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I've tried every Kindle and I keep coming back to this one
You can't put a price tag on user experience.
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February 15, 2025
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Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
I’ve been an avid reader most of my life. Growing up, there was rarely a moment when you’d spot me without a Dirk Pitt adventure or an Isaac Asimov in hand. Ask any reader, and you’ll hear them wax lyrical about the collective nostalgia surrounding the smell of paper, the cracked spine of a well-read tome, and summers spent engrossed in books. However, as a digital native, technology intrigues me. More specifically, technology that sits at the cross-section of convenience and single-minded utility. So when the Amazon Kindle launched way back in 2007, my curiosity was piqued, and I had to get myself one.
The Kindle didn’t take long to become a constant companion while traveling for work or pleasure. The ability to carry a few hundred books in a lightweight device? Sign me up for that. At the same time, I wasn’t ready to ditch my physical books quite yet; that changed with 2010’s Kindle Keyboard. The e-book reader married an improved screen with reduced dimensions, all while keeping the feature that mattered the most to me: page turn buttons. In fact, it wasn’t till the Kindle Oasis that I finally relinquished my Kindle Keyboard.
Since then, I used nearly every model of the Kindle, including the popular Kindle Paperwhite, but I keep returning to the Kindle Oasis. Why? There’s more than one reason.
Physical controls make all the difference
It’s a hill I’ll die on, but the page turn buttons on a Kindle are a make-or-break feature when it comes to immersion. Yes, touch screens are great. The problem is that the added friction of having to lift your finger and tap the display to move on to the next page is a small but significant hindrance to the flow of reading.
I tried to get accustomed to the Kindle Paperwhite for a few weeks. My colleague Rita reviewed the e-book reader. She swore that it was, by all measures, a fantastic step forward for the Kindle brand. In fact, it gave you almost all the features of Amazon’s more premium offerings and one-upped them with USB-C charging and even wireless charging (for the Signature Edition). Despite that, on most days, I found myself dismissing the Paperwhite and reaching for my trusty Kindle Oasis instead.
While the Kindle Paperwhite is more portable, that doesn't translate to a better reading experience.