Review Date: November 2024 – Review unit purchased from Amazon
Overview
The Kindle Colorsoft was released on October 30th, 2024. It’s the first Kindle to use a color E Ink screen, but other companies have been using similar color E Ink screens since 2020; Amazon is one of the last ereader companies to jump on the color E Ink bandwagon.
The Kindle Colorsoft shares the exact same design as the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, and it includes all the same features and upgrades as the Signature Edition model (wireless charging, auto brightness, no screensaver ads, 32GB of internal storage).
One difference with the Colorsoft model, Amazon is not offering three color choices like the Paperwhite; it’s only available in black.
The Kindle Colorsoft sells for $279.99 and there isn’t a cheaper ad-supported version like with other Kindles, and there’s no kids bundle package either (but it does support kids mode).
Kindle Colorsoft Quick Review
Pros
- The color screen looks better than similar models with color E Ink screens, with more saturated colors and less ghosting, and overall the screen has a clearer appearance to it.
- More color content available than other ereader brands.
- Fast, smooth performance for E Ink.
Cons
- The frontlight has a subtle yellow band that Amazon is hopefully going to fix.
- Higher price than similar comparable models.
- All color E Ink screens have some drawbacks compared to regular E Ink screens because of the added color filter layer (darker with the frontlight off, slightly lower contrast).
- Amazon’s walled garden approach and senseless limitations.
Verdict
The Kindle Colorsoft is quite possibly the best color ereader on the current market, but you would never know it based on all the negative reviews.
The thing that surprised me the most is how much better the screen looks compared to similar color models. Amazon did a really good job of minimizing the shortcomings of color E Ink and maximizing the color quality. It’s a night and day difference compared to the Boox Go 7 (for both color and BW text), and Onyx has been making color ereaders since 2020.
The screen is nice but I’m not a big fan of how they reused the Kindle Paperwhite’s design. For the price, I think it should’ve had a premium build like the Kindle Oasis or the Kindle Voyage. $280 is a lot of money for what is essentially a Kindle Paperwhite with a color filter layer, especially when you can get the base Paperwhite for only $159, and the Paperwhite offers a better reading experience when it comes to regular text without the added filter layer. Color is nice to have for covers and comics and such, but it’s certainly not worth an extra $120 if you only read text-based ebooks.
Kindle Colorosft Video Review
The Color Screen
The Kindle Colorsoft has a 7″ color E Ink screen, and it uses a Kaleido 3 screen like most other color ereaders on the market, with 300 ppi for black and white content and 150 ppi for color. But Amazon did something to make the Colorsoft’s screen look more colorful and clear.
E Ink’s Kaleido screens are really just regular black and white screens with a passive color filter applied over the top. That’s why color resolution is lower, and is what gives the screen a darker appearance when the frontlight is off because it doesn’t let as much light through. You can actually see the filter layer if you look closely—it’s much less noticeable than it used to be on earlier generations of color E Ink—but it does add a slight grainy texture to the screen, which lowers the contrast slightly and makes the screen look a little less clear.
That’s why color E Ink doesn’t look quite as good as regular E Ink when it comes to displaying black and white text—it’s always been that way—so if you’re new to color E Ink you might want to check out this Colorsoft vs Paperwhite comparison review for a closer look.
The Frontlight
Honestly, I can’t believe how people are turning the subtle yellow band at the bottom of the screen into such a big deal that they’re basically forcing Amazon to stop selling the Colorsoft for several weeks. Yeah, it’s not ideal, but after using the Colorsoft for a couple weeks it’s barely even noticeable, and I’m usually particular about that kind of thing (a lot of devices have had similar issues over the years; in fact, older Kobos often had uneven frontlights and I rarely heard anyone complain about them).
Despite the yellow band, the frontlight looks better than the frontlights on similar color models I own. Side-by-side with the Kobo Libra Colour and the Boox Go 7, the Colorsoft’s light has a more neutral color temperature, giving the screen a whiter appearance. The Libra Colour’s light is a lot yellower by comparison, with some brighter areas, and the Go 7 has a weird pink tinge. On their own they look fine, but next to the Colorsoft they look inferior.
I guess it’s all just a matter of perspective, and a lot of early Kindle Colorsoft users seem to lack that.
Software
The Kindle Colorsoft runs the same software as other Kindles so it has all the same features, just with color.
There are a couple of subtle differences, however. First off, the Colorsoft lacks full Dark Mode support. It can invert the text while reading for white text on a black background, but it doesn’t invert the entire interface like other Kindles. The menus, the library, and the homescreen always remain in light mode.
The Colorsoft adds the option to add multicolored highlights to ebooks. There are four color choices to choose from, and the colored highlights also show up when using inverted mode.
One wierd thing about the Colorsoft is the fact that it doesn’t show color on PDFs that are sideloaded via USB. You have to use Send to Kindle to get color on PDFs.
Amazon also removed the Download and Transfer Option from newer Kindles, including the Colorsoft. Kindles also use MTP now instead of USB mass storage.
More Kindle Reviews
Kindle Colorsoft vs Paperwhite 6 Comparison
Kindle Paperwhite 6 Review
2024 Kindle Review
Kindle Colorsoft Specs
- 7″ Kaleido 3 Color E Ink screen.
- Frontlight with color temperature control.
- 32GB internal storage.
- Wireless charging (charger sold separately).
- Auto-brightness sensor.
- Waterproof: IPX8 rated: tested to withstand immersion in 2 meters of fresh water for 60 minutes.
- No screensaver ads.
- 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.
- Supported formats: Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), KFX, 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
While I really like my PW Kindle, 2022, I bought it refurbished. I don’t need even 8 gigs of storage because I don’t have more books on my Kindle than I am currently reading and possibly the books I am going to read next. They color kindle sound interesting and possibly in the future I may get one. But that is a hard sale when I got my Fire tablet HD8, 2024, as cheap as I did. I only use my PW when I am reading either in bed or in bright light.
I understand that doing a color Kindle isn’t cheap I can’t justify the over $300 by the time I got a cover. And I can’t see the need for wireless charging.
“The Kindle Colorsoft is quite possibly the best color ereader on the current market, but you would never know it based on all the negative reviews.”
No, it is not. Any ereader that doesn’t support the epub file type natively can’t be a best ereader, regardless which category one may create for this device.
The two main file type for ereaders are epub and pdf.
Like you mentioned in another blog post the Colorsoft can’t even display colours on a sideloaded pdf. All in all this must be one of the worst ereaders currently available, if not the worst, considering the price.
This is about the screen, not format ideology (be it amazon’s or user’s).
AZW3 is essentially equivalent to EPUB for formatting. There’s nothing magic about EPUB. If you want you can use Send to Kindle to send EPUBs you download elsewhere to your Kindle. It’s a non-issue for all but a few rare books that don’t convert well and are only available by sideloading.
They should have put it in a more attractive casing with buttons and better materials to make the price more acceptable.
It shouldn’t have to cost more than the comparable Kobo with the overall nicer design.
They really could have just reused the Oasis case, added usb c.
Exactly. It looks and feels like a budget device but they’re asking the most premium price on the market. Colour Oasis would be awesome. I ordered Tolino Vision Color (rebranded Kobo Libra Colour which can sync sideloaded content with smartphone app) instead.
Yeah, this. I would have paid even more for a color Oasis – preferably with an 8 inch screen.
As it is, I will keep using my Scribe.
Thank you for the review, Nathan! To me, the question is not whether it is really “that bad,” but whether I really need a color screen at the expense of even a few degrees of clarity of the screen and the lack of physical buttons. The answer is a firm “no.”
At any rate, I only read fiction books on my Kindle so it doesn’t make sense to me to get this new device just so I can view the cover. When/if they perfect the screens and introduce a device with buttons, I may reconsider.