Amazon Kindle Colorsoft review: a new way to read

I'd been waiting a long time for this – through nearly a decade of Kindle ownership there haven't been many obvious issues with Amazon's e-reader hardware (the best e-readers out there by default), but one of the few blind spots has been a lack of any colour in its displays. Until now.

The Kindle Colorsoft is finally here to plug that gap – and as the first Kindle with a colour screen, it's pretty darn impressive. Especially if you're into graphic novels, which black-and-white Kindle models have coped with, but not excelled in delivering the full experience.

However, there are some interesting foibles at play when you start comparing the Colorsoft's colour reading to other hardware options out there. So, read on to find out my full thoughts on whether the all-new colour Kindle is the new monarch of Amazon's line-up...

Amazon Kindle Colorsoft: Price & Availability

The Kindle Colorsoft was announced in mid-October 2024, going on sale in the same month, where you can now buy directly through Amazon. It's priced at a premium: $279.99 / £269.99 (with Australian pricing coming in 2025 when it reaches those shores).

That makes the Colorsoft one of the most expensive Kindle models you can buy, but without the buttons of the Kindle Oasis (which is surely now due for a refresh) or the note-taking options of the Kindle Scribe.

Amazon Kindle Colorsoft review: Design & Features

Look at the Kindle Colorsoft from quite a few angles and it won't stand out at all from the latest version of the Paperwhite. It's almost exactly the same size and shape, with a 7-inch display that takes up most of its front side. The bezels remain fairly significant, but they're needed as a 'holding area', to prevent your thumbs and fingers blocking what you're reading.

The back has one hint about the new colourful nature of that screen, though – the Amazon 'smile logo' is now subtly iridescent, a nice colourful effect. Of course, it only takes a glance at the display itself to make it clear that you aren't looking at a Paperwhite, since the Colorsoft front-loads its new colour E Ink display with new screensavers and lock screens full of lovely colourful designs.

On the bottom of the tablet, you'll find a USB-C port for charging purposes (although wireless charging will also work), and a power button for waking and sleeping the Colorsoft easily. Those are the sum of the physical controls since the e-reader's whole user interface is based on swipes and taps of its touchscreen.

At 219g (0.48lbs), the Colorsoft is impressively lightweight for what it offers, and I found it really easy to carry around and hold while reading. In this regard, it'll be familiar to anyone who's used a recent Kindle of any sort.

It's also reliable on the battery front, although here there's a point of difference – the Colorsoft offers up to eight weeks of use on a single charge, compared to the Paperwhite's 12 weeks. There's also some major wiggle room there, as I'll explain when I come to performance in the section further below.

The Colorsoft boasts the same IPX8 waterproofing that the Paperwhite offers, making it completely safe to use in the bath or outdoors in bad weather. You needn't worry about splashes or even dips in water. It also brings the adaptive brightness that only comes with the more expensive Paperwhite Signature Edition, if you choose to turn the setting on.

The software experience is basically identical to what it would be on a Paperwhite, to continue the theme, but there are some extra options on the Colorsoft. For one thing, there are two colour modes to choose from – a normal option and a vivid mode that ups the saturation a little. I found this latter option a must-use, and Amazon told me there's no difference in battery drain between the two.

Amazon Kindle Colorsoft review: Display & Performance

Judging a Kindle based on its specs sheet is one thing, but using it for a few nights to actually read both novels and a fair few comics sheds a lot more light (pardon the pun). This is a really interesting addition to the Kindle line-up that shines on its own – but is outmatched by some competition.

Taking just the text experience first, the Colorsoft is excellent. It's basically as good as a previous-generation Paperwhite, missing out only on the upgraded contrast that the 2024 Paperwhite has added (I have both, so have side-by-side compared them for this review). That means the black-and-white Kindle is a bit crisper, but the Colorsoft is still an excellent reading experience with the same 300ppi pixel density – but, do note, only when displaying in black and white.

Whether you like your pages cold and bright or dim and warm, you can tweak settings to get them lit up just right, and the variety of fonts and sizes also make legibility easy to sort out. Keeping track of highlights (if you bother to do so) is also upgraded, with multiple colours to choose from. These colour choices are then stored so that you can more easily search your highlights, which is a great touch.

Of course, most people will be more interested in the colour performance, and for that side of things I downloaded a heap of comics to see how they fared, which left me with quite mixed impressions. To get the obvious out of the way, it's incredibly impressive to use a Kindle that has colour, after a decade and more of models that couldn't manage that trick.

There aren't many limitations here either, so subtle gradations are easy to tell apart, and there's a huge difference when reading anything that was intended to be in full colour compared to the experience on a Paperwhite or other older Kindle.

However, there's also no getting around the fact that there are some drawbacks nonetheless. While the Colorsoft's colours are really nice, they're still very E Ink in style, obviously. This means that they're a little soft (as befits the name), and not exactly vibrant when compared to a traditional modern display. Get the same comic panel up on a tablet of even mediocre quality, or on your phone, and you'll instantly realise how much the Kindle Colorsoft has dimmed the scene.

This can be alleviated a little by maxing out the brightness when reading a comic, but even then it's still night and day. Plus, that max-brightness life will have a noticeable effect on your Colorsoft's battery life, to the point where you can see it trickling away by a percentage point or two while reading for an hour, something that normally wouldn't ever happen on a Kindle. Amazon told me that there's no difference in battery drain between black and white content compared to colour, but it added the crucial caveat that this applied only if the brightness was the same, after all.

That 7-inch screen size also becomes an issue when you're trying to read graphic novels that typically use larger page sizes. Kindle has an excellent panel viewing system for properly-uploaded comics that lets you zip between panels in the desired order, but even then you'll sometimes have to zoom in on smaller bits of text. This is partly because the pixel density outputted by the Colorsoft is halved, down to 150ppi, when it's displaying colour content.

This helps to explain why Amazon itself has focused more on the highlight functions and colourful library browsing in its marketing than it has on reading comics. The Colorsoft feels like a first draft for this sort of reading. Right now, many big comics fans might find themselves disappointed by how their favourite books appear on its display.

That said, if you mostly read text-based novels, but occasionally dip your toe into more colourful content, then you're likely to love the bonus adaptability offered by the Colorsoft. Whether that's worth the significant price uplift compared to a Paperwhite, given the Kindle app on a phone or tablet could be a good fallback for comics, is harder to judge.

To avoid leaving things too negatively, there are still some major positives about the colour experience to tally up. For one thing, while battery life might be lower while reading comics, it's still impressive and can easily last for days of dedicated reading. Also, the page-turning experience remains fast and responsive across the board, albeit you'll see the screen refresh more obviously than it does on black-and-white content.

Amazon Kindle Colorsoft review: Verdict

The Colorsoft is one of the more conflicting Kindles of recent years. On one level it's the most adaptable Kindle yet in terms of what content you can happily read on it. Swapping between comics and novels is completely hassle-free, and it feels like a real look at what the future holds for Amazon's e-readers.

Then again, the Colorsoft is significantly more expensive than a Paperwhite – and the colourful reading experience has some drawbacks in terms of clarity and battery life.

For most people who overwhelmingly read purely text content on their Kindles, a Paperwhite is almost certainly the better buy. If you want to be on the vanguard as the Kindle goes colourful, however, you'll have a grand old time with the Colorsoft. It's the start of a whole new revolution.

Also consider

As I've repeatedly mentioned in this review, the major alternative option for anyone looking to pick up a new Kindle is the 2024 refresh of the Paperwhite. This is a brilliant bit of hardware for roughly £100/$100 less than the Colorsoft, with better contrast for clearer reading – and superior battery life too.

If you really do want to read comics on the go, though, and think that the Colorsoft's muted colours could bum you out, a left-field premium option would be the new iPad mini. That 17 Pro chip might not be stretched much by reading graphic novels, but it's a fantastic catch-all tablet that can put a nice shift in with far more vibrant colours. It'll cost you a lot more, mind.