Kindle basic vs Paperwhite vs Voyage vs Oasis: Hands-on review

We'll explain why the Kindle Paperwhite is the best overall, but we'll also help to identify which is the best e-reader for your particular needs with our hands-on review of each device, looking at feel, display quality, brightness, battery life and value for money.

©Amazon

At a glance

	Amazon Kindle	Amazon Kindle Paperwhite	Amazon Kindle Voyage	Amazon Kindle Oasis
Price	£69.99	£117.16	£169.99 Unavailable	£229.99
Pros	Great value for money; software identical to other Kindles	Great value for money; great display quality and build	Adaptive light; easy to use one-handed	Very light and compact; feels closest to reading a book
Cons	Feels a bit cheap; no built-in light	None, other than lack of adaptive light	Not that different from Paperwhite, despite increased price	Doesn't fully justify high price tag

Which is the best Kindle?

When money is taken out of the equation, the question of which is the best Amazon e-reader has a very easy answer: the Kindle Oasis.

That's because it can lay claim to the following:

• The biggest and brightest screen
• The most memory space for books (8GB or 32GB compared to 4GB)
• The thinnest and most compact dimensions
• Being waterproof
• Feels the most like reading an actual book

Yet it's also the most expensive, costing £60 more than the Kindle Voyage, and currently £140 more than the Kindle Paperwhite.

The Kindle Oasis

This is why it won't be right for everyone, and it's also part of the explanation as to why the Kindle Paperwhite is the best overall.

The Paperwhite has a sharp 300 ppi screen like its two more expensive siblings, it has a built-in light (unlike the basic Kindle), it has a more substantial, easier to hold build (unlike the basic Kindle again), and it can hold thousands of books.

The Kindle Voyage may be slightly lighter and more compact, for instance, yet the differences between it and the Paperwhite aren't large enough to justify the Voyage's heftier price tag.

And even though the Oasis is superior in a few more respects, there also isn't a wide enough gap to justify the £140 between it and the Paperwhite.

The Kindle Paperwhite

As a result, the Paperwhite will be the best for most customers, particularly for those who want a first-rate Kindle experience without having to strain their wallets. It does most of what the Voyage and Oasis can do, but for a fraction of the price.

Which Kindle feels the best to read?

Still, this isn't to say that the other Kindles aren't without their merits.

In fact, each has its own strengths and weaknesses, which is why this guide looks at each characteristic important to e-reading - such as feel, size, and battery life - and explain which Kindle is the best in each respective category.

First up is the feel of the device, which is important when deciding which Kindle to buy precisely because e-readers are all about being held and read.

For those who plan to spend a large amount of time with their device, the Kindle Oasis is once again the best choice, even if its snug lightness comes at a premium.

It's the shortest of all four Kindles, measuring only 15.9cm high. More importantly for the reading experience, it's also the thinnest, with a tapering edge that narrows from 8.4mm on the right-hand side to 3.9mm on the left.

The Kindle Oasis in profile

In practice, this makes it noticeably easier to hold, since the thicker right-hand edge and back doubles as a kind of protruding grip for the hand. With this grip, we found reading for longer periods of time much easier on the Oasis than on any other Kindle.

Honourable mention: Kindle Voyage

Of course, all this comfort is undermined slightly by the fact that customers have to pay £230 for the Oasis (or £260 if they want the 32GB model).

By contrast, the Kindle Voyage is £60 cheaper, and it's only slightly less enjoyable to read.

It's lighter than the Oasis and the Paperwhite, weighing in at only 180g. And while it's 19g heavier than the basic Kindle, it's made of higher quality, slightly rubbery plastic that offers more grip and a more pleasing texture.

And one thing it has that no other Kindle boasts are "PagePress" touch-sensitive pads, which come in pairs on either side of its screen.

The Kindle Voyage

These allow the reader to hold and scroll through a book with only one hand, making them perfect for commuters standing on packed buses or trains and needing to hold onto a pole with the other hand.

Which Kindle has the best screen and display quality?

Besides the feel and build of the Kindle, the screen is the other big factor in determining the quality of the reading experience.

And for the most part, the three more premium Kindles - the Paperwhite, Voyage, and Oasis - all provide the same high level of clarity and definition, since they all come with screens with a density of 300 pixels per inch (ppi).

That said, with the 2nd generation Oasis (the newer waterproof version), there are actually more pixels overall (2,123,520 compared to 1,552,256), since it has a seven-inch rather than six-inch screen.

Once again, this might not be a massive difference, but it often proved important when it came to reading anything for a prolonged period of time, since the extra inch enables the device to display the same amount of text as before, but with a larger font.

We found that this slightly reduces the need to strain our eyes, and lets you read for longer without feeling quite as (mentally) tired.

However, apart from this increased size, the Oasis' display is otherwise no better than the Paperwhite's or Voyage's, and most readers won't notice or feel a significant difference.

Dishonourable mention: basic Kindle

Yet the same can't be said for the basic Kindle's display, which reaches a density of only 167 ppi and provides much less clarity as a result.

This is especially true when it comes to displaying images (e.g. in graphic novels), which as seen through the standard Kindle's screen have grainier, less smooth edges.

Not only that, but the shading and detailing of images isn't quite as rich, with some photos and drawings lacking the same level of nuance and gradations of colour.

The basic Kindle (top) doesn't provide quite the same level of image resolution as the Oasis (bottom)

This doesn't simply make focusing the eyes a tiny bit harder, but it also undercuts the sense of immersion, since the difference between an actual paper page and the display of the basic Kindle is fairly noticeable.

Lights and brightness

And to an extent, this isn't just about pixels per inch, but also lighting.

With the standard Kindle, the screen doesn't have a built-in back light and there's no option to adjust its brightness.

This means that the display is generally a touch darker than that of the Paperwhite, Voyage, and Oasis, which all have a built-in light.

And because its screen is a bit darker, we found that trying to read the basic Kindle in a dimly lit room was often difficult and vaguely eye-straining, while reading it in the dark was simply impossible.

The difference in screen brightness between the basic Kindle and the Kindle Paperwhite

By comparison, the other three all have their own lights and brightness settings, enabling them to be read comfortably in bed.

That said, unlike the Paperwhite, the Voyage and Oasis come with adaptive lights, meaning that they automatically adjust to the light in the room.

This is a nice touch which saved us the bother of having to open the settings in order to adjust the brightness manually, something which can disrupt the natural flow of a reading session and remind us that we're not reading an actual book.

Which Kindle offers most value for money?

When it comes to the question of which Kindle offers most value for money, the Kindle Paperwhite once again edges it as the top answer.

It's currently only £89.99, and for this price the reader gets a screen that's just as sharp and as bright as that of the Voyage and Oasis, as well as a curved and moulded plastic case that makes reading particularly comfortable.

Added to this, it can in fact be had for only £79.99, so long as the buyer accepts having "special offers" (i.e. ads) displayed on the screensaver it displays when in sleep mode.

Honourable mention: basic Kindle

That said, while it arguably offers the most value for money of all four Kindles, it's worth making a special mention of the basic Kindle, which is definitely the best Kindle for readers on a tighter budget.

The basic Kindle

It may be made of cheaper, lighter plastic that doesn't feel especially satisfying to hold, yet at only £69.99 it comes with the same operating system as the other three and can do all the same things:

• Hold thousands of books
• Check the definitions of words, as well as their encyclopaedic references
• Highlight sentences, paragraphs and passages of the text, as well as make notes on what's been highlighted
• Borrow books via the Kindle Owners' Lending Library
• See an "X-ray" of the book being read, a feature that provides summaries and reminders of its characters and events
• Change the size of the font, as well as the layout of the page (e.g. adjusting the space between the lines, the size of the margins)
• Search books for a particular word or phrase, as well as skip instantly to a particular chapter or part of the book
• Enjoy reading undisturbed by bright light thanks to each Kindle's glare-free touchscreens

In other words, it does everything the other Kindles do in terms of software, meaning that it gives the reader an awful lot for only £69.99.

And as with the Paperwhite, a cheaper "with special offers" version can be bought for £59.99, making it even more value for money (so long as you don't mind advertisements).

Which Kindle has the longest battery life?

With battery life, however, the basic Kindle doesn't fare so well, having the smallest capacity of all four devices and needing to be recharged every 14 or 15 hours.

The best - although by a small margin - is the Paperwhite, which we found tended to outlast the Voyage and Oasis by a couple of hours before needing another charge.

Even though Amazon claims all three last for "up to six weeks" based on 30 minutes of reading a day, the reason for this superiority is fairly simple.

Unlike the Voyage and Oasis, it lacks automatic light adjustment, something which saves it from adapting and readapting to the light every time the Sun changes position or the reader changes room.

This, in turn, helps it to conserve a bit more energy. Because of this, in contrast with the Voyage and Oasis, we found that it can go nearly three weeks (or 21 hours) without needing a charge, based on reading for an hour a day.

By contrast, the Voyage lasts for just under three weeks (or about 20 hours), while the Oasis is closer to two weeks (or about 18 or 19 hours).

That the Oasis tends to require a recharge sooner than the Voyage is because it comes with a 12 LEDs, compared to the Voyage's six (and the Paperwhite's four).

The Kindle Oasis from the rear

That said, if you can get hold of a 1st generation Oasis (which comes with the leather case/battery pack), it beats the other three quite comfortably, lasting for almost four weeks (or 28 hours).

Verdict: which Kindle should I buy?

Now that each aspect of the four Kindles has been reviewed, it would be a good idea to summarise everything that's been covered so far and come to some conclusions.

Overall winner: Kindle Paperwhite

First of all, the best Kindle overall is the Paperwhite. Relative to how much it costs, it offers more per pound than the Voyage and Oasis, providing an excellent screen, a comfortable reading experience, and a durable battery.

However, while it will be the best Kindle for most, it won't be the best for every reader, depending on their budget and their preferences.

The four Kindles: basic Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Voyage, Kindle Oasis

Accordingly, the table below matches each Kindle to a particular kind of reader/buyer.

It reveals that more casual readers on a budget would be happier with a basic Kindle, while those who have more to spend and read everyday will be better off with the Oasis, since it's certainly the best when price is taken out of the equation.

Of course, the benefit of using any kind of Kindle is that it offers advantages that don't come with reading a normal book, such as in-built dictionaries, highlighting features, character/plot summaries, and instant book downloading.

And arguably, it's mostly for these reasons that Kindles - of all kinds - have been so popular in recent years. They not only provide reading on the go, but also enhanced, deepened reading.