Amazon Kindle Colorsoft e-Reader Overview

November 13, 2024

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The Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is a brand new coloration e-reader designed particularly for studying e-books. It’s the first gadget from Amazon to characteristic a coloration e-paper display, making it simple to learn varied sorts of digital content material, together with comics, magazines, manga, and webtoons. I used to be shocked that they selected a Kaleido 3 display as an alternative of a Gallery 3.

This new gadget got here out two weeks in the past and has a checkered historical past. Lots of the e-readers that have been shipped out have a yellow band on the backside of the show. That is most noticeable when the entrance mild and coloration temperature lights are turned on. Some folks shouldn’t have this subject on their screens. Amazon is reaching out to clients to ask them in regards to the yellow band and ask them to ship it to their engineering division.

The yellow band is so widespread that it’s inflicting delivery delays with the Colosoft Signature Version. In the USA, there may be no delivery date out there. The UK shouldn’t be fulfilling any orders till the tip of December, and plenty of different European nations have pushed again the discharge date even additional.

Amazon has disclosed that this can be a software program subject that may be solved with a firmware replace sooner or later. Properly-known trade analyst Ming-Chi Kuo mentioned on X “In response to latest reviews, Kindle Colorsoft shows are exhibiting yellow discoloration bands alongside their backside and sides – a difficulty traced to Amazon’s use of a special OCA (Optically Clear Adhesive) than that utilized in grayscale e-paper shows. This transformation was applied to boost the restricted distinction capabilities of E Ink’s Kaleido coloration e-paper know-how. Whereas element suppliers have developed a number of {hardware} options, Amazon appears to lean towards a software-based repair.

The entire yellow band points apart, the Kindle Colorsoft is one in all Amazon’s most potent e-readers ever. Your complete buying expertise is enhanced since you possibly can see cowl artwork for audiobooks, e-books and manga. The product description pages and starred rankings are additionally in color. You may not discover an enormous change within the precise studying expertise for a typical e-book, however something with many photographs or a PDF appears to be like large. Web page-turn pace can be breakneck; Amazon mentioned it was 25% faster on this mannequin than the earlier technology Paperwhite.

The Kindle Colorsoft is $279, $120 greater than the beginning value of the brand new Kindle Paperwhite and $80 greater than the Paperwhite Signature Version. It’s expensive. Nonetheless, will clients look past the worth for a completely coloration e-reader?

{Hardware}

The Kindle Colorsoft encompasses a 7-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 coloration e-paper show with a black and white decision of 1264×1680 and 300 PPI and a coloration decision of 150. A Kaleido 3 display is often capable of show over 4,096 totally different colours. Amazon says this new gadget has custom-formulated coatings between the show layers to boost the color, a lightweight information with micro-deflectors to reduce stray mild, and an ultra-thin coating within the show stack to enhance optical efficiency. They constructed the show on an oxide backplane for sharper distinction and higher picture high quality.

The Kindle Colorsoft is solely based mostly on a touchscreen, with no bodily buttons. Amazon acknowledged that, within the foreseeable future, they won’t have buttons on any Kindle. It has an auto-adjusting front-lit show to robotically change the brightness of the nice and cozy and funky lighting based mostly in your setting. The height brightness is 94 models, with 12 White and 13 Amber LEDs.

This Kindle Colorsoft employs a dual-core 2GHZ Mediatek processor with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of inner storage to deal with your digital content material. Bluetooth 5.1 will help you pair wi-fi headphones or an exterior speaker to take heed to Audible audiobooks bought from Amazon, however Audible solely works in choose nations. The Kindle Colorsoft is rated IPX8 and might stand up to immersion in as much as 2 meters of recent water for as much as 60 minutes and 0.25 meters for 3 minutes in seawater. A USB C port will switch and cost digital content material to your gadget. It additionally helps fast charging with an non-compulsory dock. It’s powered by a 2310 mAh battery, which ought to be good for about eight weeks of sunshine studying. The Kindle is created from 28% recycled supplies. The battery is created from 100% recycled cobalt, and the packaging is created from 100% recycled cardboard.

I’ve seen that the bezels on the facet of the e-reader are slimmer than these of the earlier technology of Kindle. The true energy of this e-reader is studying in color with no distractions. You received’t obtain social media updates or anything to distract you from studying. You should buy digital content material on the gadget with out visiting the Amazon web site to put orders as you do with Kindle for Android or iOS.

Talking of studying, black-and-white content material appears a bit muted in comparison with the twelfth Era Paperwhite, Kindle Scribe, or base mannequin Kindle. All of those different merchandise present a greater studying expertise. Nonetheless, the Colorsoft is smart when studying primarily image-heavy content material, resembling comics, magazines, duplicate newspapers, or searching the Web with the browser.

Software program

Amazon has at all times used Linux because the working system for the Kindle, and each technology has relied on it. There are a number of vital causes for this alternative. Linux is very secure, permitting for using smaller batteries because it has no background processes, and all e-reader options effectively devour much less energy. E Ink doesn’t generate energy independently; it solely attracts energy when the state modifications. For instance, when you navigate the Kindle, entry the settings menu, or click on on Goodreads, energy will likely be used. Nonetheless, when you find yourself merely studying what’s displayed on the display, no further energy is consumed.

The UI is easy; you’ve got a house display comprising the final three books you obtain or learn. A large search bar on the high can discover books in your library or on Amazon. Subsequent to the search bar is a buying cart icon, and clicking on it brings you to the Amazon Bookstore; when you dwell in a supported nation, the bookstore can have two tabs when it’s opened: “Bookstore” and “Audiobook Retailer.” Three little dots are subsequent to the buying icon, which covers the settings menu. That is the place the Goodreads hyperlink is, alongside many different choices such because the settings menu, organising the display timeout, screensaver, and technology studying settings. Above the search bar is a downwards tab, the place you possibly can set up a WIFI connection, alter display brightness, flip the gadget into airplane mode, or sync. One of many good issues about this e-reader is all the pieces is in full wonderful color.

On the backside of the UI are two choices: house and library. Between is a small piece of canopy artwork of the final ebook you opened; clicking on it lets you soar proper into the ebook, making it simpler to leap right into a story. The Library menu hasn’t modified a lot through the years; it lists your books on the gadget. You possibly can type them and make folder collections for higher group. Some folks like the duvet view, which is smart on Colorsoft since all the duvet artwork is in full color.

The Amazon bookstore is likely one of the principal causes for investing in Kindle Colorsoft. They’ve the biggest choice of books on this planet. You’ll find all the identical bestsellers by well-known authors that will likely be promoted at your native Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, or Chapters Indigo. There’s additionally a slew of content material from small and mid-range publishers specializing in a single style, resembling TOR with fantasy and science fiction. Amazon has imprints, the place they spend cash, join established and up-and-coming authors, and publish the books themselves. There’s additionally Kindle Direct Publishing, which permits anybody to publish and promote books on Amazon. For those who wish to learn loads, there may be the Kindle Limitless Program, the place you possibly can learn tens of millions of comics, books, and manga for a low month-to-month payment. For those who even have a child that makes use of your gadget, there may be the Youngsters+ subscription, which has family-friendly content material from publishers like Disney. There’s literary one thing for everybody on the Amazon bookstore and all types of non-compulsory packages. You’ll find extra content material on Amazon than their rivals, resembling Barnes and Noble Nook or Kobo.

Audible is one in all Amazon’s secret weapons and one thing they’ve been leveraging on Kindle e-readers, beginning with the tenth technology sequence and shifting into the eleventh and now twelfth. All of them had secret Bluetooth performance and, as soon as paired with headphones or a wi-fi speaker, help you take heed to audiobooks proper on the Kindle. The audiobook participant is polished. Connecting your Bluetooth gadget and adjusting playback pace from varied settings are choices. You possibly can skip chapters, view chapters, search for related audiobooks, see the duvet artwork and extra. It is vitally related in case you have ever used the Audible app for Android or iOS. So, when you frequently hear in your telephone, the identical choices can be found on Kindle.

The Kindle Colorsoft is the primary color Kindle e-reader with an E INK display that Amazon has ever made. The house display with cowl artwork photographs is in full color and has ditto for nearly each side of the gadget. E-book discovery is the toughest factor on an e-reader. It’s simpler in a bodily bookstore as a result of there are sections the place the very best and new books are housed. They’re normally from the world’s largest publishers, so it’s exhausting to go flawed. Amazon has SO a lot stuff that discovery is typically an issue. Colorsoft makes issues simpler since you possibly can have a look at what cowl artwork grabs you whereas searching and takes you to the product web page, the place you possibly can learn a ebook abstract. Each month, Good e-Reader does a preview of the bestselling books of the month, and we’re hardly flawed.

Studying

You’ll purchase Kindle Colorsoft for a lot of causes moreover studying a typical e-book. Certain, studying is ok; the textual content is sharp. Nonetheless, the true energy lies in non-fiction titles with many photographs, magazines, manga, comics, and extra. Magazines are primarily discovered on Kindle Limitless, however you should buy graphic novels, comics, and manga individually or buy the complete sequence on the Amazon bookstore.

There’s a present bug with the Kindle Colorsoft, and that’s PDF recordsdata. PDF recordsdata don’t present up in color, regardless of the way you sideload them. They may solely be in black and white. The one strategy to get them in color is to make use of the Ship to Kindle net hyperlink, Ship to Kindle for PC, Ship to Kindle for E mail. We used Ship to Kindle for Internet, because it helps a 200MB doc. That is what we did in our YouTube overview, and it labored effective.

When shopping for e-books from Amazon, most clients don’t fear in regards to the ebook format. This solely applies if you’re downloading free books from the web or sideloading your assortment. The Kindle Colorsoft helps Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP via conversion; Audible audio format (AAX)

The Kindle studying system features a profile part the place it can save you your settings, resembling line spacing, margins, font measurement, and font sort. You possibly can share the Kindle with a number of members of the family, every with their {custom} settings. One characteristic I get pleasure from in regards to the e-reading expertise is the choice to disable the time remaining in a chapter or the present web page quantity. The flexibility to cover the standing bar or flip it off fully is genuinely glorious. You possibly can configure this within the Aa menu.

You possibly can pinch and zoom to extend the font measurement when studying a ebook. That is helpful because you now not should do that completely on the Aa menu. You are able to do some choices whereas studying, resembling long-pressing on a selected phrase or physique of textual content. It will present choices like making notes or annotations. You possibly can search for phrases within the built-in dictionary and test what Wikipedia says. The Kindle additionally makes use of Bing Translations on all their e-readers in an effort to translate a selected phrase or a physique of textual content from one language to a different. For those who spotlight a block of textual content or a single phrase, you possibly can share it by way of Fb, Twitter, GoodReads, or electronic mail as an alternative of trying it up.

Highlights in books are nothing new on the Kindle, however highlighting in color on an e-reader is. You get six totally different main colors when holding your finger on a selected phrase or a physique of textual content. Highlights are saved in your gadget after which synced to the cloud. That is good since when you view the identical ebook on the Kindle app for Android, iOS or a Hearth pill, all highlights will likely be preserved.

All Kindle fashions have a system referred to as X-Ray. When you have by no means used it, it breaks down folks, locations, and issues. It’ll let you know the ebook’s main and minor characters, let you recognize on what web page they have been referenced, and provides a fast character biography. The Kindle eleventh technology has an choice in X-Ray referred to as “Pictures,” which is able to present you all the pictures in a ebook you learn. Most books have cowl artwork, however there are lots of genres, resembling autobiographies, which have dozens. Viewing all of this in color on an e-reader is large.

One of many downsides of this Kindle is that you may solely purchase content material from Amazon, resembling particular person titles, full sequence and so on. It can not entry Marvel Limitless or DC Infinite subscriptions. You possibly can possibly do this within the browser, however it’s sluggish and sluggish.

Wrap Up

Finally, the Kindle Coloursoft is best than the Boox e-readers with color E INK screens or different Android tablets with the Kindle app put in by both sideloading or downloading from Google Play. Nothing beats a local Kindle e-reader with the Linux working system. Android tablets with the Kindle app are likely to have little battery life, whereas the Kindle will final you shut to eight weeks of studying. I like the Kindle Colorsoft; it’s the greatest Kindle ever made. It has the very best {hardware} specs, page-turn pace and general responsiveness.

The 7-inch display is good for comics, manga, magazines, and nonfiction titles with color photographs. Purchasing is one other vital a part of the general expertise. Lastly, on a Kindle, you possibly can gravitate in direction of the superb cowl artwork that makes you need to be taught extra in regards to the title. The identical cowl artwork expertise bleeds into the audiobook part of the bookstore, too.

I hope Colorsoft is the start of a protracted and profitable line of Kindle e-readers, regardless of the setbacks to the first-generation mannequin, of which there are lots of. Hopefully, Amazon will get their act collectively and repair no matter {hardware} issues exist, and in just a few months or perhaps a yr, everybody will overlook all about “yellow bands.”