higher 32GB storage variant with 3G support (that can be used to download books and for other Amazon services only) also exists and that one shall retail in India for 28,999 INR.

No bundled case

This year, you won’t have to stick with an obligatory case. Amazon does have some optional nylon and leather cover options that start at the standard $40 price.

Invert Colors

Apart from the new OpenDyslexic font, Amazon has added an option to invert black and white colors on screen to make the screen easier to read for anyone with sensitive eyes. The new Oasis also has a total of 14 font sizes, 5 Bold levels, and also allows users to enlarge objects on home screen and in the library. So, you can get something like the dark theme in Android App on the new Kindle Oasis as well.

Kindle Oasis (2017) vs Kindle Oasis: All that has changed

These are the major changes in this year’s Kindle model and they are all quite interesting. We will need some first-hand experience to know if we are comfortable with the increased size, but other than that, the new Kindle Oasis seems to hit all the right notes.

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