When Amazon released the 16GB version of the Kindle Colorsoft last month, I thought it would be interesting to see how the user reviews on Amazon’s website would compare to the original Colorsoft that notoriously had a lot of frontlight problems when it first launched in late 2024.
After one month, the 16GB Kindle Colorsoft has a significantly higher user rating on Amazon’s website than the original Colorsoft ever had, especially the kids bundle.
Right now the 16GB Kindle Colorsoft has a 4.1-star rating on Amazon, with 75% of reviewers giving it a 4 or 5-star rating. A 4.1-star rating is still a little on the low side by Kindle standards, but it’s not bad for color E Ink.
The Kindle Colorsoft Kids Edition has an even higher rating at 4.7-stars, with 96% of users giving it a 4 or 5-star rating. Granted, there are only 31 reviews at this point, but it’s certainly trending in a positive direction.
Compare that to the original Kindle Colorsoft with a 3.6-star rating, and only 62% of reviewers gave it a 4 or 5-star rating, with 29% of reviews giving it a 1 or 2-star rating.
The ratings difference between the three models is somewhat surprising considering they’re all essentially the exact same device with the exact same screen, but the original Colorsoft had a lot of negative reviews weighing it down from the yellow frontlight issue.
It appears Amazon has mostly fixed that problem now, but you still sometimes hear some people complaining about the yellowing problem so it’s not 100% resolved—it just seems to be less of an issue now, and the early reviews bear that out. Just simply relaunching the same product again (and with less features now) increased the rating from 3.6 to 4.1 in one month.
I bet the review rating will continue to go up as more people buy the new 16GB Colorsoft. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it hit 4.3-stars after a couple more months. Color ereaders tend to have lower ratings than black and white ereaders because of the notable drawbacks with color E Ink, so the Colorsoft will never average a 4.6-star rating like other Kindle models, but at least the rating is respectable now. Kobo’s color models have a 4.4-star rating on Amazon’s website so they’re doing a little better overall.
As much as I like my colorsoft, I gave it a 4 because of the terribly sounding voiceview. Hoping this will catch Amazon’s attention and do something about it. Once they fix that then I will give it a 5 star rating.
Several factors negatively affected the launch of the Kindle Colorsoft: false expectations created by supposedly improved Kaleido 3 technology, a higher price than other competing colour e-readers, the impact on forums of the famous yellow line at the bottom of the screen… And, of course, the fact that it is a Kindle and it is from Amazon, which in itself has a negative impact on specialist e-reader forums, which constantly suggest better alternatives to Amazon (without anonymous e-reader users paying much attention to them, to be honest).
Amazon has been smart in presenting the same model as if it were new: a version with an improved screen and a lower price. They have really tweaked a few things and little else. But it’s enough to change the negative perception. And to top it off, they’ve been running special offers for a few days (in Spain, they’ve been selling it for a week at a much lower price than the competition).
The reality is that the Kindle Colorsoft, compared to other colour e-readers, is one of the best e-readers on the market in this segment. These differences in valuation with their respective competitors from other brands don’t make much sense, and it’s logical that they will eventually end up on equal footing.