Among the new Kindles that Amazon has revealed for 2024 is their first color Kindle, called the Kindle Colorsoft.
It’s basically a Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition with a color E Ink screen. It shares the same overall design as the new 12th gen Paperwhite, but it appears to use a Kaleido 3 color E Ink screen (Amazon doesn’t say what the screen technology is like other companies do, but the specs imply it’s a Kaleido 3 screen).
The Kindle Colorsoft has a 7″ color E Ink screen with a resolution of 300 ppi for black and white content and 150 ppi for color content. That’s the same as the Kobo Libra Colour that was released earlier this year. In addition to viewing color content, you’ll also be able to highlight in yellow, orange, blue, and pink, and search highlights by color.
Like the Paperwhite, it has a flush front screen and a frontlight with warm temperature control, and it’s also waterproof. It has the upgrades for the Signature Edition model, so it has wireless charging, an auto-brightness sensor, no lockscreen ads, and it has 32GB of storage.
One difference with the color model is battery life is rated at up to 8 weeks instead of 12 weeks like the Paperwhite, so battery life takes a bit of a hit for color. It’s also slightly heavier than the Paperwhite for some reason, but only by a few grams.
Here are some details about the screen from the press release:
“Everything about Kindle Colorsoft was meticulously designed to deliver rich, paper-like color. It uses an oxide backplane with custom waveforms for fast performance and a higher contrast on both color and black-and-white content. Its custom Colorsoft display includes a new light-guide with nitride LEDs that, when combined with our custom algorithms, enhance color and increase brightness, all without washing out details. You can zoom in on images without worrying about pixelation; and if you prefer a certain color style, you can choose between standard or vibrant.”
If you’re new to color E Ink, I’d suggest reading this post: Color E Ink: 5 Things to Know Before Buying.
The new Kindle Colorsoft is up for pre-order on Amazon. The official release date is October 30th, 2024. There’s only one color choice (metallic black) and the price is $279.99.
Kindle Colorsoft 1st Gen Specs
- 7″ Color E Ink screen (Kaleido 3 most likely).
- 300 ppi BW; 150ppi color.
- Frontlight with warm temperature control.
- 32GB internal storage.
- Waterproof: IPX8 rated: tested to withstand immersion in 2 meters of fresh water for 60 minutes.
- WiFi: Supports 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz networks.
- Bluetooth for audiobooks and VoiceView screen reader.
- USB-C port, charging cable included.
- Battery Life Estimate: up to 8 weeks.
- Wireless charging (charger sold separately).
- Auto-brightness sensor.
- No lockscreen ads.
- Supported formats: Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion; Audible audio format (AAX).
- Dimensions: 127.6 x 176.7 x 7.8 mm.
- Weight: 219 grams.
- Price: $279 at Amazon
And $60 MORE than the Kobo Libra Color, but without page turn buttons.
A lot of people are going to point out the price difference with the Libra Colour, but one advantage Kindles have that Kobo doesn’t is the option to get 20% off with a trade in, even with older broken Kindles. There are some different features between the two as well. The Libra has stylus support, but the stylus is sold separately. The Color Kindle adds wireless charging and a light sensor. The Kobo adds buttons and a rotation sensor. I’ll post a detailed comparison video next month after the Kindle Colorsoft gets released.
Trade-in is only available in a few select countries. Not in my country, for example (Europe).
No trade in option in Canada.
And the Kindle Colorsoft is not showing on our Amazon Store for pre-order.
That’s weird. They even omitted it from the Kindle family pictures on Amazon’s Canada site.
305 EUR (~332 USD) for Kindle and 230 EUR (~250USD) for Kobo… (in Spain) I guess I’ll skip Kindle. That’s enough to buy Libra with Stylus and 5EUR remains spare.
In Australia, kindle coloursoft will be available in 2025.
https://www.aboutamazon.com.au/news/devices/meet-the-all-new-kindle-family
This Kindle is on level with Kobo Clara Colour, Libra Colour is more premium device. So let’s compare comparable… Kindle Colorsoft $279, Kobo Clara Colour $149. It’s almost twice the price for slightly bigger display.
I don’t agree with this at all. The Claras feel much cheaper than Paperwhites, which is basically the same as a Colorsoft. The build quality of the Claras are more comparable to the entry-level Kindle. And there’s nothing premium about the cheap plastic of the Libra either. Don’t get me wrong, I love Kobos, but my biggest complaint has always been Kobo’s insistence on using the cheapest plastic casings they can find. The build quality of the Boox Go 7 and PocketBook Era are much nicer than the cheap plastic on the Libra Colour, and they all share a similar design. Kobos cost less for a good reason; I wish they would make some nicer premium devices too (the Sage fits that bill but it’s over three years old at this point and looks like it’s on the way out without a replacement).
The Libra H2O’s plastic is cheapish but I prefer the finish over the rubberized fingerprint mess on the Paperwhite. Its one thing I hate about the Elipsa – that has a similar back finish.
Yes! I don’t understand why Amazon keeps using it. In starts to look dirty and ugly the moment anyone touches it and if you have the green or blue version, it look extremely dirty in no time. Plus it’s really not nice to hold.
What I also don’t like on Paperwhite is the black glass bezels… They’re always smudgy and look awful.
Agree to disagree. Paperwhite feels extremely cheap to me. Like a plastic toy with some cheap rubberized back. Even the basic Kindle feels more premium than Paperwhite. I just really really hate its design, I have never used anything that felt cheaper.
Kobos on the other hand feel much nicer to me and I really hope they continue using materials like they have been. Libra in white is awesome. Sturdy, without any stupid rubber on the back, power button on the right place, much nicer cases… I just wish they had something like Whispersync.
To me:
Clara = Paperwhite
Libra = Oasis
I could care less about the page turn buttons, kobos look and feel cheap, and I don’t want to use yet another book store.
Hopefully, there will be some Black Friday sales. Sounds interesting, I wonder what the video reviews will say.
That price stings a bit, but I have an old broken Kindle Keyboard lying around, so using that for a trade-in knocked the price down to right around where I feel it should be. It seems that they’ve modified the kaleido tech pretty heavily, so that will hopefully result in a more satisfactory experience than the Kobo Libra Color. If not, I can just return it.
I believe it’s K3 but they improved the contrast by using custom nitride LEDs. So supposedly slightly more vibrant colors. White background is still bit darker than B/W paperwhite, but possibly slightly lighter than Kobo/Boox.
Price might not be too bad if one could get 20% off for a device trade-in. However, yours truly is not trading in her Oasis 2 for this.
I’m willing to believe that Amazon may have improved contrast for Kaleido 3 with the custom LEDs. And that’s a good thing, but I still don’t really need color for 99% of what I read. Besides, I wouldn’t put it past Kobo to come out with a Sage Colour next year.
However, speaking of color, the jade green Scribe just screams “buy me!” Not that I think I need a Scribe either, but the color! I’m half tempted.
The Colorsoft has a bigger battery than the regular new Paperwhite, hence the added weight. The device itself seems very interesting to me! I´m currently using a 7th gen basic Kindle and this seems like a worthy uprade.
The most positive aspect from this is that every big manufacturer now has colour in their range of devices.
Another thing that seems very good is that e-ink seems to assist companies that want an improved end-product.
Remarkable got help from them for their Gallery3 based Paper Pro, now Kindle got help for their Kaleido 3 based Colorsoft.
This will help create better devices.
Any idea on how a comic book would look on this Kindle Colorsoft?
Very similar to the Kobo Libra Colour since they use the same screen.
They don’t use the same screen. Amazon has modified the screen which is well known.
KFX format is not listed, any idea why that is?
Amazon doesn’t list it for any Kindles probably because they just copy and paste the supported formats list from older Kindles and never updated it (and I just copy and pasted it too). All current Kindles obviously support KFX.
I found this video helpful (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjN5XmFSGQU).
It was the first one to be suggested to me by Youtube, even before Goodereader talked about the new Colorsoft.
He has hands-on footage of all the new Kindles.
What is interesting about the new Colorsoft is that it seems to be optimised, so if a page only contains pure black, such as in a book, the page turns will be fast, and will only slow down when it comes to a page with colour (I suppose the same goes for shades of gray as well).
The part about the Colorsoft starts at 05:19, but the rest of the video is also interesting.
I’ve been wanting a Kindle with colour for so long, I am glad it’s finally happening.. though I consider the price a bit too much steep, and I bet the colours won’t even be that good. Honestly; I don’t mind the cheaper Kindles in BW, I just want a colour option, for those books you have with ilustration, photos, or books that have fantastic colour pages. But often times I wonder if I’d be better off with a cheap tablet, because I don’t think colour e-ink is really good. Is it? I don’t know. I think Amazon’s publicity pages are showing way too much definition and brightness for what the real product is likely to be.
I will happily, patiently wait for your video and reviews. I’m sure they’ll help me figure out if the steep price is worth it and I’ll finally get the Kindle I want, or stick with a cheap option and deal with the BW.
People forget that along with the hardware, you have the online services. So the price includes the online support. Yes, hardware is very important as that is what you will be using all the time, but I think a lot of reviewers overlook the online support. I prefer kindles because the online support and voiceview are important for me. For now color is not really a need for me. My wife is more interested in color as she likes to underline in color. Unfortunately its not for sale here in Mexico, at least not yet. Will it ever be on sale? Scribes are still not sold through Amazon. You can get one but through another online store.
I can’t see me buying a color Kindle ebook reader when I can get the Fire HD8 for under $100. And I don’t like the text to speech of the Kindle.
That’s a poor screen and hard on your eyes.