Amazon.com, Inc officially launched their latest Kindle Wednesday, the Kindle Oasis.

As per details leaked prior to its release,  the Kindle Oasis weights 4.6 ounces and it just 3.4mm at its thinest point, making it 30 percent thinner than any existing Kindle and 20 percent lighter.

The device has a polmer frame plated with metal that is describe by Amazon as making it incredibly light while delivering the strength and rigidity of meta.

As expected the new Kindle Oasis is shipping with what Amazon calls a “dual-battery system” with a battery in the Kindle, and a second one built into the magnetic cover.

Combined with the cover (which is available in black, merlot or walnut) the Oasis is claimed to be good for months of use, although Amazon is not specific on how many months a user could get out of it.

For reading, the Oasis is shipping with a high-resolution 300 ppi Paperwhite display with a built in front light that features 60 percent more LEDs than the next brightest display in the exiting Kindle lineup.

“To lean back and read for hours, you need a sanctuary from distraction,” Amazon.com Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said in a statement. “We want Kindle to disappear, and Kindle Oasis is the next big step in that mission. It’s the most advanced Kindle we’ve ever built—thin and ultra-lightweight, it gets out of the way so you can lose yourself in the author’s world.”

Price problem

If the specs on the Amazon Oasis sound great so far, what doesn’t sound nearly as impressive is its price: a whopping $289.99.

OK, it does have longer battery life and prettier screen but the batteries on the existing range of Kindles (except the Kindle Fire) already offer weeks, sometimes as much as a month of battery life, and in a connected world it’s not exactly hard to plug a device such as a Kindle in to charge it.

Amazon is pitching the Kindle Oasis as a luxury product and there may well be a market for it, when you can buy a basic Kindle for $79.99 that does the same job, that is it lets you read books, you’d wonder exactly how much of a market there will be.

Image credit: TMall/ Amazon