Kindle Colorsoft: A Promising Color E-Reader with Major Drawbacks
Amazon’s foray into color e-readers, the Kindle Colorsoft, aims to revolutionize how we read. But does it succeed? Despite some improvements over existing color e-readers, the Kindle Colorsoft may not be worth the premium price due to a few significant compromises.
Reviewed by Michelle Ehrhardt
Quick Verdict:
- Rating: 3.5/5
Key Takeaways:
The Good:
- Improved contrast
- Faster page refreshes
- Seamless integration with the Kindle ecosystem
- Long battery life
The Bad:
- Black-and-white content appears worse than on other e-readers
- Expensive, at $279.99
- No longer supports local content
- Lack of access to comic apps
What is the Kindle Colorsoft?
The Kindle Colorsoft is Amazon’s first attempt at a color e-reader. It resembles a standard Kindle in appearance, with a colorful lock screen and a slightly larger 7-inch display (compared to 6.8 inches on the standard Paperwhite). However, it lacks premium features such as physical page-turn buttons and a stylus, which can be found on the Kobo Libra Colour. The Colorsoft is also only available in black.
What Sets Colorsoft Apart?
The “Colorsoft” name is a bit misleading, as the Colorsoft uses the same Kaleido 3 color e-ink display found in many other color e-readers. However, Amazon has included an “oxide backplane” for faster refreshes and increased contrast, as well as “a new light-guide with nitride LEDs” to improve color quality.
Does this make a difference? Yes! The Colorsoft’s image is noticeably more consistent than the Kobo Libra Colour making the colors deeper, and the shading is more vibrant as shown in the comparison.
Does Color Make the Difference?
Page turns are noticeably snappier compared to the Kobo. However, you may not notice all these changes on some use cases.
The Drawbacks of Color E-Readers
The core issue remains: color e-readers present compromises. All color e-readers filter black-and-white images through a color layer, producing the illusion of color. The E Ink Kaleido 3 screen produces up to 4,096 colors, which is great for reading in a new way. It will come with drawbacks, from the rainbow effect to resolution loss.
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Black-and-White Content: The rainbow effect, a visible shimmer from the inactive color layer, diminishes the experience of reading black-and-white content. The Colorsoft does somewhat mitigate this, but it’s still present.
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Image Clarity: Color reduces the PPI (pixels-per-inch), resulting in lower resolution when viewing color content. This is due to how the color filter works.
Reading Comics on the Colorsoft
While the color e-reader is great for comics, it has a few caveats.
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Comic Size: The 7-inch display is smaller than a standard comic book, requiring image shrinking and reducing the readability.
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Zooming Challenges: Zooming is not very responsive, and the crop margin features can cut out content.
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Finding Digital Comics: The lack of popular comic apps on the Kindle ecosystem limits the selection. Users will need to purchase comics piecemeal.
Is the Kindle Colorsoft a Good Choice?
Ultimately, the Kindle Colorsoft is a solid option if you’re heavily invested in the Kindle ecosystem and are set on getting a color e-reader. However, the added cost, compromise to image quality, and limitations with comic apps may outweigh the benefits. You might be better off with a color e-reader that can run Android apps, for a far wider array of content. At this point, the color e-reader’s market is still evolving, and it really depends on your needs.
Michelle Ehrhardt is the Associate Tech Editor for Lifehacker.
