The last Kindle with page turn buttons is dead – Six Colors

Amazon announced a range of brand new Kindle models on Wednesday, including an updated Paperwhite model and a new color model, both of which I ordered and will be testing soon. But The Verge’s Jay Peters brings us the bad Kindle news of the day:

Amazon has discontinued the Kindle Oasis, which was the only Kindle still available with physical page turn buttons. The company announced a new Kindle range earlier today, but Amazon confirmed to The Verge that it is moving on from the Oasis.

The writing was on the wall, but it’s still sad. Amazon has apparently decided that there is no room in the Kindle range for an e-reader that still has physical page turn buttons.

Regular readers of this site will know that I am an ardent supporter of physical page turn buttons on e-readers, as they allow you to place a finger on the button and turn the page with a simple press, whereas touch-only readers require this You constantly have to reposition a finger, tap, and then move the finger away. Not exactly torturous, but decidedly less ideal.

Instead, Amazon (and many other e-reader manufacturers) seem very interested in the idea that you can read color comics (on screens that are far too small) and that you can take extensive notes (which I stopped doing after college) . I admit that e-readers are a niche technical product, and I can’t blame e-reader manufacturers for looking for new use cases to expand their markets. I’m just sad that Amazon thinks there’s no room for buttons in their Kindle lineup.

In the meantime, if you want a new e-reader with page turn buttons, I recommend (with reservations) the $220 Kobo Libra Color or the $270 Kobo Sage. I know neither is cheap. (The Oasis was $250, though, so safe.) Of the two, the Sage is larger, has a flush screen, and doesn’t suffer from some of the Libra Color’s contrast issues.

– Linked by Jason Snell