Goodbye old friend - leaving the Oasis

Wiped and ready to go

I read a fair bit, somewhere between 80-100 books a year. You may have read my posts related to that. I was given a Kindle Keyboard many years ago (for my 40th birthday), partly as part of the better half’s plan to reduce the number of books that I had in the house. That plan kind of worked.

The first Kindle Keyboard died after 364 days but Amazon Customer Services were solid and replaced it free of cost. The second one lasted quite a while. However, I eventually upgraded to a Kindle Voyage because it had a backlight and a higher quality screen. The backlight means I can read in bed without disturbing the better half. I liked the Voyage, but the ergonomics weren’t quite right. On extended reading sessions, the edge of the reader could dig into you. However, I loved the haptic buttons. I prefer the tactile button pressing options.

I picked up a Kindle Oasis on eBay from a store that was closing down. It was a huge jump; bigger screen, proper buttons and the ability to have a slightly amber screen at night. An absolutely lovely device. However, the battery life was always a bit poor, and increasingly I’ve come to it to find that it is empty of charge. It’s really frustrating when I’m travelling and a device I charged a couple of days before is now flat, especially as it can take a while to take enough charge to restart.

I’ve had it four years, so it could be battery deterioration. However doesn't go through anywhere near as many charge cycles as a phone for example, and they usually talk about lithium cells being solid for at least 500 cycles. However, it still works okay so I figured perhaps this was time for a change.

Anyway, frustrations boiled over (very first world) and I’ve just traded my Oasis in for a new generation Paperwhite (which was on offer for the bank holiday weekend). The screen is a bit smaller (6.8” vs 7.0”), but it does do amber (albeit it is a manual brightness adjustment) and goes to a USB C connector. The only thing that concerns me as I wait for it to arrive is the lack of buttons. Will that be frustrating? Is the tactile experience as big a thing for me as I think it is?

I’ll play it by ear, but if the worst comes to the worst, I do know that the trade in value and the 20% voucher towards another Kindle mean that I can pass the Paperwhite onto another family member and pick up a new Oasis at under half price.

27 May 2024