Here’s something that’s going to bring out some more criticism about the Kindle Colorsoft.
I was testing different PDF files and it turns out the Kindle Colorsoft doesn’t support color on PDFs that are sideloaded via USB.
If you use Amazon’s Send to Kindle to send PDFs to the Kindle Colorsoft wirelessly they will show full color, but not if you sideload the same PDF files over USB.
I tested several different PDFs and all were rendered in grayscale instead of color when sideloading.
That made me wonder if it was the case with all sideloaded content, but no. Sideloaded ebooks show color, so it just seems to be a PDF thing.
It’s kind of similar with the Kindle Scribe how you can’t write on PDFs that are sideloaded; you have to use Send to Kindle in order to be able to write on them.
This is the first time I’ve encountered something like this. You can sideload PDFs without any issue showing color on other brands of ereaders; this is strictly and Amazon problem.
Granted, having to use Send to Kindle isn’t that big of a deal, but I’m sure some people aren’t going to like it. It does come with the benefit of having your PDFs backed up on Amazon’s cloud, and they’re accessible from other Kindle devices and apps too. But one of the limitations with Send to Kindle is the maximum file size is 200 MB.
Page turn speed is faster with sideloaded PDFs that are rendered in black and white, but that seems to be the only benefit of sideloading.
If you want to read PDFs on the Kindle Colorsoft, and you want them to be in color, then you’ll have to use Send to Kindle. I fail to see how Amazon benefits from converting and storing people’s PDF libraries for free, but there must’ve been a reason for them to do it this way.
Interesting, when I tried to use Send to Kindle app to send a PDF file, the limit was 50 MB. Are you sure about 200 MB?
Apparently, if you use the web page, it’s 200 MB, but for the app it’s 50… 🙁
“Send to Kindle isn’t that big of a deal”
For me it’s a deal braker. Why should I send potentially confidential files to Amazon, just to view them on a device I paid for?
Besides I rather take care of backups of my files myself and I don’t need computers of others (aka “the cloud”). That’s why I prefer devices with microSD card slot, which makes it easy to transfer all files to another device by just switching the card to a new device.
Not showing the colours on sideloaded PDFs makes me wonder what Amazon does to the PDFs one uploads? Or is it just somekind of switch in the software like “uploaded” -> show colour, “customer don’t want us to know what he/she reads” -> display b/w only.
It may have to do with the color space available on the Colorsoft display. I know Send to Kindle does some format conversions that of course just copying the file over to the device does not. I’ll try an experiment by sending a file to their servers and then comparing the file downloaded onto my device with the original to see if anything stands out.
Color ePubs don’t require sending to Kindle in order for them to work. I just converted one with Calibre and copied it to Colorsoft directly — the color were visible.
“Why should I send potentially confidential files to Amazon, just to view them on a device I paid for?”
^^^^ this. Why on Earth would I ever do that?
Certainly a deal breaker. The premature release of a device that took so long to go to the market is a result of bad business. Since most people want a colored device to read pdf, not supporting color on sideloaded PDfs is a matter of degraded usability, direct violation of freedom of choice and document ownership. It is a pitty for a pioneering company to give us such a poor product. Broken promises
One could argue that choosing between color and not color is giving you the freedom to choose. As he mentioned, it is faster to page turn when it is in grey scale compared to color.
If everything passes through “Send to Kindle” email, it means Amazon gets a veto right.
They could at any time start blocking certain files they consider ‘illegal’ or ‘unwanted’.
Not showing colours already could be seen as a kind of ‘punishment’for those not wanting to pass through Amazon as a gatekeeper.
I suppose it is possible but after how many years they have provided kindles and so far they have not done this, I get a feeling this is not something we should worry about.
I believe it is a bit naive to think that these restrictions are accidental or benign.
Why would they change something that is working fine?
Was it accidental when digital TV came and Set top boxes were programmed in such a way that you would not be able to make a backup of your own recordings?
I also remember that on one of my mobile phones I could not send my own ringtone, unless I added DRM to it, so this seemed also to protect the market of ringtones.
It is obvious that Amazon wants as much control as possible on what you do with your Kindle.
Amazon definitely likes having control over everything, but I also think there’s an element of indolence on behalf of the software developers. They don’t want to spend the time to support color on PDFs when they can just have them converted to Kindle format for color. Doing it that way is less work for them, and Amazon is probably too cheap to employ as many software developers as they really need.
Using the Send to Kindle app doesn’t work with color PDFs for some reason. It has the same effect as sideloading over USB..
I think the Colorsoft is missing significant functionality for a $280 device. Amazon should be able to make a device with better functionality than the competition.
I’ve tried sending several different PDFs and all came out in color on the Colorsoft. At first I thought maybe you had to check the box in the app that says convert PDFs to Kindle format, but it works either way, and they convert it to KFX even when you don’t check the box. Make sure your app is updated.