kindle voyage 2017

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Ebook Readers

Amazon kindle voyage review, the amazon kindle voyage is one of the nicest best ebook readers available, though most people will still be served just fine by the kindle paperwhite..

Bottom Line

• Incredibly sharp display.
• Adaptive front light.
• Thin design.
• Excellent ebook store.
• No memory card slot or ePub support.

Amazon's various Kindles have long been the most popular ebook readers on the market, but that doesn't mean they have always been the best from a technology perspective. Barnes & Noble beat Amazon to the punch with a front light, and Kobo eclipsed the company in screen resolution. The Kindle Voyage changes that. It has a lovely, thin design, with an incredibly sharp display and a useful adaptive front light, not to mention Amazon's excellent ebook store. That said, I'm still not sure this is enough to warrant the $199.99 price tag when you can pick up our Editors' Choice, the Kindle Paperwhite , for nearly half that amount.

Design and Display

At a glance, the Voyage ($85.22 at Amazon) doesn't look all that different from the Paperwhite or the standard-issue Kindle , in the sense that all three share the same general size and form factor. Look closer, though, and lots of important changes emerge. The Voyage measures 6.4 by 4.5 by 0.30 inches (HWD) and weighs 6.3 ounces (or 6.6 ounces for the 3G model), making it thinner and lighter than the Paperwhite (6.7 by 4.6 by 0.4 inches and 7.2 ounces for the 3G model). There's less bezel all around, and the screen has been changed from plastic to glass, making the front of the reader completely flush, rather than slightly dipped like on the other models.

The display uses scratch-resistant glass, and has been micro-etched to diffuse light, so you can read outside without any glare. The etching pattern supposedly makes the glass feel more like paper, but I think you get a better sense of this using the Kindle Paperwhite or base Kindle.

The Voyage's display has 300 pixels per inch, which looks absolutely fantastic. Text is incredibly sharp, no matter the font size, and images look great, so comics really pop (though keep in mind you're still working with a black-and-white E Ink screen). The Paperwhite matches the Voyage in resolution, but lacks an adaptive backlight (which I'll get to in a moment). The Kindle Oasis , meanwhile, gets even brighter and has the best screen overall, but also costs $100 more than the Voyage.

The Voyage's front light is adaptive, so if you select the Auto Brightness setting, it will automatically adjust based on the light around you. I love this feature. I've been using the first-generation Paperwhite since it came out, and I mostly tend to read on the subway and in coffee shops, which have vastly different lighting scenarios. I rarely adjust the lighting on my Paperwhite to compensate for this, and I didn't realize what a difference it makes until I started using the Voyage. No matter where you use it, the lighting is pretty much perfect.

Another cool feature is that Amazon claims the brightness is tuned to match the way the eye responds to darkness. So if you're reading in the dark, you'll need a brighter light at first than you will after reading for 30 minutes, so the light will slowly turn down over time. I'm slightly concerned that constantly using a light sensor will impact battery life, but then again, you might ultimately wind up using less lighting.

Aside from the glass front panel, the Voyage is made of solid magnesium, with a soft-touch finish reminiscent of the Paperwhite, which gives it a premium, classy feel (though it isn't waterproof like the Kobo Aura H2O). The power port is still on the bottom, but I'm not too fond of the decision to move the Power button to the back of the reader. It's hard to find, and it likely renders any existing case you were hoping to reuse incompatible.

If you're a real Kindle diehard, and haven't upgraded to a touch-screen model for lack of physical Page buttons, rejoice. The Voyage features PagePress, which is basically Amazon's fancy name for Page buttons on either side of the display. I'll focus on this feature more in the Reading section.

The Voyage comes with a black USB cable, but no AC adapter. Amazon claims up to six weeks of battery life based on half an hour of reading per day with wireless off and the light set to 10. That's two weeks more than the Kindle and two weeks less than the Paperwhite, all of which have plenty of time for the average reader.

The Voyage hooks into 802.11b/g/n networks, and a 3G cellular option is still available for an additional $70 extra. It comes with 4GB of storage—the same as the other two Kindles now—which should be good for over 2,000 books. Amazon also stores your purchases in the cloud, so you can retrieve content whenever you'd like, and view it on other devices. Unfortunately, even on the Voyage there's no memory card slot, so there's no way to expand storage. It also makes it a bit more challenging to sideload additional files.

For file support, the Voyage can handle Amazon's own Kindle format (AZW and AZW3), along with DOC, DOCX, HTML, MOBI, PDF, and TXT files. There's still no support for ePub files, which could make it difficult to borrow books from public libraries (though Prime users can borrow certain books for free from Amazon).

Interface and Reading

If you already own a Paperwhite or have used another Kindle, you'll be familiar with the interface on the Voyage. It's touch-based, with a row of icons at the top of the screen for Back, Cart, Home, Goodreads, Menu, and Search. The interface displays the covers of six books per page, and you can choose to view all of your books in the cloud or just the ones on your device.

If you tap anywhere near the top inch of the screen, you'll bring up the Menu bar, which has the same controls as you'll find on the home screen, along with options to adjust the font, go to a specific page, bring up X-Ray for more information on a topic, share to Facebook or Twitter, or bookmark pages. The bottom of the page shows you how much reading you have left in the book by percentage, as well as your reading progress in the form of your location or page in the book, or your time left in a chapter or the rest of the book.

You simply tap on a book to start reading. This is where things get slightly different from the other two Kindles. To turn a page, you can tap on the left or right hand side of the display to flip backwards or forwards. But you can also use one of the new PagePress buttons on either side of the display. Actually, button isn't really the right word. Essentially, PagePress is a pressure-sensitive sensor that sits directly underneath the bezel. Page forward sensors are marked by a 1.2-inch vertical gray strip, roughly at the spot your thumb sits when holding a book. Page back sensors are small gray dots located about an inch above.

All you have to do is rest your finger on the sensor and press it lightly, and you'll be able to flip to the next page or turn back. Amazon claims you can do this without lifting a finger, but that's assuming your finger lies on the sensor the entire time you're reading. The not-quite buttons deliver a satisfying response thanks to some very subtle, quiet haptic feedback. I was afraid to trigger one accidentally, but I didn't manage to do so after a few days of reading. I did, however, find PagePress to be slightly less reliable than tapping on the screen. Thinking about where I needed to tap took me out of the book, and sometimes pages wouldn't turn if I didn't apply enough pressure. I'm still pretty sure that button lovers will be pleased, but I'll stick to tapping.

As far as speed goes, I found page turns to be slightly slower than the Paperwhite when tapping the screen, but slightly faster using PagePress. Neither difference is notable, though. Overall, reading on the Voyage is hard to beat.

Kindle Store and Conclusions

Amazon's Kindle Store is better than ever. It's filled with lists and recommendations, and generally seems to have the best pricing when compared with competitors like Barnes & Noble and Kobo (over a million titles are $4.99 or less). It's easy to subscribe to magazines and newspapers, and Amazon Prime users can borrow books for free from an extensive list of titles. Amazon's Kindle Unlimited , meanwhile, is sort of like Netflix for ebooks. It gives you unlimited access to over a million titles per month for $9.99. Amazon apps for Android and iOS devices, as well as Macs and PCs, sync your book collection, so you can put down one device and pick up on the same page on another one.

Clearly, the Kindle Voyage is a fantastic ebook reader. So why doesn't it earn our Editors' Choice? It comes down to one simple factor: price. The Voyage costs $199.99 for the version with Special Offers (which are basically ads that appear on your home screen whenever the Kindle is locked, and at the bottom your home screen while in use). I happen to find the Special Offers useful for discovering new books, but if you're not a fan, you can either pay $20 to remove them, or you can buy a version without the ads up front. But that brings the already pricey Voyage well past the $200 mark. For that amount, you can pick up a nice color table.

If you were already considering a high-end reader like the Kobo Aura One , I prefer the Voyage for Amazon's content ecosystem. But while the Kindle Voyage is indeed one of the best ebook readers out there, I think most people will be perfectly happy picking up the $119.99 Paperwhite and having the extra $80 to spend on new books. Don't get me wrong: I'd be perfectly happy to use a Kindle Voyage or an even more expensive Kindle Oasis. I just probably wouldn't buy one for myself.

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About Alex Colon

I’m PCMag’s executive editor of reviews, steering our coverage to make sure we're testing the products you're interested in buying and telling you whether they're worth it. I've been here for more than 10 years. I previously managed the consumer electronics reviews team, and before that I covered mobile, smart home, and wearable technology for PCMag and Gigaom.

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Kindle Voyage Review

Kindle voyage.

The e-reader that shines the brightest

• Outstanding screen
• Reliable backlight
• Intuitive controls

Key Specifications

• Review Price: £169.00
• 6-inch high-resolution display
• Built-in light with adaptive lighting system
• Pressure-sensitive bezels
• 1GHz processor
• 4GB of onboard storage
• Six-week battery life

What is the Amazon Kindle Voyage?

The Kindle Voyage is Amazon’s top-of-the-range e-reader. Like the excellent Kindle Paperwhite , the Voyage has a 6-inch backlit touchscreen, but its screen is sharper and clearer. The Kindle Voyage is also slightly thinner and lighter, supports a clever new origami case and adds new ‘haptic’ controls for turning pages. At £169, it’s also £60 dearer than the Paperwhite. Is that too much?

For existing Paperwhite owners, yes: the Paperwhite’s still a fine e-reader, after all. But if you have an older Kindle then the Voyage is an outstanding upgrade. Is it expensive? Certainly, but it’s also the very best there is and will stand the test of time.

Amazon Kindle Voyage video review

Amazon kindle voyage – screen.

In isolation, it’s easy to wonder why you would spend this much on a Kindle when a tablet like the Tesco Hudl 2 is available for less and ‘does more’. It’s a perfectly reasonable argument to make and, if your requirements lean towards a tablet, you shouldn’t give the Kindle Voyage a second thought – you may want to consider the Kindle Fire HD 6 or any of our best cheap tablets . But if you’re mainly interested in reading then the Voyage’s outstanding screen is worth the entrance fee alone.

Like the Paperwhite, the Kindle Voyage has a 6-inch backlit display, but it improves on it in a couple of important ways. One, it has more pixels, which makes it sharper; two, the backlight automatically adjusts to select the right level for the ambient light. These two qualities and the anti-glare nature of an e-ink screen make reading on the Kindle Voyage a pleasure that no tablet can match.

How much sharper is the Kindle Voyage? At 300ppi (pixels per inch), it’s about as sharp as most ‘retina’ phones or tablets and around 35 per cent sharper than the Kindle Paperwhite. The difference is noticeable, particularly as it means you can read smaller text with greater comfort. More so than ever, reading on the Kindle Voyage feels just like a book or newspaper. If you’ve previously resisted e-readers on account of fuzziness, the Voyage may well convert you.

The adaptive brightness, meanwhile, is a subtle but brilliant addition. The main benefit is that it selects the right brightness for the conditions. You could do this manually, but the automatic system works very well and it’s one less distraction from remaining absorbed in your book. It also smartly changes the brightness very gradually, so you don’t get distracting jumps. This is equally true when switching from bright light to complete darkness, as the Night Light setting gradually reduces the brightness as your eyes become accustomed to darkness.

The Kindle Voyage really comes into its own when reading in the dark. You notice the sharper text all the more and you suffer none of the eye-strain that tablet a generates even at its lowest brightness setting. And, of course, when outdoors the Kindle is in a completely different league – nothing new there.

Amazon Kindle Voyage – Design

The Kindle Voyage looks and feels great, though the differences between it and the Paperwhite are subtle. It’s marginally slimmer and lighter, but marginally is the word, while the rear adopts the same two-tone gloss and soft-touch finish as the Kindle Fire tablet range. It’s fine, but nothing to get excited about.

More interesting are the new PagePress controls, which mimic the physical controls of older Kindles but using pressure-sensitive ‘haptics’ instead. This means you never have to move your hand, as you simply squeeze the edge where your hand already rests to turn the page.

Opinions vary on how useful the PagePress buttons are, but we really like them. They’re more convenient than tapping the screen each time, but they don’t disrupt the smooth lines of the Kindle’s frame. The only tricky problem is that they’re slightly hard to locate in the dark, but their location soon becomes second nature and you can still resort to tapping the screen.

The touchscreen itself is pleasantly responsive, though the e-ink screen still isn’t slick enough to emulate the speed and responsiveness of a tablet. We much prefer the smooth finish of the Kindle Voyage’s display, though. The Paperwhite’s slightly recessed screen has an unpleasant coarse texture, but the Kindle Voyage’s is smooth. It’s a small detail, but it’s another that makes the Kindle Voyage nicer to use.

Other things to consider

Battery life is an historical strength of Kindles, albeit one reduced by the introduction of backlights. Amazon claims up to six weeks when used 30 minutes per day with wireless turned off and the backlight set to 10. We found four weeks is a more realistic figure for a regular reader.

As with most recent Kindles, the Voyage doesn’t have a headphone jack, so it doesn’t support audio books. We don’t feel this is a huge problem, though, as a phone or MP3 player are a more convenient means of listening to them.

Format is another thorny issue for some, as the Kindle Voyage doesn’t support ePub books from other stores. Existing Kindle owners will have made their peace with this long ago, but if you’d rather not be locked into Amazon’s ecosystem – excellent though it is – then nothing has changed here.

Finally, Amazon has introduced new cases for the Voyage, priced from £35 up to £55 for the leather version. The main feature is the folding ‘origami’ stand, which is perfect for propping on tray tables. It’s also magnetic – it clips on magnetically and the front cover automatically wakes and sleeps the Kindle when opened.

Should I buy the Amazon Kindle Voyage?

We’d prefer it if the Amazon Kindle Voyage were £20 cheaper – it feels expensive. But it’s also an outstanding product and the very best e-reader on the market. The screen is great, the PagePress system is a small but useful improvement, and the Amazon Kindle ecosystem remains incredibly strong.

This is also the first e-reader that really looks as crisp and readable as a real book. Add in the benefits for night-time reading and the convenience that the Kindle Voyage affords, and it’s a great choice for anyone for whom reading is their favourite pastime.

The ultimate e-reader for the serious bookworm, though some will be put off by the price.

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Amazon Kindle Voyage review: Amazon's second best e-reader

Although it's pricey, the Kindle Voyage's slim design, sharper display and even better lighting make it an attractive high-end e-book reader.

• Maggie Award for Best Regularly Featured Web Column/Consumer

In recent years, Amazon's mantra for its tablets and e-readers has been to build "premium products at nonpremium prices." So it surprised some people when the company went ahead and built a premium e-reader, the Kindle Voyage, for a pretty premium price. It starts at $199 in the US and £169 in the UK for the Wi-Fi version.

Amazon Kindle Voyage

The bottom line.

A step-up version with "free" 3G is also available for $269 or £229. In the US, both models require an additional $20 charge to remove the embedded ads on the home screen and lock screen (in the UK, there is no cheaper ad-supported version). The Voyage is available for preorder now, and ships the week of November 23 in the US and November 4 in the UK.

In Australia, the Voyage has just gone on sale as of May 1, 2015. Only the Wi-Fi version is available and it's going to cost you a rather large AU$299. Amazon has no current plans to bring the 3G Voyage into Australia.

The Voyage isn't a huge upgrade over the existing Kindle Paperwhite ($119, £109 and AU$179 for the Wi-Fi version), which remains on sale with a bump from 2GB to 4GB of memory. But it's a little slimmer, measuring 7.6mm thick and weighing less than 181 grams (the Paperwhite weighs 206 grams). It also has an improved lighting system, and its higher-resolution screen is a little sharper, with better contrast.

Kindle Voyage product photos

Simply put, the Voyage is the best Kindle I've used to date. But is it worth the $80 or £60 premium over the Paperwhite?

If you're already a satisfied Paperwhite owner -- or if you only use an e-reader sparingly -- the answer is probably no. But if you're an avid everyday reader, check the yes box -- and know that you're getting the latest and greatest e-reader, bar none.

Design changes

The Voyage is the first Kindle e-ink reader to feature a flush glass front and magnesium back. It uses a new 6-inch Carta E Ink HD touchscreen display, with pixel density of 300 pixels per inch (ppi). Like the Paperwhite, the Voyage uses capacitive touch technology, not the older infrared-based touch technology of the entry-level Kindle 2014 .

Its display stack uses "chemically strengthened glass" too, which Amazon says is designed to resist scratches. On top of that, Amazon says the cover glass is micro-etched to diffuse light and reduce glare, which sounds pretty high-tech. From my time using the Voyage both indoors and in direct sunlight, the micro-etching does seem to help, but that doesn't mean you won't encounter some glare.

In some ways the Voyage resembles the Kobo Aura , which weighs 174 grams and has a flush glass front and similar specs (1GHz processor, 4GB of memory, built-in light). There's also the new $180/£140 Kobo Aura H2O -- a 6.8-inch waterproof e-reader that sports a Carta E Ink HD touchscreen similar to the Voyage's (in this case with 1,430x1,080-pixel resolution, at 265 ppi) and has expandable storage, too. But the Voyage is sleeker. And, of course, it has access to Amazon's extensive e-book ecosystem, while the Kobo can use "open" epub files.

The Kindle Voyage features Amazon's sharpest screen in an e-ink e-reader, with a flush glass panel.

Thanks to the flush-glass design, the Voyage's touchscreen is allegedly a tad more responsive than the Paperwhite's, but I didn't notice a significant difference. When you compare the screens side by side, however, you can see that the Voyage's screen is a little sharper -- it's easy to spot in book covers but is also noticeable in text, particularly small text -- and the contrast is a little better, with blacks appearing more black than dark gray.

The light at its highest setting is clearly brighter -- Amazon says 39 percent brighter -- and the screen appears whiter. Look closely and you'll also see that the light splays across the screen more uniformly, though it's still not absolutely perfect, leaving room for some small improvements in the next model.

What's also new is that the light can be set to adjust automatically based on the light in your environment. You can, as always, opt to adjust the lighting manually, but I suspect most people will just go with the automatic setting and not think about it too much. Additionally, you can enable the "Nightlight" feature, which Amazon says "gradually reduces the screen brightness over time as your eyes adjust to the darkness."

Another new addition is a set of pressure-sensitive page-turn buttons on either side of the bezel. You keep your thumb resting on the button and then press lightly to make the page turn forward or back, depending on whether you touch the top or bottom button. You also get a some haptic feedback -- a slight buzz on your finger -- with each page turn. Amazon calls the new feature PagePress and it works well.

That said, I personally prefer to simply touch the sides of the screen to turn pages -- yes, you can still do that -- but an apparently vocal subset of the e-reading population likes to press physical buttons, so we now have PagePress.

The Kindle Paperwhite (left) next to the Kindle Voyage (right).

All the new e-ink Kindles are powered by a 1GHz processor and 4GB of built-in storage with no expansion (although that 4GB allows you to store thousands of e-books and other documents). The Voyage has 1GB of RAM compared with the 500MB of the step-down models, which makes this device a tad zippier. However, since e-ink is inherently sluggish, the device just isn't anywhere as speedy or responsive as the latest iPads or Android tablets.

It's worth mentioning that no AC adapter is included with the e-reader -- just a USB cable -- but most people have a USB charger already for their phone or tablet. No case is included either and it's probably a good idea to get one, particularly since this model costs so much. Amazon makes a really well-designed Origami Case -- I recommend it -- but it is rather pricey, starting at $45 or £40 (the leather model costs $60 or £55). Other more affordable case options will be available eventually.

The back of the device, with the power button on the left side near the top.

Battery life is rated at six weeks, based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless off. That's less than the Paperwhite's eight weeks (it appears that more power is required to drive the higher-resolution display or Amazon shaved the battery down to get the weight of the device down -- or a combination of the two). But at this point, with battery life measured in weeks rather than hours, that reduced battery rating shouldn't be a serious issue.

Some competitors, including Kobo, have made efforts to reduce the amount of flashing the screen does to clear e-ink's slight ghosting effect as you turn pages. With the Voyage I ended up turning around 14 pages before the screen would refresh (that number was pretty consistent). Most people don't mind too much when the screen blinks, but it does bother some readers.

The device charges via Micro-USB. A USB cable is included but no AC adapter.

I'm not going to dig too deep into the Voyage's Kindle features and interface, but the platform continues to mature and add new features. The kid-friendly Kindle FreeTime and Vocabulary Builder (words you look up are automatically added) are now on all of Amazon's e-ink Kindles, and Amazon has enhanced its X-Ray ("bones of the book") feature too. Goodreads, the social reading and reviews site that Amazon bought last year , has been integrated.

As with other e-readers, you can also borrow e-books from your local library. And Amazon's daily, weekly and monthly deals ensure that there is always a huge number of e-books available for as little as $2 or 99p -- just don't expect them to necessarily be from mainstream authors that you've heard of.

To cut a long story short, the Amazon ecosystem remains far superior to alternatives from Barnes & Noble, Apple and Kobo.

You may balk at the price of the Voyager, especially with Amazon selling the Fire HD 6 tablet for half the price. But there's been a movement lately by companies such as Kobo toward creating higher-end e-readers with higher-resolution displays that sell for more. They're targeted at heavy readers who want the best dedicated e-reader available. And that's exactly what the Kindle Voyage is: a great e-reader that just isn't cheap.

Score Breakdown

Amazon Kindle Voyage review: One of the best e-readers gets a nice discount today only

Jonathan Bray Jon has been tinkering with tech since the days when 128KB was a lot of storage, and games took 20 minutes to load via tape cassette. He’s been smitten ever since, and having decided to forge a career in technology journalism, he’s now been testing, reviewing and dispensing balanced and objective advice for over 20 years. If it’s been released in that time and has some kind of processor, he’s probably tested it. Despite having written about enough PCs, laptops, tablets, routers, smartphones, headphones, graphics cards, monitors, printers, scanners, cameras, cars and smart tech to fill an Amazon warehouse, his enthusiasm for all things shiny has never waned. Read more November 14, 2014

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Dedicated E-Ink based e-reader have been under threat of extinction in recent years, as tablets eat away at their market share, but plenty of bookworms still love the clarity of screen and long battery life. The Amazon Kindle Voyage seems to be a recognition of that fact, and instead of squeezing prices, as the company has done with its Fire tablets , the Voyage takes the Amazon’s ebook reader range upmarket.

At £169, the Wi-Fi-only version of the Voyage is £70 more expensive than last year’s Kindle Paperwhite, and the 3G version is even more costly – a wallet-busting £229.

Amazon Kindle vs Paperwhite vs Voyage vs Oasis: Common features

READ NEXT: The best tablets of 2017

Kindle Voyage review: what’s so special?

If you’re wondering what you get for such a hefty outlay, the answer is simple. This is Amazon’s best ebook reader yet, offering a number of improvements over the company’s previous flagship ebook reader, the Kindle Paperwhite (which remains on sale).

The Amazon Kindle Voyage is 1.5mm slimmer, 7mm shorter and 2mm narrower across than the Paperwhite, and the Wi-Fi version weighs 26g less. It looks dramatically different, too, adopting a similar design to the company’s HDX range of tablets, with faceted panels on the rear and a two-tone gloss-black/matte-black finish. Unfortunately, the Amazon Kindle Voyage also has the same rear-mounted, indented power button as its tablet cousins – if there’s one thing we really dislike about this, it’s having to fumble around at the rear to switch it on.

The Kindle Voyage’s new, improved “Carta” E-Ink display is much more impressive. It measures 6in across the diagonal, offers 16-shade greyscale, a resolution of 1,080 x 1,430 and a pixel density of 300ppi. As a result, it’s sharper than the older model, meaning it’s now impossible to see the pixels at the edges of text characters (although you had to look pretty hard before).

Contrast remains excellent, but the Voyage’s light is much brighter than the Paperwhite’s. Amazon says it’s 39% brighter at the maximum setting, a claim we wouldn’t dispute: set the two readers next to each other and the difference is obvious. It’s also much whiter in colour, enabling the new reader to simulate print on paper more effectively than ever – and Amazon has added an ambient light sensor, so you don’t have to keep adjusting the brightness manually.

The new panel isn’t the only thing that’s different about the Amazon Kindle Voyage’s screen. As with the Paperwhite, it’s a capacitive touchscreen, but here it sits flush with the bezels surrounding it. This gives the Voyage a slightly cleaner look, and although we noticed only a small difference in responsiveness, page flicks are easier to achieve, since you can now swipe smoothly from the edge of the reader directly onto the page itself. The glass covering the screen has a slightly silkier texture this time around, too.

The Voyage also sees the welcome return of page-turn buttons to Amazon’s flagship ebook reader – but these are no ordinary physical buttons. They’re pressure-sensitive zones that sit flush with the surface of the bezel, marked by a long and a dot; push gently down on one and the page turns, accompanied by a light vibration. It’s a nice touch, but even if you don’t like them, it’s not a problem: the “PagePress” buttons can be disabled or adjusted so the vibration is less intrusive.

Almost the only area where the Voyage hardware hasn’t taken a step forwards is battery life. Amazon rates it at up to six weeks (reading 30 minutes per day with the light set to 10 – which is just below mid-brightness), while the Paperwhite is rated at eight weeks. That’s a mild disappointment, but certainly no deal breaker.

Kindle Voyage review: software and ecosystem

Amazon hasn’t only been working at creating the best ever ebook reader hardware – the software upon which it is based has been upgraded as well. We particularly like the new child-friendly FreeTime system, which allows you set up different profiles for your little ones, complete with a different set of books for each. It even allows you to set daily reading goals if you wish.

Once FreeTime mode is activated, a password is required to exit, and access to the Kindle book store and the reader’s “experimental browser” are blocked, so you can be confident that your six-year-old won’t end up costing you a fortune in unwanted purchases.

It should also be remembered that, although the Voyage’s software ecosystem remains as closed as ever (you can’t easily read books that you’ve bought from, say, the Kobo store or a WHSmith ebook), the selection of titles on the Amazon store remains second to none. And if you do have a library of ebooks you want to transfer across in PDF or MOBI format, there’s a generous 4GB of built-in storage.

Finally, in keeping with the premium ethos surrounding the Amazon Kindle Voyage, there’s a new ‘Origami’ case to go with it, costing £40 (or £55 for the leather version). This clips magnetically to the rear of the Voyage and has a dual-purpose cover that flips over to protect the screen, and ingeniously folds up to double as a stand.

It’s a top quality accessory, it fits beautifully well, and lends a luxury feel to the Voyage – with this encasing the Voyage you’ll never be worried about the screen getting scratched in your bag.

On the flip side, the Origami case does add quite a bit of bulk to the Voyage, and with the flap folded back it feels a little awkward in the hand, slipping around against the rear of the reader. As a result, you’d probably be better off with a simpler, third party folio case, and you’ll save some cash as well.

Kindle Voyage review: verdict

The Amazon Voyage is a fantastic ebook reader, make no mistake. It’s more refined than the company’s previous best, the Kindle Paperwhite; the screen is better than ever; and it’s packed with luxury touches such as those page-turn controls. If you love your reading, and only an E-Ink device will do, there’s nothing else to match it.

For most, though, it’s far too expensive. It costs £69 more than the Paperwhite to do much the same job, and for similar money you could purchase a very decent colour tablet, such as the Nexus 7 , which can be used for far more than simply reading ebooks. Although the Kindle Voyage is a brilliant device, therefore, it’s a product only for dedicated bookworms.

What next? Find out what the best tablet on the market is in our essential guide.

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Which Kindle do I have? A quick guide to identifying all of Amazon's e-readers

Published on December 13, 2023

The Amazon Kindle is arguably Amazon’s best product. The e-ink display, the long battery life, and the simple design make for excellent e-readers. Early Kindle had some confusing naming schemes, an issue that Amazon has cleaned up in recent releases. Still, many of these devices look like one another, so we’re here to help you determine which one you own. You may need to know which Kindle model to buy the proper case or other accessories or fix an issue , but how do you check which Kindle model you have? Perhaps you’re just curious, and you can’t remember. Here’s a quick and dirty guide to which Kindle you have from all the available options.

Editor’s note — This article is for Kindle e-readers. If you have a Kindle Android tablet, you can easily find your device’s name in the Settings menu.

QUICK ANSWER

Kindles running firmware 5.14 or higher can go into Settings , Device Options, and  Device Info . Your device's name should be the first thing listed. If you have a device running older firmware, use the serial number or the physical identifiers listed below.

JUMP TO KEY SECTIONS

Identify your Kindle with Device Info

• Use the Kindle's serial number to identify it
• Use physical attributes to identify your Kindle

Kindle devices now list their own device name in the Device Info section starting with firmware version 5.14. That should include all modern Kindles and some from a few years back. Here’s how to check:

• Go into the Settings menu.
• Navigate to Device Options .
• Tap the Device Info option.
• Your Kindle will display information like Wi-Fi MAC address, firmware version, and other details.
• The very first item on the list should be your device’s model. Check the photo above to see what it looks like.
• Note — The Device Info section may vary depending on your device and the firmware version.

And that’s it. You should easily be able to see your device’s name. Unfortunately, older devices don’t have this luxury, so we’ll continue with other ways to identify your device.

Use the Kindle’s serial number or model number

Once you identify your serial or model number, refer to the table below to figure out which version you own.

How to find your serial number

• Go into your Settings menu.
• Navigate to Device Options.
• Finally, go to Device Info.
• The serial number and your Wi-Fi MAC Address, firmware version, and other data should be there.
• Note — This method works for modern Kindles. The Settings menu may be slightly different on older models.

How to find your model number

The model number is printed in two places. The first is on the back of the device, where all the information is. It’s usually towards the bottom. The other place is on the original box.

Use your Kindle’s physical appearance

Finally, we can help you identify your model based on its appearance. We only recommend this if you cannot get your serial or model numbers from the settings. Most Kindles also have a model number printed on the back of the device. If yours hasn’t rubbed off, you can Google your model number to find out your exact model and generation.

If that fails you, the section below shows you how to identify your Kindle based on its physical appearance. It’s the least efficient way, but it still works.

11th Generation

• Kindle Paperwhite 5 (2021) — The Paperwhite 5 has the black Amazon swoosh on the back and “Kindle” in white letters on the front. It’s physically similar to the Paperwhite 4. The biggest difference is its ability to emit warm light from the screen. Thus, if yours has a setting to emit warm light, it’s a Paperwhite 5. Otherwise, it’s a Paperwhite 4.
• Kindle Basic 4 (2022) — The Basic 4 is part of the 11th-generation Kindle. It looks very similar to the Paperwhite 5 but with a slightly smaller display. Additionally, the text on the front of the device is the same color as the device and not white like the Paperwhite.
• Kindle Scribe (2022) — The Scribe may not be part of the 11th Generation, but we’re listing it here anyway. This one looks similar to previous Oasis devices, except the thick bezel is on the left instead of the right. It also comes with a USB-C port. Notably, it’s also the only one you can write on.

10th Generation

• Kindle Basic 3 —  The back has the Amazon arrow logo without the word “Amazon.” It is otherwise physically identical to the Basic 2 aside from size.
• Kindle Paperwhite 4 — The Paperwhite 4 looks physically identical to the Paperwhite 3, except the text on the front is white instead of black.
• Kindle Oasis 3 — The Oasis 3 is physically identical to the Oasis 2. The only differentiation, as far as we know, is the Oasis 3 can emit warm light from the screen instead of the usual backlight color of the Oasis 2. If your settings have a warm light option, it’s an Oasis 3. Otherwise, it’s an Oasis 2.

9th Generation 

• Kindle Oasis 2 — The Oasis 2 is much larger than most other models at 7 inches, with a two-button handle on the right side. The handle is thicker than the rest of the device. The back has an Amazon arrow logo with “Amazon” text written vertically rather than horizontally.

8th Generation

• Kindle Basic 2 —  The back features rounded edges, which are different than the sloped edges of the Basic 1. The front otherwise looks identical to other Basic models.
• Kindle Oasis — The original Oasis looks the same as the other models. However, the original Oasis was much smaller than the other two, which is its only defining difference.

7th Generation

• Kindle Paperwhite 3 — The Paperwhite 3 is the only Paperwhite with black text on the front. It looks strikingly similar to Basic 1. However, looking closely, you’ll notice the Paperwhite 3 has a taller screen than the Basic 1.
• Kindle Voyage — The Voyage has a unique front design, with thin, vertical lines on the side and left and right soft-touch buttons for easy page-turning.
• Kindle Basic 1 — The first Basic is very similar to the other three Basic devices. However, on the back, the edges are sloped rather than rounded; to our knowledge, it is the only e-reader in the bunch with those sloped designs.

6th Generation

• Kindle Paperwhite 2 — The second-generation Paperwhite is the only Paperwhite with a glossy black Amazon logo on the back. All future generations have engraved logos with the same material as the rest of the device. The front looks the same as basically all other Paperwhites.

5th Generation

• Kindle 5 — The fifth-gen is physically identical to the fourth generation, except this one comes in black instead of silver. They are otherwise so close that Amazon lists them together on its list of all devices .
• Kindle Paperwhite 1 — The first Paperwhite looks the same as future generations. However, the first one is the only one with the name on the back and the front. All future generations use the Amazon logo.

4th Generation

• Kindle Touch — The Touch is easy enough to identify. It’s the only one with the physical, four-line home button on the front of the device.
• Kindle 4 — The fourth-gen e-reader has the characteristic square button on the front with two circular buttons on the left and right sides. However, this one only came in silver, and the fifth-generation model only came in black.

3rd Generation

• Kindle 3 — This third-gen product is the last one that came with a full keyboard. It has four rows of buttons along with two-page turn buttons on the right side. This model also introduced the square button that would be prevalent in the fourth and fifth-generation models later on.

2nd Generation

• Kindle 2 — This one has a totally unique look. It had a five-row keyboard with two buttons on the left and five buttons on the right. It is the only Amazon e-reader with that configuration.
• Kindle DX — The DX has a larger screen than most early devices. However, its four-row keyboard is much smaller, and, as a result, the screen-to-body ratio is much larger than most, making it easy to identify.

1st Generation

• Kindle 1 — The first one is easily identifiable by its keyboard. It’s the only one with a keyboard split down the middle and separated for easier two-hand typing. Additionally, each key has a weird bend that is vastly different from all other models.

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The Kindle Voyage is Still the Best 6-inch Kindle

September 19, 2020 by Nathan 38 Comments

Amazon released the Kindle Voyage back in November 2014, and to this day it’s still the best 6-inch ebook reader that Amazon has released. It has the best screen and the nicest design. Some even consider it the best Kindle ever because they don’t like the asymmetrical design of the Kindle Oasis.

How often does a company release a product that was better 6 years ago than what they offer today? It’s pretty strange when you think about it.

I’ll admit, I didn’t love the Kindle Voyage when it first came out. The first one I got had a really blotchy frontlight with a distracting gradient. But some years back I picked up a used Kindle Voyage on eBay that was in like new condition and it has a much better frontlight than the first one I had.

Of all the ebook readers that have been released since 2014, I still choose to use the Kindle Voyage when I’m away from the house because the streamlined design fits in a pocket easier than the Kindle Oasis, and the reason I like the Kindle Voyage better than other 6-inch ereaders is the fact that the screen is super crisp and clear—something that hasn’t been replicated since frontlight and capacitive touchscreen layers started degrading the clarity of E Ink screens.

Back before frontlights and capacitive touchscreens were a common feature on ebook readers, E Ink screens had an exceptionally clear quality to them, where the text almost appeared to float above the background, even on lower resolution screens. Unfortunately those days are long gone now that everything has touchscreens and frontlights, but something about the Kindle Voyage’s screen made it appear clearer than others, despite having a glass layer over the screen.

Another thing I like about the Kindle Voyage is the page sensor buttons along each side of the screen. I don’t like having to readjust my thumb with every page turn so having a button to press down on is essential for me.

The only thing I don’t like about the Voyage is the bezels are so narrow it’s impossible for my thumb not to inadvertently interact with the touchscreen. Luckily when using a cover it adds just enough thickness to the side so I can use the buttons without activating the touchscreen (it would be nice if the Voyage had the ability to disable the touchscreen like newer models).

I find it odd that I’d still rather use a Kindle Voyage that’s six years old over any of the newer 6-inch Kindles and other 6-inch models. I do like the physical page buttons on the Kindle Oasis better, and I do find it a bit more comfortable to hold with the asymmetrical design, but the portability factor takes a hit because it’s too wide to comfortably fit in a pocket, and the Voyage still has slightly better contrast and better battery life.

Who else still prefers using a Kindle Voyage after all these years? It’s a shame Amazon never released a newer version, and it’s been so long since the Voyage was produced they can only be found used these days. Even all the refurbished stock has dried up.

Reader Interactions

September 19, 2020 at 9:27 am

My Voyage’s battery is getting weaker after almost 6 years. Nothing bad, it will last for another 4-5 years with a bit of luck. That butterfly cover, as you said, add just enough on the sides. And it’s the best thing to have to put your Kindle on the table on an airplane. I actually don’t appreciate the buttons on the sides. I still automatically touch the screen to turn a page. Overall I totally agree with you and I even wrote to Amazon: it is the best Kindle of all!

September 20, 2020 at 6:04 pm

There is a YouTube video on replacing the battery on the Kindle Voyage. https://youtu.be/zFqBrIE4mT0

September 20, 2020 at 6:05 pm

I still have the Voyage and is still great.

September 19, 2020 at 11:13 am

I think it’s the best 6 inch Kindle when the light is turned off. Deep pitch black inky fonts, slim sexy design with nice curves. Light in the handle yet with a premium feel. However, the lack of uniformity with the lighting was what destroyed it’s potential. Throughout the years I’ve had 13 voyages, and they all had terrible lighting.

September 19, 2020 at 10:18 pm

Interesting. I have only had one Kindle Voyage. The lighting and screen were perfect from the start and it’s still great six years later. I have had no problems at all with it.

September 21, 2020 at 2:55 am

“Throughout the years I’ve had 13 voyages, and they all had terrible lighting.”

That’s persistence.

September 19, 2020 at 12:33 pm

I agree with everything you said. Unfortunately I managed to break my glass, so it’s basically a beautiful brick now. I would likely have replaced it with another Voyage if I could have, using the $5+20% trade-in. But since the Voyage was no longer available, I moved to a Kobo Libra specifically because of what you said about the narrow bezel and I did also want the orange light.

September 19, 2020 at 5:55 pm

I have three of them in various parts of my house and vastly prefer the Voyage over the Oasis.

September 19, 2020 at 2:24 pm

This is why I’ve not replaced my voyage. Some of the features on newer kindles are tempting (especially the waterproofing), bit they just don’t have the same form factor and functionality of the voyage with its ‘buttons’ and slim size.

September 19, 2020 at 2:36 pm

It really was nice. That said, it’s also the only kindle I’ve owned that ever randomly died (annoyingly out of warranty). Along with the risky light situation, it seems like the design had its issues.

September 19, 2020 at 5:52 pm

love my voyage. bought it used from amazon for about $60 when i lost my kobo clara. wish they’d do a re-release

September 21, 2020 at 1:14 am

In 2014 I bought my son a lightly used 7th generation Kindle. For his 11th birthday this summer I upgraded him to the current 2018 Paperwhite since he wore out the old one. He loves the upgrade. I expected to envy him that shiny new device since my beloved Voyage is indeed 5 years old. However, I find I just don’t and much prefer my “dinosaur” with its beautifully clear text and page turn buttons. I hope it lasts many more years!

I do suggest to anyone who has loves their Voyage and has considered getting a new case that they do so sooner than later. My choices were surprisingly slim compared to when I last looked.

September 19, 2020 at 5:59 pm

I loved my kindle voyage.. I used it constantly – – I read 10 hours a night at least. However, just a couple of months ago I could no longer charge it. The charger wouldn’t make a connection to charge it up. So I’m now back to my original paperwhite, which I’ve not used since I bought my Voyage – – when it first came out. (I do keep all devices charged up whether being used or not).

September 20, 2020 at 2:31 am

10 hours a night? Do you have a job? 😂

September 20, 2020 at 12:53 pm

I am retired! I climb into bed at 10 and usually read til at least 6. But I read some during the day. Sleep in the morning. Retirement, quarantine, and living alone mean my own schedule!

November 17, 2020 at 10:22 pm

Sign me up! This is the life I want :).

April 28, 2021 at 2:38 pm

I love my Voyage. I’ve had it since 2014…. I do not want physical buttons, that’s one of the things I love about it. Also the Oasis being asymmetrical drives me crazy to look at. Not sure if it would be super distracting to me…..

September 19, 2020 at 9:20 pm

Best ebook reader made for sure. Great size. Great battery. Love the haptic feedback on page turn. Love the forward and back buttons on both sides of bezel. Just an outstanding design.

Love mine. Use it everyday. Considered getting a larger screen but the clarity of text is impossible to beat on the voyager.

September 19, 2020 at 10:13 pm

I still prefer the Kindle Voyage as well.

September 19, 2020 at 11:57 pm

I wonder why Amazon cannot consider producing an 8 or 10 inch voyage kindle with buttons on. That would be my dream cone true….

September 19, 2020 at 11:58 pm

a typo – come not cone.

September 20, 2020 at 2:11 am

I loved my Voyage too but I lent it to my sister so my nephew could use it and they still have it. I was trying the new basic Kindle at the time and didn’t go back. I would love if Amazon brought it back out I much prefer either the page turn sensors or the buttons. The Oasis is a bit pricey for me to upgrade just to have the buttons but I would consider it on the cheaper Kindles.

September 20, 2020 at 4:29 am

Own two Kindle Voyage, and still use them, swapping with a Tolino Epos (V1). Would like to see both an updated Voyage and an updated Voyage with a bigger screen.

The newer, higher end Tolinos epos 2 and vision 5 are also both asymmetric, which I hate. And the epos 2 is way to expensive. They are Kobos with a different firmware. It is ok, with some nice touches, but for normal reading there is not much difference. The bigger screen is ok for PDF, but I would prefer the Sony PRS-T1 for PDF (better software). This is also true for the Kindle Voyage.

September 20, 2020 at 5:25 am

I will leave my Voyage to the Science Museum. It is a national treasure.

Best screen of any ereader by far.

It was my first Kindle with nearly perfect lighting. There was a single bright spot. The replacement from Amazon is perfect. I just wish it was a bit warmer now that I have an Oasis to play with.

September 20, 2020 at 8:10 am

There’s a hack to turn off the touchscreen, if that’s your thing.

September 20, 2020 at 9:12 am

Agree with most here that the Kindle Voyage is the best ereader Amazon has made to-date. including the Oasis. Strongly prefer it over all the others, even newer models, and await a worthy successor. Amazon folks, I hope you’re tuned in.

September 20, 2020 at 11:01 am

I bought a Voyage for myself when I decided to make the plunge into the Kindle world. I’d gotten my wife a Paperwhite a year or two earlier and she’d loved it, but I wanted the better specs (especially lighting and screen res) of the Voyage. Loved my new reader!!! When the Oasis came out, my wife was wanting a new Kindle – and was envious of my lighting and screen res – so I got her an Oasis. I found I was envious of the larger screen … and interestingly, she didn’t like the larger screen … so we traded. We both love our respective devices. I think anyone who complains about either (other than pricing) must’ve gotten a bad unit!!!

September 20, 2020 at 12:07 pm

The voyage had light uniformity problems. I believe Nathan has also mentioned it throughout the years and on YouTube videos. Very sleek device and aesthetically pleasing. They should do a re-release in an 8 inch form factor. Hopefully they could get the lighting right this time.

September 20, 2020 at 3:17 pm

Kindle Voyage that I have is my “go to” e reader. Love the portability.

September 20, 2020 at 8:30 pm

I’m hanging on to my Voyage as long as possible. It is my favorite also.

September 21, 2020 at 2:47 am

Nice to get your points of view.

September 22, 2020 at 9:38 pm

I love my Kindle Voyage!

September 23, 2020 at 10:33 am

I have and still use Kindle Voyage. I would really like a larger screen and no glass screen for an updated model. Or perhaps a new e-reader with a larger screen and symmetrical buttons. I doubt Amazon will do this, though.

November 5, 2020 at 7:27 am

I still use a Voyage everyday. Battery life is still much better than my Oasis, and as others mentioned the portability makes it my travelling reader. But most of all, the Voyage does really have the best screen; ?I bought one in 2016, 2 years after its release and I think all the kinks in its initial production runs were smoothed over to provide a flawless screen and excellent lighting.

I still like the amber glow of the Oasis for nighttime reading and keep it handy near my bed, and as both devices synch flawlessly, I really enjoy reading from both.

January 14, 2021 at 1:56 pm

Yep, I prefer Kindle Voyage. Just bought a used one in very good condition when mine died. Text is sharper on this screen than on the Oasis.

January 8, 2022 at 9:02 am

If my Voyage ever dies I’ll strongly consider an Oasis but when my 2014 one died suddenly in 2017 I tried a Kindle non voyage again and within weeks was looking for another Voyage . I found a “used like new ” one and have been averaging about 2 hours a week since then. I only get about 2 weeks of battery life before I need to charge it but for being getting on 5 years old AND was used prior I’m ecstatic . The leather vertical flip cover (igadgitz brand ) is well worn but still does the trick with its hand hold on the back . With the new paperwhite and paperwhite signature being released with just about all the bells and whistles hopefully the next paperwhite will have side buttons like my Voyage , the biggest reason I prefer it over all others .

May 13, 2023 at 11:33 pm

In 2023, the Kindle Voyage still has the sharpest, best screen of all e-book readers manufactured since 2014. Especially reading at night, Kindle Voyage is simply the clearest screen. All the others, even 5 times more expensive, are fuzzy compared to Voyage. I can live without buttons or other bells, but when you mess up the screen sharpness to acomodate the useless yellow light technology… that is a dealbreaker for me.

May 26, 2023 at 7:40 pm

What a cool little support forum for the Voyage! Maybe if someone could tell Amazon to check out this thread, we’d have a new Voyage soon! Anyway, ditto everyone- I love my Voyage (although I might try to install a new battery- fingers crossed). I’ve never had issues with the light, I love the side buttons, and my little leather cover makes it the perfect portable hand-hold! Seriously- if Amazon saw this and used our feedback, they’d have a brand new 6″ winner to sell.

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• Circuit Breaker

Amazon finally makes a waterproof Kindle, after 10 years of Kindles

‘oasis’ is now a fitting name.

By Lauren Goode

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Amazon has been selling Kindles for 10 years now, but “waterproof” hasn’t appear on its list of incremental technological advancements until now. The company just announced a new version of its popular e-reader that builds on last year’s Kindle design and now has an IPX8 waterproof rating.

The new Kindle Oasis — the same name as last year’s premium Kindle — has jumped up in size, moving from a 6-inch screen to a 7-inch screen. It has an aluminum back, which gives it a more premium look and feel than the Kindles with soft-touch plastic.

Unlike last year’s Kindle Oasis, which used a magnetic case you attached to the e-reader to extend its battery life, the new Oasis relies entirely on its built-in battery. It has a similar physical design, with one thicker side that tapers down on the other side, for one-handed reading. But Amazon has made a point of saying that it managed to fit in a bigger battery, while keeping the tapered side of the device at 3.4 millimeters.

The resolution of the e-paper display is the same at 300 ppi, but it has a couple extra LED lights now for a brighter, more even-looking display. And it also has ambient light sensors that adjust the brightness as you move from room to room, or from outdoors to indoors. (The earlier Voyage Kindle does this, too.)

There are physical page-turn buttons, plus the touchscreen page-turn option; Amazon says it’s worked on both the hardware and software side of things to make page-turning feel faster.

But the big news with the upgraded Oasis is its waterproofing, a long-requested feature from some Kindle fans. (Yes, last year’s model was called Oasis and wasn’t waterproofed.) The new e-reader has been tested in two meters of water for up to 60 minutes. It’s also been tested in different water environments, like hot tubs, pools, and bubble baths. Amazon declined to say how it waterproofed the Kindle, but since it still has an open USB port for charging, it’s recommending that people stand the Kindle upright after it’s been submerged.

Audible fans will be happy, as well: the new Oasis has a built-in Audible app. This doesn’t mean you can listen to Audible from the Kindle itself — it still doesn’t have any speakers — but you can start an audio book from the device and stream it over Bluetooth to a set of headphones or a speaker.

The new Oasis ships at the end of October and is replacing last year’s Oasis, leaving four Kindles total in Amazon’s lineup: the original Kindle ($80), the Kindle Paperwhite ($120), Kindle Voyage ($200), and the Oasis, which starts at $250 for an 8GB model. That’s double the base storage of previous Kindles, which Amazon says is to accommodate the storage of audio books. It also connects over both Wi-Fi and 4G LTE.

Amazon has been notoriously coy when it comes to saying how many units of Kindle it has sold — which was the first piece of hardware Amazon ever made and sold — but Kevin Keith, Amazon’s general manager of devices, said in an interview that sales are still “quite good,” with “tens of millions” sold. He also noted that Kindle is in more countries than any other Amazon device.

“Kindle” has indeed become synonymous with “e-reader” over the past decade, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Amazon will enjoy the same kind of Kindle success over the next 10 years. In 2016, data showed that ebook sales were down , while sales of physical books surged. And in 2015, a Pew research report on American device ownership showed that e-reader ownership was down significantly from the year prior . According to non-Amazon data, it seems to have reached its peak in 2011.

But a spokesperson for Amazon said that Kindle is still as “relevant as ever,” pointing out that Kindle sales are up year-over-year globally and that it had its best-selling day ever on Prime Day of this year.

For now, at least, there’s a new Kindle you can drop in the bath, the hot tub, or wherever else you enjoy your ebooks when you need a break from the internet.

Update : This article has been updated to include more context on Kindle sales from Amazon. Also, the price of the new Kindle was reported incorrectly in an earlier version of this article. The story has been updated to reflect that it is listed as $249.99 ($250), not $248.

Photography by Lauren Goode / The Verge

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Amazon Kindle Oasis 2017 review: The ultimate e-reader adds audiobooks and a waterproof case

Expert's Rating

• Excellent build quality
• Comfortable for one-handed reading over long periods
• No more external battery cover to fiddle with
• Large, bright display
• Can play audiobooks downloaded from Audible
• Cannot play audio from any source other than Audible
• Exposure to larger amounts of liquid causes false screen taps to be registered

Our Verdict

Waterproof, superbly built and a pleasure to use, the All-New Kindle Oasis is one of the best e-readers we’ve tested. While its high price may make it undesirable for casual readers, serious e-book aficionados will find it well worth the money.

Amazon’s latest Kindle Oasis  ($270 as configured via Amazon)  is the ultimate e-reader. Two important features debut with this 2017 model: It’s waterproof, and it supports audiobooks via Audible.

Make no mistake: Reading on this device is a luxurious pleasure. With a starting price of $270 (or $250 with “Special Offer” lockscreen ads), however, the Oasis floats beyond many budgets. For everyone else, we suggest picking up a Kindle Paperwhite , which can be had for half the cost.

For more options, check out our comprehensive Kindle buying guide , or explore the broader competition in our e-reader buying guide .

Kindle Oasis prices, specs, and features

The Kindle Oasis is priced according to memory amount, connectivity, and the presence or absence of Special Offers —yes, you must pay for the privilege of omitting ads from the bottom of your lock screen.

Kindle Oasis (2017) 32GB, Wi-Fi

Deciding between 8GB and 32GB of memory depends on how voraciously you read—and especially whether you decide to take up Audible audiobooks, which demand a lot more space than an ebook. According to Amazon, 8GB can hold “thousands of books or over 35 Audible audiobooks.” Step up to 32GB, and Amazon says you’ll be able to store “thousands of books or over 160 Audible audiobooks.” 

Remember, too, that Amazon will store its own content for you in the cloud, so you don’t need to keep all your ebooks on your Kindle. 

Kindle Oasis prices

For $270, the base unit (which we reviewed) offers 8GB of memory and Wi-Fi connectivity. With Special Offers , the price drops to $250. 

Kindle Oasis (2017) Leather Cover

For $300, you can step up to 32GB of memory and Wi-Fi . With Special Offers , the price drops to $280. 

For those who roam frequently beyond Wi-Fi signals, a 32GB model with free cellular connectivity (AT&T 3G or 4G LTE, depending on location) is available for $350. 

Specs common to all Kindle Oasis models

Display: 7-inch, 300-ppi Paperwhite display with a 12-LED built-in light and 16 levels of gray

Dimensions: 6.3 x 5.6 x 0.13-0.33 inches

Kindle Oasis Waterproof Cover (2017)

Weight: 6.8 ounces

Warranty: One year, extendable to two or three years

Covers: Amazon offers two covers for the 2017 Kindle Oasis: A leather cover, and a waterproof fabric cover. Both covers also function as kickstands for the Oasis, with a flap that folds out to hold up the device.

Battery:  Amazon says the 2017 Oasis can run for up to six weeks on a single charge, assuming a half-hour of reading each day. Reading on our test unit for an hour or two a day over the course of a week, with Wi-Fi on, the battery still hasn’t dipped below three-quarters of a charge. The Kindle can charge fully in less than three hours, Amazon says, with the included USB charging cable.  

Design: First-class all the way

Since the release of the original Kindle Oasis , last year, Amazon has flipped its vision of what a luxury e-reading device should be.

The original Kindle Oasis was built to be as svelte as possible without sacrificing readability, incorporating lightweight plastic, glare-free glass, and a smaller internal battery. The battery’s bump was a perfect handle, and it also served as a docking point for a magnetic cover-external battery combo.

The Kindle Oasis (2017) is larger and sturdier than its predecessor,   but it uses much of the same design language as the original model.

Not so the 2017 Oasis. While it maintains much of the same design language as the original, the refreshed e-reader is larger, tougher, and feels and looks a lot more like a premium product than its predecessor. 

At 6.8 ounces, it weighs 2.5 ounces more than the original, thanks to its larger dimensions, a larger internal battery, and a slick aluminum backplate. The Oasis retains the handy battery bump, but for 2017 there’s no battery cover to be had. Covers for the 2017 Oasis are just, well, covers—one in leather, and one in waterproof fabric. 

The bezels are flush with the display, and all reside under a slab of glare-free glass. Three sides of the bezel are roughly a quarter-inch wide. The fourth side juts out an inch and contains two page-turn buttons, which are placed perfectly for keying with your thumb. Thanks to an accelerometer, the buttons can be used left or right-handed—just flip the e-reader around, and the screen will reorient itself to suit your needs.

You can also turn the pages of what you’re reading by tapping the e-reader’s display. Unfortunately, there’s no way to turn off this option, and that became a hassle when the Kindle Oasis was used in watery environments (more on that in the Waterproofing section below). 

During long reading sessions, I found the 2017 Oasis just as comfortable to use as the 2016 version, despite its larger dimensions. I was surprised to find that the aluminum back panel of the new one was as easy to grip as the plastic panel on the original Oasis. Build quality is rock-solid and, in case you care, the leather covers feel and look great.

Kindle Oasis waterproofing: How it works

The 2017 Kindle Oasis will continue to work even if submerged in up to two meters of water for up to an hour at a time.

Amazon’s making a big deal out of the fact that the Kindle Oasis is its first waterproof e-reader. With its IPX8 rating, the 2017 Oasis can be submerged in two meters of fresh water for up to an hour at a time. Amazon offers more waterproofing information on its site. 

In truth, the 2017 Oasis finally gives Amazon a product comparable to what Waterfi’s aftermarket waterproofing treatment for the Kindle Paperwhite provides, and the sort of wet-environment performance Kobo’s Aura H20 Edition 2 and Aura One  already offer. Testing the e-reader in the pool, shower and hot tub over a number of days, I feel confident that it’ll survive most liquids you throw at it.

Amazon hasn’t solved the full-submersion issues that other waterproof e-readers also face. Granted, it’s unlikely you’ll hold it fully underwater when you’re actually trying to read, but it’s important to understand the limitations of this feature. Get a few drops of water on the Oasis display and it’s business as usual. Submerge it fully, and the device will register the large amounts of liquid as touches, causing pages to turn and options to change willy-nilly. 

Kindle Oasis display: Bigger and better

The 2017 Kindle Oasis has the largest display of any e-ink device currently offered by Amazon.

The 2017 Kindle Oasis display is the largest in Amazon’s current lineup, measuring seven inches diagonal compared to six inches for the original version. This means fewer page turns or more room for larger font sizes to spread out.

Like the original Oasis and Amazon’s current Paperwhite and Voyage models, the 2017 Oasis has a display resolution of 300 ppi. Text, at any size and in any font I chose (the options abound), was just as crisp and legible as if it had been laser-printed on a sheet of paper. The 12-LED front lighting is a huge help. I found that, compared to Amazon’s second most-expensive reader, the 6-LED front-lit Kindle Voyage, or the lighting afforded by Kobo’s flagship device, the Aura One, the 2017 Oasis’ display lighting was far more consistent.

Display lighting can be controlled via the device’s on-screen UI, but, like the Kindle Voyage, the 2017 Oasis also comes equipped with a light sensor. This allows the device change the illumination level of its display based the amount of ambient light. I found that relying on the light sensor often resulted in a darker setting than I preferred, however.

Let’s hear it for Audible audiobooks

Owners of the 2017 Amazon Kindle Oasis can use the device to listen to Audible audio books via Bluetooth headphones.

First, the good news: The 2017 Oasis is the first Kindle in years that has the ability to play audio. Users can download audio content from Audible and listen to them with a pair of connected Bluetooth headphones. If you happen to own both the ebook and the audio version of a given title, Amazon’s Whispersync service makes it possible to read until your eyes fall out and then pick up where you left off by listening to the audio version. It’s a great feature!

As noted in the full specs and features, the memory capacity of the Kindle Oasis can accommodate a hearty serving of a few dozen Audible audiobooks, or a gluttonous mound of well over a hundred, depending on how many ebooks you already have on there as well. 

Now for the bad news: Amazon keeps you on a tight leash. It supports only Audible content, meaning you can’t side-load audiobooks, podcasts or music from third-party sources. I attempted to do so with a number of different audio formats. No dice.

Conclusion: The Kindle Oasis has it all

The Kindle Oasis (2017) represents a long-awaited upgrade to Amazon’s e-reader product line. Waterproofing and Audible content support lift it above the competition. 

At the same time, Amazon keeps the experience familiar and comfortable. That’s partly because it’s been a long time since Amazon gave its e-reader operating system anything resembling an overhaul, for better or worse. But the better part of that scenario is that anyone who’s picked up a Kindle in the past five years will find the 2017 Oasis easy to use. Front lighting, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth controls are easy to find. The ability to tweak your reading experience with 14 different font sizes and 10 different fonts (including a bold typeface and OpenDyslexic), or alter a text’s line spacing and margins, are all big pluses for readers.

But the real advantage to owning a Kindle is the vast variety of content that you can read—and now listen to, on one device. To date, no other company can come close to matching the vast selection that Amazon Kindle owners enjoy: newspapers, comic books, magazines, books and audiobooks. Now the Kindle Oasis offers the best luxury cruiser for consuming that content. 

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Amazon Kindle Oasis 2017 review: the Rolls-Royce of e-readers

The new top-end Kindle is an indulgent purchase, but with added water resistance and other refinements it’s still the one to beat

Amazon’s new top-end e-reader is now water resistant, but is the all aluminium Kindle Oasis still the luxury option to buy?

While the original Kindle Oasis was a big step forward in e-reader design, the 2017 Oasis is more of a refinement with fewer of the compromises made last year for fit and form.

The new model has a similar asymmetric shape to its predecessor, with one thicker side having page-turn buttons, a power button and the microUSB charging port. The other, thinner side contains the new, larger 7in E-ink screen, which is an inch bigger than the last model and the biggest fitted to a Kindle since the 9.7in DX line, which was discontinued in 2013.

Where the 2016 Oasis had a small battery in the reader itself and a larger battery in the case, which charged the internal battery, the new Oasis has a larger battery built-in, capable of “six weeks of reading” – enough to read around two 350-page novels even at my slow pace. It’s a more elegant solution, but the larger battery and bigger screen mean the body of the Oasis now weighs 63g more, at 194g.

While it is no longer feather-light, it’s not heavy either, and the solid aluminium body feels more sturdy, meaning I’m less worried about it breaking in a bag. You also have to hold it differently to be able to still hit both page turn buttons, grasping it halfway up the side with your fingers tucked against the ridge on the back rather than down by the bottom corner.

The buttons are still excellent and it’s still comfortable to hold for extended periods. While it’s more difficult to fit in a pocket, I appreciated the bigger display, which could fit more text on one page, meaning fewer page turns were required per chapter. It’s still as beautifully crisp and easy to read, and now has automatic front-light adjustment.

Specifications

• Screen: 7in Paperwhite with frontlight (300ppi)
• Storage: 8/32GB
• Dimensions: 159 x 141 x 8.3mm (3.4mm at thinnest point)
• Weight: 194g
• Rated battery life: 6 weeks reading 30 minutes a day
• Native format support: Kindle (AZW/AZW3), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC

Water resistance and audiobooks

Other than the bigger screen, the two new standout features for the 2017 Oasis are Audible audiobook integration and water resistance, a first for the Kindle line and a feature rivals have had for years. It will survive up to an hour in up to 2m of fresh water, which means trips to the beach or the pool are a bit safer, although don’t expect it to float. You can slot a case into the thinner section on the back, which will hold it on by magnets and can stand the Kindle up on a desk. I tried a fabric case, which is water safe and quite nice, but doesn’t feel as luxurious as the leather cover included with the 2016 Oasis (leather versions are available for a higher price than the fabric model).

Audiobooks are nothing new, but what the new Oasis can do is sync your reading positions across Audible books and ebooks. If you have bought both the ebook and the audiobook you can seamlessly switch between the two by using a pair of Bluetooth headphones or a speaker connected to the Oasis – there’s no headphone socket.

I hit play on the audiobook as I leave work to listen to while walking to the station. Once seated on the train, I pull out the Oasis and start reading rather than listening. The sync happens between complete pages, so you have to find the last word that was uttered on the page. Once I pull in at the station I hit the button, switch to the audiobook and hit play again, walking home.

I found it delightful, working and syncing well, but it’s expensive as you have to essentially buy the book twice and you can’t side-load audiobooks from other sources. If you own one but not the other, Amazon discounts the other format, from £2.99 for an audiobook. It won’t show the text of the book when you listen to the audiobook, so it won’t work as a read-along system for kids. You also end up with the narrator’s version of characters entering into your reading of the book, which some will like but others will feel is imposing.

Observations

• The 2017 Kindle Oasis is significantly faster in operation than the previous version
• There are plenty of formatting, typeface, size and display settings
• The magnetic cover switches the Kindle on or off, but it’s a shame one isn’t included in the box
• The Oasis is readable in pretty much any light, including very bright sunlight thanks to it’s E-ink screen
• The screen has the same 300ppi pixel density as the Kindle Paperwhite, Voyage and 2016 Oasis despite being an inch larger
• The fabric covers are water resistant, but don’t feel as luxurious as the leather versions -

The 2017 Amazon Kindle Oasis costs £229.99 ( buy here ) with 8GB of storage and wifi, £239.99 ( buy here ) with 32GB and wifi, or £319.99 ( buy here ) with 32GB and wifi and 3G connectivity.

For comparison, the Kindle Voyage costs £170 ( buy here ) with wifi only, the Paperwhite costs £110 ( buy here ) with wifi only and adverts, and the standard Kindle costs £60 with ads ( buy here ). Kobo’s Aura H2O costs £150 ( buy here ).

The 2017 Amazon Kindle Oasis is the Rolls-Royce of e-readers – a premium device that does little more than the excellent Paperwhite, while costing more than twice the price. But that’s ok. It isn’t the Kindle you should buy, but it’s the one you’ll want to buy. It’s an indulgence.

Where last year’s Kindle Oasis was a giant leap forward in e-reader design, the new version is just iterative. The bigger screen makes reading better, but portability slightly worse. The integrated battery makes it a little bit heavier, but less complex. It’s finally water resistant, and an auto-adjusting front light is much appreciated.

Audiobook integration through Amazon’s Audible is a great, but expensive alternative way to consume books that may fit better with your commuting patterns – it does mine.

The Kindle Oasis provides the best ebook reading experience money can buy. It’s just not a huge upgrade over the excellent model from last year.

Pros: long battery life, light, easy to hold, excellent screen, even auto-adjusting frontlight, great page-turn buttons, luxurious feel, faster, Audible integration

Cons: expensive, cover not included, no support for third-party audiobooks, no headphones socket

Other reviews

• Kindle Paperwhite review: front-lit screen makes reading a pleasure
• Amazon Kindle Voyage review: expensive but top quality e-reader

This article contains affiliate links to products. Our journalism is independent and is never written to promote these products although we may earn a small commission if a reader makes a purchase.

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Amazon kindle: a brief history from the original kindle onwards.

The first Amazon Kindle launched all the way back in 2007. Join us as we trace the history from the original Kindle to the latest Kindle devices.

The Amazon Kindle was launched with one real aim: to bring people books. The Kindle was never designed to compete with tablets and sticking to this principle has allowed the Kindle to evolve through to the present day and excel at its task.

The Kindle has remained one of our favourite devices. Where tablets, phones, PCs and TVs have seen radical changes, the technology and the functions of the Kindle have remained true to task, but evolving in pace with technology.

The Kindle gives you access to digital books and provides the best method for reading them and that's the guiding principle that drives the Kindle on. It's about reading, reading and reading. It's a tool for a single job, not a tool for many (there's the Kindle Fire for that, which we're ignoring here.)

We've been looking over the archives of Kindle history, starting from Amazon's original ebook reader, through to its present-day devices.

Amazon Kindle (2007)

Launched in November 2007, the first generation Amazon Kindle was showcased in NewsWeek magazine. It went on sale on Amazon.com on 19 November and sold out within hours and was immediately dubbed "the iPod of reading". The original Kindle launched with a 6-inch E Ink display, offered a free wireless connection over Sprint's EV-DO network, on the new Whispernet announced by Amazon.

There was no touch control, however, so the Kindle offered a full keyboard, navigation buttons and a quirky wedge-shaped design aiming to make it better to hold. It also offered a speaker and headphone socket, and expandable SD card storage.

Because page navigation was difficult, it featured a second display with a scroll wheel to help make selections on the display easier. That was needed because the E Ink display was too slow to refresh to give a natural navigation experience.

It cost $399 and was only available within the US, offering access to 90,000 books at launch.

Amazon Kindle 2 (2009)

On 9 February 2009 Amazon updated the Kindle with the launch of the Kindle 2. The crazy design of the 2007 Kindle was swapped for a more conventional, flatter, design, with a button layout that was flatter and less dominating. It retained the 6-inch E Ink display, however, improving the technology for faster page turns and better refreshing, while moving from the original 4 shades of grey to 16. There was a storage boost too, moving up to 2GB of internal storage for 1000s of books. A new navigation controller was added to make it easier to select text and options on the screen.

The Kindle Store by this time had expanded to around 230,000 titles and the Kindle 2 launched with a Steven King exclusive, called Ur.

It cost $359 originally, discounted to $299 and then $259. The Kindle 2 was then dropped for the Kindle 2 International Edition that was announced on 7 October and shifted to GSM for global wireless connections.

The Kindle also fractured off into a line of larger devices called the Kindle DX aimed at magazine reading, but only survived two generations before they stopped being offered.

Amazon Kindle Keyboard (2010)

The Kindle Keyboard was the first Kindle to sell natively in the UK, announced on 29 July 2010. It was launched originally as Kindle 3, an obvious evolution of the Kindle 2, but then changed its name to the Kindle Keyboard.

The Kindle Keyboard again made the page turn controls more compact in the edges and slotted the navigation controller alongside the keyboard. It still didn't offer a touchscreen, so that keyboard was used for browsing and buying from the Kindle store.

The other big departure was a Wi-Fi only version, meaning a lower pricing point. It was $139 for Wi-Fi and the 3G version costing $189. The new UK Kindle Store opened on 27 August 2010, with access to 400,000 books.

The display is still a 6-inch E Ink display, by now offering 600 x 800 pixels.

Kindle Touch (2011)

On 28 September 2011, Amazon had a huge day, announcing not only a fourth-generation Kindle, but also the Kindle Fire as it branched into tablets. However, for the Kindle family, the most important device was the Kindle Touch. The Touch was the first implementation of touchscreen, dropping the navigation keys and the keyboard.

The new device retained the 6-inch E Ink display, but now touch was added because Amazon felt the refresh rate was fast enough and the experience clean enough to make this move. There was 4GB of storage and a battery life of weeks.

The Kindle Touch was again available in Wi-Fi and 3G versions, it introduced Amazon's X-Ray feature. It was originally launched in the US, but became international in March 2012. The Kindle Touch cost $99 for Wi-Fi and $149 for 3G at launch in the US.

Kindle Paperwhite (2012)

The rumours of a front-lit Kindle appeared not long after the launch of the Touch, but it was 6 September 2012 when Amazon announced the Kindle Paperwhite . The first generation device added illumination to the display which was a major breakthrough, meaning you could now read in the dark, with manual brightness adjustment.

It was originally launched with a 6-inch 212ppi display and in 3G and Wi-Fi editions, again relying solely on touchscreen navigation.

The second edition (Paperwhite 2) was announced on 3 September 2013 with an upgraded E Ink display offering better contrast and faster page turns thanks to a more powerful processor. The illumination was also improved for more a more even front light.

The third edition Kindle Paperwhite was announced on 30 June 2015 and stepped the E Ink display up to 300ppi, with twice the number of pixels of the 2012 model. This model also saw the debut of the Bookerly font, Amazon's own font designed for reading.

Amazon Kindle (2014)

While most of the attention has been taken by the advancements firstly to touch and then to the front lighting of the Paperwhite, the humble Kindle continued. Announced in 2014, this version of the Amazon Kindle was heralded mostly for its price, launched alongside the advanced Kindle Voyage . This Kindle is perhaps basic by comparison, but with a price of only $79, it was the cheapest Kindle, but still fully featured, offering a great entry point into the world of ebook readers.

The Kindle offered full touch control and a 6-inch E Ink display, but didn't offer a 3G connection, sticking to Wi-Fi only. There was 4GB of storage and a battery that would last you through weeks of reading. The standard Kindle was updated in June 2016 and added Bluetooth, but had much the same design and display as the 2014 version.

Amazon Kindle Voyage (2014)

The Kindle Voyage takes much of what Amazon has done elsewhere and refines it further. It was announced on 18 September 2014 alongside the £59 basic Kindle, offering quite a contrast in the Kindle family.

The Kindle Voyage looked to enhance the Kindle experience, removing the bezel and placing touch controllers next to the display to make page turning easier without having to swipe the display. At the same time the display steps-up offering adaptive front lighting, a feature unique to this model.

The display is still a 6-inch E Ink display, offering a 300ppi resolution. The Kindle Voyage aimed to give users a premium reading experience and it did so, but comes with a hefty $199 price for the Wi-Fi model, or $289 for the 3G version.

Amazon Kindle Oasis (2016)

The Amazon Kindle Oasis was announced on 13 April 2016 and was a radical departure for the Kindle design, breaking the device down and starting again. It offered a device that was much thinner and lighter than any previous Kindle, pulling the hardware into the grip on one side and offering two top page turning buttons. The aim was to make it a superlative one-handed reading device.

It offered enhanced front lighting, but lacked the adaptive lighting of the Voyage, and again stuck to a 6-inch E Ink display with 300ppi.

It came with a battery cover that would extend the life up to about 9 weeks, making this the longest-lasting Kindle to date. But it was also the most expensive, with a $290 price tag.

Amazon Kindle Oasis (2017)

In 2017 there was a new Oasis in town, and this time Amazon made a big change not seen so far on this list: it bumped up the screen size up to 7 inches. While the resolution stayed the same at 300dpi, the new Oasis was a lot more ambitious than the 2016 version.

Announced on 11 October 2017, the new Oasis offered IPX8 waterproofing - another first for Kindle - as well as offering support for Audible books. It also brought with it a welcome price drop, offering this skinny reading experience for $249. There was also 8GB storage for that (with 32GB an option), meaning more space for all those audiobooks, while offering adaptive front lighting too.

The Kindle Oasis was updated in 2019 to the third-gen, taking all the updates of the 2017 model and improving the lighting across the front with colour temperature adjustment. It again launched at $249.99 , although the price continues to fluctuate with deals and discounts.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2018)

In 2018, Amazon announced a new model of the Kindle Paperwhite which came with a brighter display and a flatter edge-to-edge screen, removing the raised bezels of the previous versions. It also had support for Bluetooth to play audiobooks via Amazon's Audible service using headphones too. Other highlights of this Paperwhite included a rubberised non-slip back and a dash of IPX8 waterproofing as well. The result was a more solid and reliable reading device that was also easy on the eye and great to use too - but it was still a 6-inch device, so not a huge change from those before it.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2021)

In October 2021, Amazon announced the latest edition of the Kindle Paperwhite . For the first time, Amazon announced an increase in the screen size, moving to 6.8-inches, closer to that of the flagship Oasis and narrowing the gap between these two devices. Although featuring a rubberised back much like the 2018 edition, there's a change to the illumination with more LEDs, including the option to adapt the colour temperature. The Signature Edition was launched at the same time offering Qi wireless changing for a more premium offering. For many, the Paperwhite is the Kindle of choice on Amazon .

Amazon Kindle (2022)

In 2022 Amazon once again updated its most basic Kindle. It's perhaps unfair to call it basic, because in this 11th-gen device you have a light loaded with features. The display is still 6 inches, but it finally makes the move to 300ppi so the quality is great, while it also offers front lighting to help you read in the dark. It isn't as refined as the Paperwhite, but it isn't as expensive either, while still giving you a great way to read books at any time in any place. It's currently available from Amazon and a great choice for those on a tighter budget.

Ebook Readers

Amazon kindle voyage review, the amazon kindle voyage is one of the nicest best ebook readers available, though most people will still be served just fine by the kindle paperwhite..

Bottom Line

• Incredibly sharp display.
• Adaptive front light.
• Thin design.
• Excellent ebook store.
• No memory card slot or ePub support.

Amazon's various Kindles have long been the most popular ebook readers on the market, but that doesn't mean they have always been the best from a technology perspective. Barnes & Noble beat Amazon to the punch with a front light, and Kobo eclipsed the company in screen resolution. The Kindle Voyage changes that. It has a lovely, thin design, with an incredibly sharp display and a useful adaptive front light, not to mention Amazon's excellent ebook store. That said, I'm still not sure this is enough to warrant the $199.99 price tag when you can pick up our Editors' Choice, the Kindle Paperwhite , for nearly half that amount.

Design and Display

At a glance, the Voyage ($85.22 at Amazon) doesn't look all that different from the Paperwhite or the standard-issue Kindle , in the sense that all three share the same general size and form factor. Look closer, though, and lots of important changes emerge. The Voyage measures 6.4 by 4.5 by 0.30 inches (HWD) and weighs 6.3 ounces (or 6.6 ounces for the 3G model), making it thinner and lighter than the Paperwhite (6.7 by 4.6 by 0.4 inches and 7.2 ounces for the 3G model). There's less bezel all around, and the screen has been changed from plastic to glass, making the front of the reader completely flush, rather than slightly dipped like on the other models.

The display uses scratch-resistant glass, and has been micro-etched to diffuse light, so you can read outside without any glare. The etching pattern supposedly makes the glass feel more like paper, but I think you get a better sense of this using the Kindle Paperwhite or base Kindle.

The Voyage's display has 300 pixels per inch, which looks absolutely fantastic. Text is incredibly sharp, no matter the font size, and images look great, so comics really pop (though keep in mind you're still working with a black-and-white E Ink screen). The Paperwhite matches the Voyage in resolution, but lacks an adaptive backlight (which I'll get to in a moment). The Kindle Oasis , meanwhile, gets even brighter and has the best screen overall, but also costs $100 more than the Voyage.

The Voyage's front light is adaptive, so if you select the Auto Brightness setting, it will automatically adjust based on the light around you. I love this feature. I've been using the first-generation Paperwhite since it came out, and I mostly tend to read on the subway and in coffee shops, which have vastly different lighting scenarios. I rarely adjust the lighting on my Paperwhite to compensate for this, and I didn't realize what a difference it makes until I started using the Voyage. No matter where you use it, the lighting is pretty much perfect.

Another cool feature is that Amazon claims the brightness is tuned to match the way the eye responds to darkness. So if you're reading in the dark, you'll need a brighter light at first than you will after reading for 30 minutes, so the light will slowly turn down over time. I'm slightly concerned that constantly using a light sensor will impact battery life, but then again, you might ultimately wind up using less lighting.

Aside from the glass front panel, the Voyage is made of solid magnesium, with a soft-touch finish reminiscent of the Paperwhite, which gives it a premium, classy feel (though it isn't waterproof like the Kobo Aura H2O). The power port is still on the bottom, but I'm not too fond of the decision to move the Power button to the back of the reader. It's hard to find, and it likely renders any existing case you were hoping to reuse incompatible.

If you're a real Kindle diehard, and haven't upgraded to a touch-screen model for lack of physical Page buttons, rejoice. The Voyage features PagePress, which is basically Amazon's fancy name for Page buttons on either side of the display. I'll focus on this feature more in the Reading section.

The Voyage comes with a black USB cable, but no AC adapter. Amazon claims up to six weeks of battery life based on half an hour of reading per day with wireless off and the light set to 10. That's two weeks more than the Kindle and two weeks less than the Paperwhite, all of which have plenty of time for the average reader.

The Voyage hooks into 802.11b/g/n networks, and a 3G cellular option is still available for an additional $70 extra. It comes with 4GB of storage—the same as the other two Kindles now—which should be good for over 2,000 books. Amazon also stores your purchases in the cloud, so you can retrieve content whenever you'd like, and view it on other devices. Unfortunately, even on the Voyage there's no memory card slot, so there's no way to expand storage. It also makes it a bit more challenging to sideload additional files.

For file support, the Voyage can handle Amazon's own Kindle format (AZW and AZW3), along with DOC, DOCX, HTML, MOBI, PDF, and TXT files. There's still no support for ePub files, which could make it difficult to borrow books from public libraries (though Prime users can borrow certain books for free from Amazon).

Interface and Reading

If you already own a Paperwhite or have used another Kindle, you'll be familiar with the interface on the Voyage. It's touch-based, with a row of icons at the top of the screen for Back, Cart, Home, Goodreads, Menu, and Search. The interface displays the covers of six books per page, and you can choose to view all of your books in the cloud or just the ones on your device.

If you tap anywhere near the top inch of the screen, you'll bring up the Menu bar, which has the same controls as you'll find on the home screen, along with options to adjust the font, go to a specific page, bring up X-Ray for more information on a topic, share to Facebook or Twitter, or bookmark pages. The bottom of the page shows you how much reading you have left in the book by percentage, as well as your reading progress in the form of your location or page in the book, or your time left in a chapter or the rest of the book.

You simply tap on a book to start reading. This is where things get slightly different from the other two Kindles. To turn a page, you can tap on the left or right hand side of the display to flip backwards or forwards. But you can also use one of the new PagePress buttons on either side of the display. Actually, button isn't really the right word. Essentially, PagePress is a pressure-sensitive sensor that sits directly underneath the bezel. Page forward sensors are marked by a 1.2-inch vertical gray strip, roughly at the spot your thumb sits when holding a book. Page back sensors are small gray dots located about an inch above.

All you have to do is rest your finger on the sensor and press it lightly, and you'll be able to flip to the next page or turn back. Amazon claims you can do this without lifting a finger, but that's assuming your finger lies on the sensor the entire time you're reading. The not-quite buttons deliver a satisfying response thanks to some very subtle, quiet haptic feedback. I was afraid to trigger one accidentally, but I didn't manage to do so after a few days of reading. I did, however, find PagePress to be slightly less reliable than tapping on the screen. Thinking about where I needed to tap took me out of the book, and sometimes pages wouldn't turn if I didn't apply enough pressure. I'm still pretty sure that button lovers will be pleased, but I'll stick to tapping.

As far as speed goes, I found page turns to be slightly slower than the Paperwhite when tapping the screen, but slightly faster using PagePress. Neither difference is notable, though. Overall, reading on the Voyage is hard to beat.

Kindle Store and Conclusions

Amazon's Kindle Store is better than ever. It's filled with lists and recommendations, and generally seems to have the best pricing when compared with competitors like Barnes & Noble and Kobo (over a million titles are $4.99 or less). It's easy to subscribe to magazines and newspapers, and Amazon Prime users can borrow books for free from an extensive list of titles. Amazon's Kindle Unlimited , meanwhile, is sort of like Netflix for ebooks. It gives you unlimited access to over a million titles per month for $9.99. Amazon apps for Android and iOS devices, as well as Macs and PCs, sync your book collection, so you can put down one device and pick up on the same page on another one.

Clearly, the Kindle Voyage is a fantastic ebook reader. So why doesn't it earn our Editors' Choice? It comes down to one simple factor: price. The Voyage costs $199.99 for the version with Special Offers (which are basically ads that appear on your home screen whenever the Kindle is locked, and at the bottom your home screen while in use). I happen to find the Special Offers useful for discovering new books, but if you're not a fan, you can either pay $20 to remove them, or you can buy a version without the ads up front. But that brings the already pricey Voyage well past the $200 mark. For that amount, you can pick up a nice color table.

If you were already considering a high-end reader like the Kobo Aura One , I prefer the Voyage for Amazon's content ecosystem. But while the Kindle Voyage is indeed one of the best ebook readers out there, I think most people will be perfectly happy picking up the $119.99 Paperwhite and having the extra $80 to spend on new books. Don't get me wrong: I'd be perfectly happy to use a Kindle Voyage or an even more expensive Kindle Oasis. I just probably wouldn't buy one for myself.

Best Ebook Reader Picks

• The Best eReaders for 2020
• How to Put Free Ebooks on Your Amazon Kindle
• More Ebook Reader Reviews
• More from Amazon

Further Reading

• How to Get Free (or Cheap) New Ebooks
• Report: PocketBook Is Launching a Color E-Reader This Year
• New Amazon Kindle, Paperwhite Back at Lowest Prices Ever
• Amazon Wants to Give You an Extra $5 to Spend on Ebooks

More Inside PCMag.com

• Amazon Kindle Review
• Kobo Aura H2O Review
• Kobo Glo HD Review
• 301 -- How to Buy an Ebook Reader
• Amazon Kindle (2014) Review

About Alex Colon

I’m PCMag’s executive editor of reviews, steering our coverage to make sure we're testing the products you're interested in buying and telling you whether they're worth it. I've been here for more than 10 years. I previously managed the consumer electronics reviews team, and before that I covered mobile, smart home, and wearable technology for PCMag and Gigaom.

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Good e-Reader

Goodbye to the Amazon Kindle Oasis

21 February 2024 By Michael Kozlowski 7 Comments

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.

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.

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.

Michael Kozlowski

Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.