Amazon has just announced their first alternative color option for the Kindle Oasis 2, champagne gold. This new color option will be on the back of the unit and also the sides, the front of the e-reader will continue to be black, in order to make the text pop out. It will be available on March 22nd and it will cost $30 extra.
The gold colored Kindle Oasis 2 is going to cost a little bit more because there will be no 8GB version, only the 32GB model will be available. This model will only be available in the United Kingdom and the United States and no word yet if it will eventually be available in Canada or other international markets.
The new Kindle Oasis features a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen display with resolution of 1680 x 1264 and 300 PPI. It includes includes 12 LEDs for uniform lighting across the screen and allows you to read in the dark. The Kindle Voyage was the first Kindle with an ambient light sensors that adjusts the brightness as you move from room to room, or from outdoors to indoors and the all new Oasis has the same functionality. I found that if you are in a room that is almost completely dark, the light sensor does not work and turns the screen completely off.
I noticed that Amazon is using a different front-lit display system on the new Oasis. The first generation Oasis, Voyage and Paperwhite 3 are all using the same lighting system. The new Oasis is using a different LED lights. This results in a brighter, whiter screen that has crisp text. When we compared the Oasis side by against against older e-readers you can really see the difference. It also is waterproof and has built in Audible functionality.
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.
