I know what you’re thinking. Man, I wish these novels had some more colour in them. Well, Kindle has brought colour to your books. Your black and white text will now have all the colour it deserves. Tongue-in-cheek aside, having played with the new Kindle ColorSoft, I don’t think I can read comic books the same way again.
All coloury
It may seem weird, but this is a big deal. For the longest time, Kindles have been black and white. When it came to reading novels, this was gravy. When it comes to comics, on the other hand, the colour adds a lot. Sure, I still enjoyed reading comics on a Kindle, but it is so much better on this new Kindle ColorSoft.
The colours aren’t anywhere near as bright or vibrant as they would appear on an OLED tablet, but they are nice and subtle, and with the normal Kindle-style screen, it is easy to read. Then any other books on the Kindle that have colour in images, they look so much nicer with, well, colour.
Add to this that you can even highlight text now using multiple colours. Again, not the biggest deal in the world, but a nice detail when you are studying from books or need to reference things.
What else is new?
Sure, there is the colour, but what else does it do? Well, two new major features are the inclusion of an auto-adjusting front light. This has been a default in phones for a long time, but not for Kindle. This means when the light changes, it adjusts the brightness, which is useful on things like train rides where you want to be able to keep reading as the train changes directions constantly and changes how bright or dim you need it to be.
Another major change is that the Kindle has wireless charging. This may not be a big deal for a lot of people, but if you have wireless charging pads in your house, being able to plop it down and let it charge is sweet.
Any drawbacks?
Speaking of wireless charging, you will need to charge this Kindle more often. The paperwhites can get you up to 12 weeks of battery life, whereas the ColorSoft is only eight weeks. I have been using it a lot, and I won’t get eight weeks at the rate it is depleting; it will be a lot more than a month. So you know, it’s reducing from an absurd battery life to a long one. Given I charge my phone every day, a charge every month or so still feels reasonable.
The ColorSoft also only comes in the 7” size. This shouldn’t be a big deal if you are expecting it, but it is quite small. This is especially the case for when you read comics. Fortunately, the refresh rate for an e-reader is pretty good, but again, you won’t get the super-fast response times that a tablet gets you. Also, the price at around $450 for the 16GB and $500 is over $100 more than some of the non-coloured Kindles. I think it’s worth the extra cash, but it may not be worth it for everyone.
Should you get one?
As someone who enjoys colours, I will say I think it is well worth it. The slight upgrades in other areas and the slight decrease in battery life make it a solid upgrade, but the colour is awesome. This is easily my favourite new e-reader!
Also, I will never get over unboxing a new Kindle, and it has the always-on image that makes me think it’s a plastic sheet with a picture. It’s such a cool aspect of this technology over LCDs, but it still feels wrong.
It's not the cheapest kindle, but the colour really elevates this beast to my personal favourite e-reader.
