A couple weeks ago I posted about how Amazon had started intentionally hiding the original Kindle Colorsoft on the Amazon US website after they released the new cheaper 16GB Colorsoft.
Amazon removed the listing for the Signature Edition Colorsoft from their search results, making it impossible to find when running searches on Amazon’s website, but now Amazon has brought it back (it never went anywhere, but at least customers can easily find it again).
They probably just wanted to funnel all eyes to the new model for a month to boost sales for it. But, as expected, that had a negative impact on the sales numbers for the original SE Colorsoft.
During Prime Day sales, Amazon showed the Signature Edition Colorsoft had hit 10k+ units sold during the past month, which is as high as the number goes for Kindle listings on Amazon’s website. Before Prime Day it was at 5k+ units sold during the past month, and I think I remember seeing it drop to 4k+ right before Prime Day.
Now, after nearly a month of being hidden behind the new 16GB Kindle Colorsoft, the SE Colorsoft has dropped all the way down to 2k units sold during the past month. That’s by far the lowest the number has been since the Colorsoft was released.
On some level you’d think the drop in sales would make sense with a slightly cheaper version without the Signature Edition upgrades being available now, but the funny thing is the SE actually ranks two spots higher than the new Colorsoft on Amazon’s Kindle best sellers list.
They still don’t show a monthly sales number for the new Colorsoft, but if it’s ranked lower than the SE it can’t be selling that well either. Most people still prefer black and white Kindles by a wide margin, which is evident by the fact that most standard BW Kindles have a “10k+ bought in past month” banner for each listing.
I still think it’s weird how Amazon doesn’t mention anything about the upgraded SE Colorsoft or include a link to it on the new 16GB Colorsoft page, but at least it’s back in search results again so it appears in related searches and recommendations.
Perhaps the International Colorsoft SE isn’t available yet in the US. If it does come, I hope it has a separate page from the original SE. I don’t want the 16 GB version, but I have heard the new SE has hardware revisions. If I can find a video that points out the differences between the two, and Amazon offers it separately from the original SE, I may trade mine in for the revision.
Amazon hasn’t said anything about any hardware revisions to the SE Colorsoft (it’s not even a year old yet). It’s more likely a certain seedy website is making stuff up again to get clicks, as they often do.
Good EReader says there’s an International version that released overseas in countries that the Colorsoft did not launch in last year. The screen and internal hardware are revised and the box has a different model number and features more languages then the original version.
It’s been well established that they aren’t a reliable source. You can look-up their long sordid history on Google.
It was NEVER hidden on the US websites. It was very easy to find.
Here in Mexico they finally made the colorsoft (both 16 and 32) available, but after prime day sale was over. I also thin it doesn’t help that Amazon does no advertising for their devices. It is mostly more by word of mouth. They also fail to pursue educational institutions. I got a second colorsoft for my wife during the prime sale and the screen is great. No yellowing and no dead pixels. So, I would say that purchasing one now you will have good odds of getting a good model. But I agree that the bad rap from the first release probably is not helping. They also need to replace the units they are sending out as refurbished with the new screens and work with Best Buys to change their stock to the new versions.
Strangely after having a trade in rebate issue, Amazon gave me a full refund and told me I could keep my 32Gb Colorsoft Sig Edition. Weird. That could take the sales figures down if they did that to a bunch of other people.