Amazon first started selling the new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft with an 11″ color E Ink screen back on December 10th, but so far they’ve only been selling the graphite-colored version.
Now Amazon’s website is showing a release date for the fig Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, and it’s getting released on January 28th at 6:00 AM Pacific Time in the US. It’s funny how they’re giving an exact time and not just a date—that’s new. Unfortunately it’s still not available from Amazon’s other regional websites; on Amazon UK it still says “coming soon”, with no date.
If you want to get one in a timely manner, you’ll want to order one right away when they become available because shipping for the graphite-colored Colorsoft has been 3-4 weeks out since it was released, and that’s still the case, even though they don’t appear to be selling very many of them (the 32GB version only shows 500+ units sold during the past month, which is super low for a Kindle, but the 64GB version is up to 2000+ units sold).
The fig-colored Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is only available with 64GB of internal storage, of which about 50GB is usable, and it sells for $679.99. It’s the same price as the 64GB graphite version. Everything is the same except for the color, and the stylus is also red on the fig Scribe.
This is the first red Kindle that Amazon has released, and I have to admit it looks pretty cool. I like how dark the red is, and it’ll probably look nice next to the color screen. But it’s still hard for me to get my head around the idea of a $700 Kindle. You can get a 48″ OLED TV for that price. Why are E Ink screens still so ridiculously expensive?
Nonetheless, the fig-colored Scribe will probably end up being the most popular version, despite the cost. The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is the only model available in red. The BW Scribe is only offered in graphite and so is the version without a frontlight, and Amazon still hasn’t set a release date for it.
I don’t think you have mentioned it on your site, Nathan, but although all three of the latest Kindle Scribes are available in graphite, the bezel colors are not uniform. The ones for Kindle Scribes with and without the front light are light-colored (white?), while for the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft (KSC) the bezel is dark (black?). The fig KSC is the only new Scribe that is uniformly colored.
Yeah, I noticed that too and thought it was odd to have four different bezel colors. And the main difference between the first two Scribes is the color. It’s like they can’t make up their mind which color to go with. Personally, I like darker bezels better, and I’m surprised the non-frontlit model doesn’t have a dark bezel—the contrast would probably look better if it did.