Amazon has refreshed its Kindle models with a bumper run of new devices for book fans. The basic Kindle is now faster with better screen illumination, while the biggest Kindle Scribe has new tricks for note-takers. In the middle of the range – Amazon’s most popular Kindle the Paperwhite – has been updated with faster page turns and a larger 7-inch display.
But if you’re looking for something completely new, you have to turn to the Kindle Colorsoft. As the name suggests, this is the first Kindle that offers a colour display.
It’s still the same sort of E Ink display that you’ll find on other Kindles – along with the advantages of offering a really long battery life and no reflections so you can read it on holiday in bright sunshine – but now with colour.
The Colorsoft itself looks like the Kindle Paperwhite: it has the same dimensions and design, and the display is also 7 inches. But it’s a completely different type of display with some clever tech packed in to give it colour. Amazon told me it has been in development for over 2 years and it’s designed to give you soft colour as you’d expect from a Kindle, rather than the sort of leap-off-the-page colour you’d get from an iPad.
The first thing I noticed about having colour is how it brings the lock screen to life. On all Kindles (unless you have adverts), you can opt to show the cover of the book you’re reading on your lock screen. When that turns into full colour it looks great – it’s instantly more eye-catching.
The same thing happens in the Kindle Store and your Library. As you’re scrolling through books, they’re now colourful: finally, book cover design means something in the digital world!
But that’s not really what colour is for: it’s really to add colour back into books where it would have shown something in black and white before. If you’re reading a fantasy book with maps in it for example, you can see those in colour, but it also makes other types of books on Kindle better.
Take reference books, for example, or guidebooks. Rather than packing your suitcase with travel guides you can have them on your Kindle with full colour. It makes photos more meaningful than in black and white. You can even zoom in on photos, using a pinch zoom like you might use on your phone.
Aside from the new colour options, the Kindle Colorsoft is everything you expect a Kindle to be. There’s 8 weeks of battery life, it offers wireless charging and it’s just a lovely device to hold and read books on. That’s perhaps where the dilemma will lie because it’s a very similar experience to the Kindle Paperwhite.
The new Kindle Paperwhite has been updated with a 7-inch display and faster page turns, making it the fastest Kindle ever. If you just want to relax beside the pool on holiday and read the latest Jack Reacher blockbuster you don’t need colour – and not when it costs £110 more than the new Paperwhite.
But you now have choices: the Kindle Colorsoft is there for you if you’ve been craving colour, perhaps to read graphic novels or to bring life to your books, but if you just want to head off on your holidays with a stack of books on your Kindle, you might find the Kindle Paperwhite is all you need.
The Kindle Paperwhite will be available immediately for £159.99; the Kindle Colorsoft is available for pre-order, shipping on 30 October from Amazon. Of course, while this is the first Kindle to offer colour, it’s not the first e-reader, with Kobo offering its own colour option in the Kobo Libra Colour.