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The new Kindle Oasis lets you adjust color temperature for night reading

The new Kindle Oasis lets you adjust color temperature for night reading

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Amazon’s top-tier e-reader gets a new feature

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Amazon has a new version of its high-end Kindle Oasis, and it’s adding the ability to change the color temperature of the display, in a first for Amazon’s e-reader lineup.

The new feature allows users to adjust how warm the color tone of the display is, allowing for a warmer, less harsh light that should be useful for reading at night (or simply for readers who prefer the more off-white color of actual paper).

Like many night mode systems, users will also be able to automatically schedule the warmer tone display, either on a manual cycle or to coincide with sunrise and sunset. The new feature also helps differentiate the high-end Oasis from the increasingly similar Paperwhite (which got updated last fall with waterproofing) and allows Amazon to keep pace with Kobo, which already offers a similar color temperature feature.

Amazon says that the new Oasis features “the next generation of e-Ink technology for fast page turns,” although the company didn’t go into specifics as to what changes it’s made here from the 2017 model.

Otherwise, the third-generation Oasis is virtually the same as the older model, which is largely a good thing, given that the second-gen Oasis was a great device. That means it has the same 7-inch, 300ppi E Ink display, one-handed design, waterproofing, and Bluetooth support for Audible audiobooks. Unfortunately, that also means that — like the rest of Amazon’s Kindle hardware — you’re still stuck with Micro USB for charging, and not USB-C in what’s becoming an increasingly difficult to defend choice from Amazon.

The new Kindle Oasis will start at $249.99 for the 8GB model, and $279.99 for the 32GB version — the same as the previous price, although add-ons like removing ads or cellular data will cost extra. It’s set to go on sale on July 24th, with preorders available starting today at Amazon’s website.