Kindle Colorsoft Review: Color Is a Treat, Price Is Tricky

The Kindle Colorsoft, Amazon’s first ever color E Ink e-reader, lists for $280 (£270 or roughlyAU$530), which makes it an expensive proposition. The big question is, with Amazon releasing two other capable new e-readers, the entry-level Kindle ($110, £95, AU$199) and new Kindle Paperwhite ($160, £160), how much does color change the Kindle reading experience, and is it really worth making the jump to color? The answer ultimately depends on how you use your Kindle. 

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I say that because I look at the Colorsoft as the new Kindle Oasis. By that I mean the Colorsoft is the new luxury Kindle. Sure, there’s some appeal to folks who read a lot of e-comics or consume content with color images and graphics. But in reality, the Colorsoft is targeted at the same audience who bought the now-discontinued Oasis, which carried a similarly high price tag when it first came out.

Kindle Colorsoft design

The Colorsoft and new Paperwhite share the same chassis and weigh pretty close to the same amount — the Paperwhite is 215 grams while the Colorsoft is 219 grams. And they’re both fully waterproof with an IPX8 rating, which means they can be fully submerged and survive.

They also both have 7-inch screens. While the Paperwhite has a 300 ppi monochrome display, the Colorsoft is equipped with an E Ink Kaledio color filter, which is built into a customized display stack, according to Amazon. The new Paperwhite also has a customized display stack.

Amazon talks about how the Colorsoft and new Paperweight have a smaller bezel around the screen than the previous Paperwhite. It also says the Paperwhite (2024) and Colorsoft are slightly slimmer devices. That’s true, but it’s not like Amazon took the previous Kindle chassis and slimmed it down and made the bezels smaller around the entire screen to accommodate a 7-inch display (compared to the 6.8 inch display on the 2021 Paperwhite). The bezel on the new Paperwhite and new Colorsoft has only been cut down on the bottom. The sides and top have the same size frame around the screen and the dimensions of the new devices are actually slightly larger, so neither of them fits in my old case for the 2021 Paperwhite. 

Half the resolution for color   

The resolution is cut in half for color elements on the Colorsoft. The color resolution is only 150 ppi for color, while it’s 300 ppi for black and white. While 150 ppi lacks some crispness, it’s still nice to see e-book covers in color, and having color brings comic books, graphic novels and images more to life. Some people will appreciate that you can also highlight text in different colors, like you would with real-world highlighter pens.

If you’re reading standard black and white text, I didn’t notice a difference between the Colorsoft and the new Paperwhite, which has a little better contrast than its predecessor and faster page turns — 25% faster, according to Amazon, though it’s hard to measure because we’re talking about fractions of a second. You get those same performance benefits with the Colorsoft, but its battery life is rated at eight weeks. You get 12 weeks’ battery life for the Paperwhite.

Like the Oasis, the Colorsoft is for Kindle power users who view their Kindles as essential devices alongside their smartphones. It doesn’t have the physical page-turn buttons that the Oasis had (those buttons were a key selling point for some people). Nor does it have a swanky aluminum chassis. But it does have a color screen, which gives it a more premium look than the Paperwhite. 

Unlike the Paperwhite, which comes in a standard version and a Signature Edition, the Colorsoft only comes in a Signature Edition. As with the step-up version of the Paperwhite, the Colorsoft Signature Edition has 32 GB of storage instead of 16GB. There’s also wireless charging and an auto-adjusting front light sensor, which sets the built-in light to a brightness setting based on your environment.

As I said in an earlier article, I’m not quite sure why Amazon went with the Colorsoft name. It could be because the color appears a little soft and muted compared to a tablet with an LCD or AMOLED screen. Those screens offer much richer color and much zippier performance.

Kindle Colorsoft compared to Kobo’s Libra Colour e-reader

When I first tried the Colorsoft at Amazon’s launch event for all the new 2024 Kindles, including the second-gen Kindle Scribe, which ships in December, I thought the Colorsoft’s color display looked slightly better than the displays on Kobo’s color E Ink e-readers, which cost less and use E Ink Kaleido 3 displays. I also thought the Colorsoft performed slightly better. But I wasn’t sure because I didn’t have the Kobos on hand to do a real A/B comparison.

Well, it turns out my gut first impression was right. The Colorsoft has a little better contrast and the color looks a little more saturated, making it pop more.

Amazon says the Colorsoft uses the same oxide backplane with custom waveforms as the new Paperwhite. And that custom display includes a new light-guide with nitride LEDs. When combined with custom algorithms, this enhances color and increases brightness.

While these E Ink displays are inherently more sluggish than LCD technology, you can pinch and zoom to get a closer look at images and text. I downloaded some e-comics and compared the pinch-and-zoom functionality between the Colorsoft and Kobo Libra Colour, which also has a 7-inch screen. I thought the Colorsoft had smoother performance overall. 

To be clear, the display and performance differences between the Colorsoft and the Kobo Libra Colour are small, but they’re noticeable if you look closely.

The Libra Colour is cheaper — it lists for $220 — and is a little bigger. But it has those physical page turn buttons that some people love, and it’s compatible with Kobo’s Stylus 2, which allows you to take and store notes. However, the Stylus 2 is a $70 accessory. 

Amazon hasn’t said anything about whether its new Premium Pen for the Scribe will work with the Colorsoft. As far as I know, the Colorsoft will never have stylus support. But it would be nice if it did.

Like some people, I find it annoying that Amazon continues to place its power button on the bottom of the device, not the top. The Kobo e-readers have the power buttons embedded in the back of the device, which is preferable to the button being placed on the bottom of the device.

Kindle Colorsoft final thoughts

When it comes down to it, you’ve either bought into Amazon’s e-book ecosystem — it’s the largest one out there and includes some free content for Amazon Prime members — or you haven’t.

Beyond the Kobo, you can find several other color e-readers based on E Ink’s Kaleido or Gallery color displays. Some of them run on Android. I know people who like Boox’s color models and I’ve seen some positive comments about the PocketBook InkPad Color 3 ($300). Then there are the larger and much more expensive high-end E Ink tablets, like the reMarkable Paper Pro ($750), that are more note-taking devices than e-readers. 

Watch this: Kindle Colorsoft Review: Amazon’s New Luxury E-Reader

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And yes, a larger color tablet, whatever display technology it uses, seems better suited for reading comic books and graphic novels. That said, I think Amazon has done a nice job creating an appealing first-generation color E Ink e-reader that seems to get the most out of the existing E Ink color technology.

While the Colorsoft is a little too pricey at $280, I felt the same way about the Oasis when it first came out. That model eventually went on sale as all Kindles eventually do, and you can trade in your old Kindle to get a 20% discount on most new Kindle models.

It’s safe to say that the new, improved Kindle Paperwhite or entry-level Kindle are better options for most folks. But if you’re a Kindle aficionado and want something truly different from previous 7-inch Kindles, the Colorsoft is the one to get. I certainly preferred it over the Paperwhite.