Amazon Kindle Colorsoft review: good color is a good start

The $279.99 Kindle Colorsoft features the aforesaid colour E Ink exertion utilized successful e-readers similar the Kobo Libra Colour but customized with a caller show stack, brighter LEDs, and peculiar coatings. Colors look much saturated and a small much vibrant connected the Colorsoft’s seven-inch surface than they bash connected the Libra Colour, portion surface refreshes are faster and opposition is notably better, making achromatic lines and borders successful comics look darker than they bash connected other colour e-readers. The upgrades besides marque browsing Amazon’s store much engaging, with publication covers that amended drawback your attention.

Despite an contented with screen discoloration affecting immoderate devices, the Kindle Colorsoft has the champion colour surface of immoderate e-reader I’ve tested. But its terms has maine wishing for much upgrades, similar a larger surface and stylus support. The colour surface doesn’t adhd capable to the Kindle acquisition by itself to warrant the other cost.

When you’re speechmaking successful achromatic and white, leafage turns inactive consciousness instantaneous, similar they bash connected my 11th-gen Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition. They’re a small slower erstwhile displaying larger colour images similar comics, arsenic the Colorsoft performs a full-screen refresh each clip you crook the leafage to maximize representation quality. (Amazon says a afloat refresh lone happens with “images supra a definite size,” but it happens adjacent connected pages with smaller colour images.) The Colorsoft’s refresh feels a spot faster than different colour e-readers, though, and isn’t truly a distraction. It’s besides much faster than the Remarkable Paper Pro, which uses a antithetic colour E Ink show technology.

The Colorsoft’s velocity improvements are astir evident erstwhile it comes to zooming and panning a page, specified arsenic enlarging a sheet oregon substance successful a comic. The e-reader temporarily switches to a lower-quality representation portion you’re moving astir the page, earlier re-rendering everything astatine precocious prime erstwhile you’re done. It’s a instrumentality each e-readers use, and the Colorsoft does it much responsively than different colour options. It’s inactive a tiny measurement down the show of black-and-white e-readers and obscurity adjacent arsenic accelerated and fluid arsenic a tablet with an LCD oregon OLED screen, but the Colorsoft ne'er feels similar it’s struggling to support up.

Highlighting passages besides benefits from the caller colour capabilities. The Colorsoft lets you take betwixt 4 antithetic item colors — pink, yellow, blue, and orangish — and filter them by color. But Amazon should person taken this diagnostic a measurement further. There’s nary mode to statement the highlighter colors, truthful it’s wholly up to you to retrieve that you usage bluish to prevention inspirational quotes, for example. The item colors are carried implicit to the Kindle mobile app, and portion highlighted passages are organized by colour erstwhile exported arsenic a spreadsheet oregon PDF, you can’t bounds the export to conscionable a azygous color.

On an e-reader arsenic costly arsenic the Colorsoft, I would person besides liked the enactment to item with a stylus similar you tin connected the Kindle Scribe, alternatively of having to pat connected the screen, hold for on-screen controls to popular up, and past resistance the item container implicit the text. The deficiency of stylus enactment makes the Colorsoft consciousness a measurement down the much affordable Kobo Libra Colour.

One happening I didn’t expect to admit astir the Colorsoft’s surface is the lack of customization. Competitors similar Boox springiness you extended power implicit refresh modes, brightness, vividness, and contrast. I find it overwhelming and overmuch similar Amazon already optimizing the Colorsoft’s surface for me.

The lone enactment disposable connected the Colorsoft is switching betwixt modular and vivid colour modes — the second of which boosts the strength of colors successful less-saturated imagery. The quality betwixt the 2 is subtle capable that I thin to permission vivid mode connected each the time, but I did announcement the effect portion speechmaking the archetypal measurement of Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man: Married with Children. The reddish successful Spider-Man’s suit had much ocular interaction successful vivid mode, portion the Green Goblin’s armor looked much grey than greenish successful standard. I conscionable privation Amazon hadn’t buried the options successful a paper that blocks a ample information of the display, making it hard to bash a speedy before-and-after ocular comparison.

Although Amazon’s upgrades genuinely amended the Colorsoft’s screen, they don’t lick each the problems with E Ink’s Kaleido technology. It’s inactive constricted to 4,096 colors, which leaves colour contented looking desaturated and level compared to devices with LCD and OLED screens, which tin show millions of colors. If the iPad is similar flipping done the glossy, vibrant photos successful a people transcript of National Geographic, the Colorsoft is much similar the washed-out colour photos connected the beforehand leafage of a newspaper.

Text and black-and-white imagery are displayed astatine 300ppi connected the Colorsoft, but that solution is halved successful colour mode. I had nary contented speechmaking Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, but the good people successful code bubbles successful Spider-Man and Marvel’s Fortnite x Marvel: Zero War crossover was hard to work without perpetually zooming successful and panning around. Color E Ink screens successful wide besides person somewhat little opposition than black-and-white displays arsenic a effect of the other RGB filter furniture that Kaleido relies connected to show color. With surface lighting turned off, the Colorsoft’s show looks a spot darker than a black-and-white e-reader similar the Kobo Clara BW oregon the Paperwhite. The quality is subtle, though, and casual to compensate for by keeping the Colorsoft’s airy on, adjacent outdoors.

Shortly aft the Kindle Colorsoft started shipping, immoderate users reported seeing a yellowish discolored portion crossed the bottommost of the e-reader’s display. My reappraisal portion besides exhibits the issue, but to a lesser grade than others are seeing, based connected images shared connected Reddit. The discoloration connected the Colorsoft I tested is truthful subtle that I’m not definite I would person noticed it had others not mentioned it. My iPhone’s camera picks it up amended than my eyes do.

It’s inactive not wide what is causing the occupation — immoderate speculate it’s an issue with an adhesive utilized to manufacture the surface — but Amazon has acknowledged it and says it’s moving to hole the contented and to guarantee that caller devices won’t person the discoloration. The institution is besides offering refunds oregon replacements to those who person an affected Colorsoft, but Amazon’s merchandise leafage shows an expected hold of 3 to 5 weeks. I urge waiting until Amazon confirms it has fixed the contented earlier you bargain 1 yourself.

Amazon claims the Kindle Colorsoft tin beryllium utilized for astir 8 weeks connected a complaint (four less than it claims for the 12th-gen Paperwhite), but that’s erstwhile speechmaking for conscionable 30 minutes a time with the surface brightness acceptable to conscionable supra fractional and wireless features disabled. In reality, you’re going to beryllium charging it much often than that. I find the colors connected an e-reader’s show to beryllium much pronounced with a brighter screen, truthful successful my testing, I had the Colorsoft’s surface lighting acceptable to 75 percent. After an hr of speechmaking a comic requiring full-screen refreshes with each leafage turn, the artillery mislaid 5 percent of its charge. I estimation I’d get astir 3 weeks retired of the Colorsoft’s artillery betwixt charges — longer with a premix of colour and black-and-white content.

As with the latest Paperwhite Signature Edition, the Colorsoft includes wireless charging successful summation to its USB-C port. But without magnets, decently aligning a wireless charging puck is frustrating and not worthy the effort. You’ll lone beryllium charging it astir erstwhile a month, truthful plugging it successful for a fewer hours isn’t a large inconvenience.

There are a batch of colour e-readers now, but successful presumption of availability, idiosyncratic experience, and surface size, the Colorsoft’s superior contention is the Kobo Libra Colour.

Without lighting adjustments, the Colorsoft’s surface looks cooler and much neutral than the Libra Colour’s, which skews somewhat warm. But the quality is negligible erstwhile you crook up the Colorsoft’s warmth slider and the Libra Colour’s earthy airy slider. The Colorsoft’s improved opposition besides gives its surface a darker wide tone, with colors that look much earthy and vivid. On the Libra Colour, imagery is warmer and brighter, which reveals much details successful darker areas of an image. I similar the Colorsoft’s vibrancy and absorption connected colour accuracy, but I wouldn’t picture the Libra Colour’s attack arsenic inferior. It’s a substance of preference.

The Kindle Colorsoft besides feels somewhat faster than the Libra Colour erstwhile turning pages, but the quality is mostly negligible unless you’re zooming and panning images. The Kindle feels much responsive to digit gestures and conscionable a spot snappier erstwhile switching betwixt the low- and high-quality versions of the images.

While sideloaded contented looks arsenic bully connected the Colorsoft arsenic contented purchased from Amazon, I had to trust connected Amazon’s online Send to Kindle service to sphere the colour contented of PDFs. Copying them to the e-reader from a MacBook Pro implicit USB-C (through the Android File Transfer app oregon Amazon’s precocious updated app) resulted successful the PDFs showing up connected the Colorsoft successful achromatic and white, and others person experienced the same. I didn’t person that contented erstwhile sideloading to the Kobo Libra Colour, truthful if you don’t root your ebooks from Amazon, you whitethorn person to larn to unrecorded with a fewer other steps to get them connected the e-reader properly.

Overall, I deliberation the Colorsoft’s surface is amended than Kobo’s, but determination are immoderate different aspects of the Libra Colour’s plan that I prefer. Amazon’s absorption aft discontinuing the Kindle Oasis whitethorn beryllium “touch-forward,” but excavation isn’t. I’m inactive a large instrumentality of carnal leafage crook buttons, and I similar the asymmetrical plan of the Libra Colour, with its larger grip that makes it overmuch easier to clasp successful 1 hand. On much than 1 occasion, I’ve accidentally triggered a leafage crook connected the Kindle Colorsoft erstwhile adjusting my grip. I besides find the Libra Colour’s slumber / powerfulness button, which is located connected the backmost of the e-reader, harder to deed by mistake. The Colorsoft’s fastener is located connected its bottommost borderline adjacent to the USB-C port, and I’ve unintentionally woken it up a fewer times portion trying to plug successful a charging cablegram without looking.

And portion the backmost of the Colorsoft has a smooth, somewhat rubbery finish, I consciousness similar I person a amended grip connected the Libra Colour, acknowledgment to the etched texture connected its rear panel.

If you privation a compact colour e-reader with entree to a robust ebook store that volition marque comic books and manga look bully without requiring a heavy dive into surface settings, the Kindle Colorsoft has the champion colour E Ink surface you tin get. It’s besides the perfect enactment if you’re firmly entrenched successful Amazon’s ecosystem.

If you’re not arsenic acrophobic with colour accuracy oregon don’t privation to beryllium stuck successful Amazon’s world, the Kobo Libra Colour is simply a cheaper alternate astatine $219.99 that inactive looks bully and performs precise well. It skips features similar wireless charging but gives you the enactment of utilizing a stylus ($69.99) for easier highlights and basal note-taking, and it has leafage crook buttons. Amazon’s bookstore is much broad than Kobo’s, but I recovered it overmuch easier to sideload contented from different sources onto the Libra Colour, including ePUB files and colour PDFs, which showed up with existent colour erstwhile copied implicit utilizing USB-C.

As for whether this is the close Kindle to buy: the Colorsoft is fundamentally the fantabulous Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition with a colour screen, but for $80 much than the Signature Edition and $120 much than the modular Paperwhite. That’s a batch to walk connected a colour screen. Adding features similar stylus support, basal note-taking capabilities, oregon adjacent a somewhat larger surface to amended accommodate contented similar comic books — you know, similar a Kindle Scribe — would person made the Colorsoft easier to justify.

While I’m gladsome to spot that Amazon attempted to amended the existent procreation of colour E Ink technology, it’s inactive a spot disappointing, with washed-out colors and little resolutions. If you’re already a blessed Kindle user, see the 12th-gen Paperwhite instead. A colour surface conscionable isn’t a must-have upgrade.

Photography by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge