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It has actually been a rough start for Amazon’s $ 280 Kindle Colorsoft, the business’s very first E-Ink book reader with a color screen. The business postponed deliveries for a couple of weeks to fix an issue where a faint yellow band would appear throughout the bottom of the screen, something that has actually obviously been repaired for present variations of the reader(Amazon states it has actually made “the appropriate adjustments” to repair the issue however hasn’t specified about what those modifications are).

Amazon didn’t send us a Colorsoft for evaluation at the time, perhaps in part due to the fact that of this issue early customers had, however we lastly got one a couple of weeks back and have actually been utilizing it ever since.

My primary takeaway is that I do notmind the Colorsoft, however it likewise does not resolve any issues I was having with the black and white Kindle Paperwhite, and it does not meaningfully fix the huge issues with color E-Ink. It likewise makes the experience of checking out routine text discreetly even worse, which represents the large bulk of my Kindle activity. I’m curious to see future riffs on the concept, however this preliminary application leaves me cold.

What’s various in color?

Even if you invest the majority of your time checking out monochrome text, the Colorsoft does place splashes of color any place it can. The setup and sleep screens are all in color. Every book cover in your library or on your home screen remains in color, and highlights can be made in 4 various colors(yellow, pink, blue, and orange).

These colors are the very same as you get in the Kindle mobile and desktop/web apps, and highlights you make on the Colorsoft will appear in the very same color in the other apps (and vice-versa).

Comics, PDFs, websites, and other color material will likewise show in color on the Colorsoft’s screen (though for websites, you’re stuck to the very same minimal web internet browser the Kindle has actually constantly had, and a lot of pages will not render anywhere near to properly). Colors will not be represented as properly as on an LCD or OLED screen, because E-Ink supports simply 4,096 colors, instead of millions. The broad strokes will look primarily right.

Which’s where we enter My Whole Thing With The Kindle Colorsoft. Seemingly you’re getting it– and handling the drawbacks, which we’ll speak about in a minute– so you can take a look at things in color. A 7-inch screen is much smaller sized than the size of a normal comic book or graphic book, or of the 8.5 × 11-inch sheet of paper that a PDF is typically attempting to mimic.

This implies that, even when the colors look good (allowing the Vivid color profile in the settings assists), text is little and difficult to check out, and visual information get lost. Much like on a phone or tablet, the Kindle will let you do some zooming and scrolling to amplify specific littles a page, however it’s E-Ink, so it’s slower and less responsive than an LCD touchscreen, and it would be a discouraging method to check out anything longer than a handful of pages.

And while Amazon has actually obviously made some additions that assist enhance the quality of the color display screen– an included screen layer that enhances contrast and color intensity, for instance, is the addition that was blamed for the yellow band at the bottom of the screen– there are still restricts fundamental to color E-Ink that the Colorsoft can’t conquer.

Color is still soft and not true-to-life, disappointing the “looks a lot like real paper” standard that monochrome E-Ink hits– Amazon’s item pages certainly oversell the intensity of the color you’ll see. Page turns are slower than on the comparable Paperwhite, despite the fact that criteria recommend the 2 e-readers are utilizing the exact same chip inside.

If you’re interested in the technical description, the brief variation (according to E Ink, the makers of E Ink) is that a color E-Ink Kaleido screen is essentially simply a black-and-white E-Ink screen with an additional color filter range layer included over top of the monochrome layer. That additional layer is primarily accountable for any distinctions you see in between the Colorsoft’s screen and a monochrome E-Ink display screen.

Not rather a color Kindle Paperwhite

The Colorsoft’s imperfections may be less of a concern if the color screen were completely additive, and the experience of checking out black-and-white text on the Colorsoft were simply as excellent as on the monochrome Paperwhite. It isn’t, not rather.

The Colorsoft is the most comparable to the Paperwhite in its physical style, which is so close that the 2 can utilize the exact same cases and other devices. It has a 7-inch E-Ink screen with an auto-brightness sensing unit, a warmlight, a flush bezel, and a matte surface. And the back is made from a smooth soft-touch plastic that’s enjoyable to hold. (One style modify that I like: the Amazon logo design on the back of the Colorsoft is a glossy metal product that shows color somewhat in a different way as you move it under light, a subtle nod to its color screen.)

An often asked concerns list on the Colorsoft’s item page identifies where the gadget makes compromises to support showing color:

• The Paperwhite deals “a slightly crisper black and white reading experience” with “the fastest page turns and highest contrast ratio of any 2024 Kindle device.”
• The Colorsoft does not support Dark Mode, though there is a facsimile of Dark Mode readily available while you’re checking out called “Page Color.”
• The Colorsoft provides “up to 8 weeks of battery life” whereas the Paperwhite deals “up to 12 weeks.”

Any Kindle’s battery life suffices relative to a modern-day phone or tablet that you do not truly miss out on those additional weeks– charging as soon as every 2 months rather of when every 3 months is no challenge. Page turns likewise felt fine to me. They were possibly a hair slower than on the Paperwhite, however the Colorsoft likewise takes advantage of the enhanced efficiency and consistency of the brand-new chip Amazon is utilizing in this generation of Kindles. The Colorsoft will still feel faster than any one- or two-generation-old grayscale Kindle.

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