Kobo has a new white version of the Kobo Clara Colour coming out tomorrow, and Amazon is expected to release a new Kindle Scribe with a color E Ink screen soon, and possibly a 6″ color Kindle too, but what about new ereaders with black and white E Ink screens?
This year has been a down year for new ereaders and eNotes getting released in general, and almost all the new models that have come out in 2025 have color E Ink screens.
The mass transition to color E Ink is an unsettling trend if you favor the superior clarity and contrast of traditional black and white E Ink screens. If you’re thinking about “upgrading” to a new color model, you might want to think twice before getting rid of your old black and white Kindles and Kobo ereaders because there’s a chance you won’t be able to buy them again in the future.
I’m not saying that I think all black and white ereaders are going to go away, but I think there’s a good chance BW ereaders will get relegated to budget status. The cheapest models with the least amount of features will have BW E Ink screens, but the nicer “upgraded” models might only be available with color E Ink screens. Kobo has already started to do this by not releasing a BW Libra model or a new white version of the Clara BW.
It’s kind of the same thing that happened to premium 6″ ereaders. Nowadays they are a rarity when they used to be commonplace. Almost all the 6″ ereaders that are available now are budget models with cheap build quality and less features than ereaders with larger screens.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out with the new color Kindle Scribe that Amazon is expected to announce next week. Will they release a new BW version to go along with it? I doubt it. I bet they’ll just keep selling the current BW model as is until they run out of stock. The new color model will probably have some hardware upgrades since the current Scribe is still using hardware from 2022, so people will likely have to choose between older hardware with a BW screen or new hardware with a color screen.
Think Twice About Selling BW eReaders and eNotes
I was thinking about selling my Kindle Scribe since I rarely use it anymore (I like the larger screen but unless I’m reading PDFs a smaller Kindle is easier to use), but then I realized there’s a good chance Amazon won’t release another BW Kindle Scribe ever again, and that made me second guess that idea.
I remember when I sold my first Kindle Voyage many years ago. I assumed Amazon would release a newer version at some point, or something better eventually, but it’s been 11 years now and that still hasn’t happened.
One thing I’ve learned over the years, when it comes to ereaders you can never assume a new version is going to be better. In fact, newer models are sometimes inferior to the model they are replacing. They keep cutting costs to make things as cheap as possible, and quality control is worse than ever—getting an ereader with an even frontlight is like playing the lottery.
Five years from now all ereaders and eNotes could have color E Ink screens. A lot of people didn’t like how frontlights made E Ink screens look worse when they first started coming out, but that didn’t stop companies from phasing out non-frontlit ereaders entirely. Once something new picks up steam it’s hard to stop it, especially when that new feature is something that appeals to new buyers and is something companies can use as an excuse to charge more for, even if it doesn’t cost them substantially more to produce. The only difference with color E Ink is it has a film applied over the top of a regular BW screen, and it probably costs next to nothing to add that color film layer, but that gives companies like Amazon a reason to charge $90 more for what is essentially a Kindle Paperwhite with a color screen.
I hung on to my Voyage and 1st gen Oasis. No good reason why I did but no good reason to get rid of them either.
Although I might be persuaded to trade in my Colorsoft for whenever the second generation comes out, if I find the upgrade worth it, I’ll keep my Scribe if they do announce a Color Scribe next week. I bought it for writing but I’m using it more and more for reading around the house. I like the sharp crispness of the text, superior to the Colorsoft and my 2021 Paperwhite, which is pretty much gathering dust as a backup.
I can’t justify keeping two Scribes when I can download comics and graphic novels to my tablet, though an e-reader screen is a better way to read IMO for the majority of my comics. If technology gets better, eventually, and 300 PPI for black and color is an option, then maybe I’d buy a Color Scribe. For now, I’m clinging to my current Scribe.
I prefer Kobo but the Scribe really is just leaps and bounds above the Elipsa for large-screen reading, and I have doubts they’re ever going to do an Elipsa 3 that’s a real improvement, so I’ll still have one foot in the Kindle side I guess.
Obviously color allows for more things. Some (many) would argue that the point of an ereader is to do less things. I want my ereader to be crisp, clear, and allow me to read text for long periods. I don’t want to rely on built-in light with a grainy screen. And I still prefer my iPad for comics. I don’t care about book covers, I mean as long as they exist at all. And yet this has definitely been a major trend. It must be a viable route financially since it’s coming from multiple companies. I know many readers like color, and it must attract a new market, but man a lot of us don’t get use out of it. Sigh. At least ereaders tend to have a long lifespan. I will clutch my little ereaders for as long as I can.