This Kindle Colorsoft Picture Makes No Sense

I don’t know why it took me this long to realize it, but one of the main pictures that Amazon uses to advertise the Kindle Colorsoft completely misrepresents the device in a number of ways.

First off, the picture (shown above) shows nine book covers in bright color. It looks like an LCD screen, not a color E Ink screen in the slightest. That’s not an accurate representation of color E Ink at all. The picture that Kobo uses for the Kobo Clara Colour is a lot more realistic.

Secondly, Kindles don’t show a full screen of nine book covers anywhere on the actual interface. The library view doesn’t look anything like that whatsoever. The most books you can see in cover view at one time is 6, and they often have different sized thumbnails, with more white spacing, and there isn’t a black background like that anywhere on the Colorsoft.

Another detail that most people wouldn’t notice is the fact the Colorsoft appears to be sitting upright on a flat surface based on the shadows. In real life that wouldn’t work since the power button sticks out on the lower edge, which keeps it from sitting flat, and it’s going to inadvertently trigger the power button if you set it up like that.

Companies often use phoney marketing pictures to make their products look better than they really are, but Amazon is taking things further than usual this time. Most of their Kindle pictures are pretty accurate, but that Colorsoft picture is so completely inaccurate that it should’ve never been used.

The auto-playing video that Amazon has on the product page for the Kindle Colorsoft is even worse. The colors look as bright and clear as a high-quality high-resolution LCD display. It’s completely unrealistic. Even though I think the screen on the Colorsoft looks better than other color ereaders, misrepresenting a product by that much is bound to lead to problems. Amazon is getting what they deserve with all the negative reviews for the Colorsoft.