Goodbye to the Amazon Kindle Oasis

The Amazon Kindle Oasis is discontinued in the United States. The e-reader is no longer for sale and has been removed from the Amazon Kindle Comparison Chart. There are a handful of units left in international markets, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, but when they are sold out, they will also be gone for good. The Kindle Oasis will go the way of the Kindle Voyage and Kindle DX, which are suitable units but irrelevant today.

The first generation Kindle Oasis was announced in 2016 and released worldwide on April 27. The Kindle Oasis was available as a WIFI-only model and an optional 3G variant. The e-Reader had a 6-inch, 300 ppi E Ink Carta HD display with ten white LED lights. It was the first Kindle to feature a symmetrical design, and users loved the physical page turn buttons. The Kindle Oasis had an accelerometer so the display could be rotated for one-hand operation with either hand. The battery was fragile and barely lasted a few days, so Amazon developed a removable leather cover to extend the battery life by an additional week. This model only had 3GB of storage.

The 3rd and final version of the Amazon Kindle Oasis came out in 2019. It had an identical design as the second-iteration Oasis, with a similar 7-inch, 300 PPI screen. There were a couple of differences, though; the Oasis 3 had a front-lit display and amber LED lights for a warm effect, with 25 LED lights. It also came in two different colours: graphite and champagne gold. It also has an all-aluminum body, page turn buttons, Bluetooth support, and a micro USB for charging.

It looks like Oasis is gone from its largest single market, the United States. Specific models and configurations in international markets are sold out, but some are still available. However, when these are sold out, they will also be removed from the Amazon Store and comparison charts. I believe the Oasis will have no future models and will be discontinued. The e-reader used to be considered premium, but no longer. The current generation Paperwhite now has a 6.8-inch screen, so it’s about the same size now as the Oasis and a few hundred dollars cheaper. Amazon’s current premium-level device is the Kindle Scribe, a 10-inch screen with 300 PPI.

Amazon released the second-iteration Kindle Oasis on October 31, 2017. The company increased the storage configurations from 3GB to 8GB or 32GB versions. They also included a WIFI-only model with optional 3G. Users in the United States could save some money with the Special Offers version that displayed advertisements or spend a bit more for no ads. The company increased the screen size to 7 inches and continued to have 300 PPI. It has an asymmetric design like the first-iteration Oasis, so it works for one-handed use, and the device finish is made from aluminum. The device has a black front, with either a silver or gold-coloured back. The Oasis 2 is the first Kindle to be IPX8 rated, so it is water-resistant up to two meters for up to 60 minutes, and it is the first to be able to change the background black and the text to white. It is front-lit with 12 white LEDs and has ambient light sensors to adjust the screen brightness automatically. This was the first Oasis model with Bluetooth and audiobook downloads from Audible.