Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My 1 star reflects both the quality of the device I received and the subsequent debacle that followed to deal with it. For reference, when I refer to "store," its one of the "Amazon Books" physical locations (in my case LA) where I sampled the device and subsequently bought it. After years of enjoying my paperwhite, I thought it would be a treat to upgrade to the New Oasis. I wasn't particularly impressed by the original oasis at its steep price point, but like many others, was immediately sold by the "new" oasis that was waterproof and had a range of other new features. For reference, I dont use audible, so have/had no opinion on those options, but I do read hours per day on my e-reader under both dark and bright ambient lighting situations. Overall, I was in love with the new oasis. I know some people found the ergonomics strange, but I did not find the metal slippery, nor the corners sharp, nor any of the other complaints relevant to my personal use. Basically, it held perfect for me. Extremely light, and the wide side bar with page buttons allowed me to literally balance this thing on my pinky comfortably or grip it like a book, whichever was more relevant to my position. Additionally, the auto-flip on the screen was incredibly helpful when, for example i changed sides in bed, and consequently hands. The extra screen size was awesome, it was fast, and there are host of subtle new things that I liked, which I wont bother to list here. However the breaking point was the screen on my particular device and the debacle it led to. The screen in the store model was beautiful. But the device i received at purchase had an extreme color gradient and diminishing illumination horizontally across the screen. It was very blue (similar to the paperwhite) on the thick, grip side, and yellowish on the thin side. The text also hazed out the further you got from the grip side. This meant that after a short time of reading, my eyes were extremely strained from going line by line through clear to hazy, clear to hazy and color temp changes. Amazon has been making illuminated readers for some time, so tolerating this kind of extreme in a brand new $300 model is a real stretch. My first generation paperwhite, although not perfect in its illumination consistency, was leaps beyond the quality of this oasis, and that is saying something. I understand that there can be manufacturer's defects and sometimes a lemon, so i wasn't going to let this deter me completely from the product. I contacted Amazon.com via chat, and they were very understanding and agreed to send me a replacement. I EXPLICITLY asked if it would be refurbished, and that I would not accept a refurbished model since I'd literally bought the thing that day. The rep told me it would be brand new. Imagine my surprise then when I logged into my account to find that the replacement on its way WAS a refurbished model, from a 3rd party seller. Amazon had even used a different credit card stored on my account (one that doesnt belong to me) to "authorize" the transaction rather than the card I used for the original purchase. Needless to say, this was not ok with me. I canceled the replacement after a great deal of wait time, and plan to return the oasis for a refund. I'm not sure what is going on with Amazon and this new device, but if the only way they could get me a good working model without the screen issue was to send one that had been fixed (possibly with the same issue mine had? - assumption, i know, but a legitimate one) then I am not interested in having a first generation of this device at all. I'm very disappointed because I thought the new oasis was a real contender for a worthy expensive upgrade, but due to the first device being pretty awful in the area that matters most (screen consistency and clarity) and then amazon's indifferent action to resolve it, I think I'm going to move on. I wanted to share this as a tale of caution, if nothing else. Obviously I could keep hounding customer service online to get a proper new one sent, or i could keep going back and forth to a store that is not particularly close to me, but I'm too disenfranchised now to bother and have lost faith that this episode wont be repeated. I'll either wait for Amazon to get its act together with the oasis and buy a model that doesn't have technical problems that lead to consumer nightmares or I'll find something elsewhere. I want to be clear... although I am not against refurbished electronics in general, they sell for discounted prices for a reason...they are used. I think fixing and reselling bad devices is a great way to reuse materials and avoid waste oveall. HOWEVER, replacing a day old device with a manufacturer's problem with a refurbished item is completely wrong, for obvious reasons. It basically means Amazon is passing on the hit from faulty manufacturing to its most valuable consumers, the ones who were willing to shell out top dollar for a brand new model. Instead they should be selling those bad devices, refurbished, to customers who dont care and/or are willing to get a used one for the benefit of a discount. Its extremely disingenuous and in my case, combined with a bad screen from the get-go, was a deal breaker.