Four years after the primary shade e-readers launched, Amazon has lastly launched a Kindle with a shade display.
The $279.99 Kindle Colorsoft options the identical shade E Ink know-how utilized in e-readers just like the Kobo Libra Colour however personalized with a brand new show stack, brighter LEDs, and particular coatings. Colors seem extra saturated and just a little extra vibrant on the Colorsoft’s seven-inch display than they do on the Libra Colour, whereas display refreshes are sooner and distinction is notably higher, making black strains and borders in comics look darker than they do on different shade e-readers. The upgrades additionally make shopping Amazon’s retailer extra participating, with ebook covers that higher seize your consideration.
Despite a problem with display discoloration affecting some gadgets, the Kindle Colorsoft has the perfect shade display of any e-reader I’ve examined. But its value has me wishing for extra upgrades, like a bigger display and stylus assist. The shade display doesn’t add sufficient to the Kindle expertise by itself to justify the additional price.
When you’re studying in black and white, web page turns nonetheless really feel instantaneous, like they do on my Eleventh-gen Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition. They’re just a little slower when displaying bigger shade photos like comics, because the Colorsoft performs a full-screen refresh each time you flip the web page to maximise picture high quality. (Amazon says a full refresh solely occurs with “photos above a sure measurement,” nevertheless it occurs even on pages with smaller shade photos.) The Colorsoft’s refresh feels a bit sooner than different shade e-readers, although, and isn’t actually a distraction. It’s additionally a lot sooner than the Remarkable Paper Pro, which makes use of a distinct shade E Ink show know-how.
The Colorsoft’s pace enhancements are most obvious in terms of zooming and panning a web page, corresponding to enlarging a panel or textual content in a comic book. The e-reader quickly switches to a lower-quality picture whilst you’re shifting across the web page, earlier than re-rendering the whole lot at top quality while you’re carried out. It’s a trick all e-readers use, and the Colorsoft does it extra responsively than different shade choices. It’s nonetheless a small step behind the efficiency of black-and-white e-readers and nowhere close to as quick and fluid as a pill with an LCD or OLED display, however the Colorsoft by no means feels prefer it’s struggling to maintain up.
Highlighting passages additionally advantages from the brand new shade capabilities. The Colorsoft allows you to select between 4 completely different spotlight colours — pink, yellow, blue, and orange — and filter them by shade. But Amazon ought to have taken this function a step additional. There’s no option to label the highlighter colours, so it’s solely as much as you to do not forget that you utilize blue to save lots of inspirational quotes, for instance. The spotlight colours are carried over to the Kindle cell app, and whereas highlighted passages are organized by shade when exported as a spreadsheet or PDF, you may’t restrict the export to only a single shade.
On an e-reader as costly because the Colorsoft, I’d have additionally favored the choice to focus on with a stylus like you may on the Kindle Scribe, as an alternative of getting to faucet on the display, await on-screen controls to pop up, after which drag the spotlight field over the textual content. The lack of stylus assist makes the Colorsoft really feel a step behind the extra reasonably priced Kobo Libra Colour.
One factor I didn’t count on to understand concerning the Colorsoft’s display is the lack of customization. Competitors like Boox offer you in depth management over refresh modes, brightness, vividness, and distinction. I discover it overwhelming and far want Amazon already optimizing the Colorsoft’s display for me.
The solely choice obtainable on the Colorsoft is switching between normal and vivid shade modes — the latter of which boosts the depth of colours in less-saturated imagery. The distinction between the 2 is adequately subtle that I have a tendency to depart vivid mode on on a regular basis, however I did discover the impact whereas studying the primary quantity of Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man: Married with Children. The crimson in Spider-Man’s swimsuit had extra visible impression in vivid mode, whereas the Green Goblin’s armor regarded extra grey than inexperienced in normal. I simply want Amazon hadn’t buried the choices in a menu that blocks a big portion of the show, making it arduous to do a fast before-and-after visible comparability.
Although Amazon’s upgrades genuinely enhance the Colorsoft’s display, they don’t clear up all the issues with E Ink’s Kaleido know-how. It’s nonetheless restricted to 4,096 colours, which leaves shade content material wanting desaturated and flat in comparison with gadgets with LCD and OLED screens, which might show tens of millions of colours. If the iPad is like flipping by means of the shiny, vibrant photographs in a print copy of National Geographic, the Colorsoft is extra just like the washed-out shade photographs on the entrance web page of a newspaper.
Text and black-and-white imagery are displayed at 300ppi on the Colorsoft, however that decision is halved in shade mode. I had no subject studying Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, however the effective print in speech bubbles in Spider-Man and Marvel’s Fortnite x Marvel: Zero War crossover was troublesome to learn with out continually zooming in and panning round. Color E Ink screens typically even have barely much less distinction than black-and-white shows on account of the additional RGB filter layer that Kaleido depends on to show shade. With display lighting turned off, the Colorsoft’s show seems to be a bit darker than a black-and-white e-reader just like the Kobo Clara BW or the Paperwhite. The distinction is refined, although, and simple to compensate for by holding the Colorsoft’s gentle on, even outdoor.
Shortly after the Kindle Colorsoft began delivery, some customers reported seeing a yellow discolored strip throughout the underside of the e-reader’s show. My overview unit additionally reveals the problem, however to a lesser diploma than others are seeing, primarily based on photos shared on Reddit. The discoloration on the Colorsoft I examined is so refined that I’m undecided I’d have observed it had others not talked about it. My iPhone’s digicam picks it up higher than my eyes do.
It’s nonetheless not clear what’s inflicting the issue — some speculate it’s a problem with an adhesive used to fabricate the display — however Amazon has acknowledged it and says it’s working to repair the problem and to make sure that new gadgets gained’t have the discoloration. The firm can be providing refunds or replacements to those that have an affected Colorsoft, however Amazon’s product web page reveals an anticipated delay of three to 5 weeks. I like to recommend ready till Amazon confirms it has fastened the problem before you purchase one your self.
Amazon claims the Kindle Colorsoft can be utilized for round eight weeks on a cost (4 fewer than it claims for the Twelfth-gen Paperwhite), however that’s when studying for simply half-hour a day with the display brightness set to only above half and wi-fi options disabled. In actuality, you’re going to be charging it extra incessantly than that. I discover the colours on an e-reader’s show to be extra pronounced with a brighter display, so in my testing, I had the Colorsoft’s display lighting set to 75 p.c. After an hour of studying a comic book requiring full-screen refreshes with each web page flip, the battery misplaced 5 p.c of its cost. I estimate I’d get about three weeks out of the Colorsoft’s battery between expenses — longer with a mixture of shade and black-and-white content material.
As with the most recent Paperwhite Signature Edition, the Colorsoft consists of wi-fi charging along with its USB-C port. But with out magnets, correctly aligning a wi-fi charging puck is irritating and never well worth the effort. You’ll solely be charging it about as soon as a month, so plugging it in for just a few hours isn’t an enormous inconvenience.
There are loads of shade e-readers now, however by way of availability, person expertise, and display measurement, the Colorsoft’s major competitors is the Kobo Libra Colour.
Without lighting changes, the Colorsoft’s display seems to be cooler and extra impartial than the Libra Colour’s, which skews barely heat. But the distinction is negligible when you flip up the Colorsoft’s heat slider and the Libra Colour’s pure gentle slider. The Colorsoft’s improved distinction additionally provides its display a darker general tone, with colours that look extra pure and vivid. On the Libra Colour, imagery is hotter and brighter, which reveals extra particulars in darker areas of a picture. I want the Colorsoft’s vibrancy and give attention to shade accuracy, however I wouldn’t describe the Libra Colour’s method as inferior. It’s a matter of choice.
The Kindle Colorsoft additionally feels barely sooner than the Libra Colour when turning pages, however the distinction is generally negligible except you’re zooming and panning photos. The Kindle feels extra attentive to finger gestures and only a bit snappier when switching between the low- and high-quality variations of the pictures.
While sideloaded content material seems to be nearly as good on the Colorsoft as content material bought from Amazon, I needed to depend on Amazon’s on-line Send to Kindle service to protect the colour content material of PDFs. Copying them to the e-reader from a MacBook Pro over USB-C (by means of the Android File Transfer app or Amazon’s lately up to date app) resulted within the PDFs exhibiting up on the Colorsoft in black and white, and others have skilled the identical. I didn’t have that subject when sideloading to the Kobo Libra Colour, so if you happen to don’t supply your ebooks from Amazon, you’ll have to be taught to stay with just a few further steps to get them on the e-reader correctly.
Amazon’s focus after discontinuing the Kindle Oasis could also be “touch-forward,” however mine isn’t
Overall, I believe the Colorsoft’s display is best than Kobo’s, however there are another points of the Libra Colour’s design that I want. Amazon’s focus after discontinuing the Kindle Oasis could also be “touch-forward,” however mine isn’t. I’m nonetheless an enormous fan of bodily web page flip buttons, and I want the asymmetrical design of the Libra Colour, with its bigger grip that makes it a lot simpler to carry in a single hand. On a couple of event, I’ve unintentionally triggered a web page activate the Kindle Colorsoft when adjusting my grip. I additionally discover the Libra Colour’s sleep / energy button, which is situated on the again of the e-reader, more durable to hit by mistake. The Colorsoft’s button is situated on its backside edge subsequent to the USB-C port, and I’ve unintentionally woken it up just a few instances whereas making an attempt to plug in a charging cable with out wanting.
And whereas the again of the Colorsoft has a clean, barely rubbery end, I really feel like I’ve a greater grip on the Libra Colour, because of the etched texture on its rear panel.
If you need a compact shade e-reader with entry to a strong e book retailer that may make comedian books and manga look good with out requiring a deep dive into display settings, the Kindle Colorsoft has the perfect shade E Ink display you will get. It’s additionally the perfect choice if you happen to’re firmly entrenched in Amazon’s ecosystem.
If you’re not as involved with shade accuracy or don’t need to be caught in Amazon’s world, the Kobo Libra Colour is a less expensive different at $219.99 that also seems to be good and performs very properly. It skips options like wi-fi charging however provides you the choice of utilizing a stylus ($69.99) for simpler highlights and fundamental note-taking, and it has web page flip buttons. Amazon’s bookstore is extra complete than Kobo’s, however I discovered it a lot simpler to sideload content material from different sources onto the Libra Colour, together with ePUB information and shade PDFs, which confirmed up with precise shade when copied over utilizing USB-C.
As for whether or not that is the suitable Kindle to purchase: the Colorsoft is mainly the superb Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition with a shade display, however for $80 greater than the Signature Edition and $120 greater than the usual Paperwhite. That’s lots to spend on a shade display. Adding options like stylus assist, fundamental note-taking capabilities, or perhaps a barely bigger display to raised accommodate content material like comedian books — , like a Kindle Scribe — would have made the Colorsoft simpler to justify.
While I’m glad to see that Amazon tried to enhance the present era of shade E Ink know-how, it’s nonetheless a bit disappointing, with washed-out colours and decrease resolutions. If you’re already a cheerful Kindle person, think about the Twelfth-gen Paperwhite as an alternative. A shade display simply isn’t essential improve.
Photography by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge
