Amazon gathered a select number of press in New York to unveil its new line-up of Kindle devices. It’s the first time that Amazon has updated all of its Kindle models at the same time. That gives us a new entry-level Kindle, a new Paperwhite – including Signature Edition, a new Scribe, as well as a colour Kindle for the first time.
I got my hands on these new models at the event, but there was one thing that was missing: the Kindle Oasis. When the Oasis was announced in 2016, it was unapologetically premium: it put design over affordability, delivering a slim body with buttons. It was updated in 2017 and 2019, moving to a 7-inch display and for 5 years, it was the largest of the Kindles designed for reading.
Why has the Kindle Oasis been discontinued?
There’s a peculiar thing that happens with Kindle. It becomes a very personal device, something you put a lot of time into and you feel emotional about. That’s not just marketing spin, I feel it all the time. The Kindle isn’t just another piece of tech: it’s where I escape. Every night, without fail, I read. When I’m too stressed to sleep, I read. Kindle is a prop for me, in so many ways.
I always felt that Oasis was the best at the job it was doing, especially the second- and third-gen models. The larger display, the higher quality of the illumination and the way that the cover wrapped around both sides without it becoming too chunky – for me that justified the price.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DISCONNEKT
But over the years, features from the Oasis have migrated to other models: waterproofing (debuted on Oasis in 2017) came to Paperwhite in 2018; the adjustable warm light (from the 2019 Oasis) came to Paperwhite in 2021; Paperwhite moved to 6.8-inches in 2021 as well, increasing the illumination quality.
“A lot of the technology that we first introduced in Oasis … made its way down to the Paperwhite at an even lower price point”, Kevin Keith – who leads the Kindle hardware team at Amazon – told me at the New York event.
In 2024, the all-new Kindle Paperwhite has a 7-inch display with faster page turning, surpassing the Oasis, while also boosting itself to 19 LEDs – close to the Oasis’ 25 LEDs. The Oasis launched as the best experience for reading, but it’s the Paperwhite that’s now king.
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When you add too many different types of devices we’ll confuse our customer, so we wanted to have very distinct sets of devices that had very distinct audiences to them – and the Paperwhite and Oasis were pretty close.
Kevin Keith, Amazon VP Devices & Services
Bringing colour to Kindle for the first time
Kindle Colorsoft brings colour to the Kindle and steps into that premium position that Oasis once held, certainly in terms of the £270 price point. The Colorsoft is built on the Paperwhite Signature Edition, so it includes wireless charging and a higher level of storage.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DISCONNEKT
It also features a 7-inch display, with a custom panel that’s been developed by Amazon. The aim – as the name suggests – is to give a soft colour experience. It’s not going to be harsh like a traditional tablet, so adding colour doesn’t jolt you out of the device. It’s designed to be the familiar Kindle reading experience but lifted with colour.
My first impressions of the Colorsoft are good: it brings the library and Kindle Store to life – recommendations jump off the page a little more. But to really get the most from Colorsoft you need to be reading books that need colour. Most of my reading is regular text in regular novels, so I’ll probably settle for the all-new Paperwhite.
The new Paperwhite looks like Amazon’s best ever
The thing that speaks to me about Paperwhite is the larger display. The 6.8-inch display of the previous model was great, but a little more size means there’s less to miss as I transition away from Oasis. Yes, the lack of buttons still irks me, but I have to live with that.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DISCONNEKT
One thing that did catch my eye was the new colours – especially on the Signature Edition, which I feel now has elevated status. The green has a metallic shimmer to it over the flatter green on the regular model. There are only three colour options – Jade, Raspberry (it’s pink) and Black. I’ve had a Black Paperwhite for years and the Jade has turned my head.
Amazon says the new Paperwhite has the fastest page turns of any Kindle. I didn’t notice that so much when using it, because I turn pages when I get to the end – and speed has never been an issue for me. But speed in display rendering is good, as it opens up the potential for more than just page turns, but user interface elements too.
Speaking of which, there are no changes to the user interface. It’s the same experience it has been for many years. You might wish that there was a change to the Kindle Store or book navigation, but there isn’t.
Kindle and Scribe close the loop
The Paperwhite is Amazon’s most popular Kindle, but for those who want to get in at the ground floor, there’s the basic Kindle. It’s a smaller display at 6-inches, but it still has illumination and there’s a new Matcha Green colour.
IMAGE CREDIT: AMAZON
Then there’s Scribe: there’s a new border on the Kindle Scribe that’s white, giving the illusion of a slightly more open writing area, like a pad of paper. The pen has been redesigned and the surface is more tactile to make it closer to a pen on paper experience.
Amazon has added a couple new elements to the experience, including Active Canvas where you can just start writing on a book and the text will flow around your notes. There are Expandable Margins, to give you more annotation options, while AI also makes its debut too.
Kindle Scribe will now offer to clean up your handwriting in your notebooks, changing scrawl into a hand-writing font (and there are a couple to choose from), so that you can share those notes and everyone else can read them. There’s also a Summarise function, that will read your notes and produce a summary, which you can share or drop into the front of your Notebook.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DISCONNEKT
All the new Kindle devices are available to order now: the Kindle is available from £95 and shipping now; the Kindle Paperwhite is available from £160 and shipping immediately. The Kindle Colorsoft is available for pre-order at £270 with deliveries from 30 October.
The new Kindle Scribe is available for pre-order at £380 and it will be available from 4 December.
If, after all that, you still want a Kindle Oasis then you might want to head over to Very.co.uk where it’s still available for £229.
