Amazon’s Colorsoft might be catnip for manga followers and passionate annotators who take pleasure in multi-color highlights. However what for those who favor text-heavy books and don’t want the colour that a lot? Then purchase the up to date Paperwhite, with its razor-sharp show.
Earlier than going forward with this Colorsoft assessment, let me mourn the passing of one other “deluxe” reader, the Kindle Oasis. My 2017 mannequin got here with the fitting weight and dimension, good consolation lighting, waterproofing and a crisp seven-inch display screen. And people page-turn buttons! No unintended swipes, no leaping to random sections. I’d hoped Amazon would snazz up the Oasis with a colour display screen and perhaps even add native ePub and strong text-to-speech for non-blind customers.
As a substitute, whereas marching on to the Colorsoft, Amazon has axed the Oasis, not less than for stateside clients.
In the meantime, various readers have forsaken Amazon gadgets for Kobo’s Libra Color, thanks partly to its page-turning buttons. “Kobo girlies” act as if their plastic slabs are the Beatles in 1964 and gush out their love.
Listening, Amazon? Why does your long-awaited Colorsoft lack bodily buttons, an inexcusable flaw for a premium system priced at $280—a full $60 above the Libra Color with out the Libra’s stylus. I think you can have absorbed the prices. Kobo did.
Display glitches
Moreover, the Colorsoft’s show has a yellow band affecting some items. Amazon is engaged on a repair, however you’ll be able to see why some customers are dissatisfied.
Additionally, as a result of inherent limitations of the colour tech in use, the Colorsoft’s hues are softer and fewer saturated than LCD or OLED shows, although it’s barely much less muted than Kobo’s Libra Color. Its black-and-white textual content mode comes near the Paperwhite in high quality. With monochrome studying in thoughts, I in the end returned my Libra as a consequence of its decrease distinction, however the Colorsoft held up much better on this regard, even when I’m nonetheless sending it again and counting on a Paperwhite as an alternative.
In a associated vein, I needed to enhance the brightness almost to max, which drained battery life shortly. The battery on the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite formally can last as long as 12 weeks, however the Colorsoft solely manages round eight weeks as a result of colour filter, with outcomes various based mostly on brightness settings.
On the plus facet
–The Colorsoft provides improved velocity for web page turning, navigating a e book, shopping, annotating, and wandering across the Kindle retailer. Its browser continues to be underpowered however not fairly so “experimental”—it’s useful.
–The annotation characteristic lets customers spotlight in a number of colours—pink, blue, orange, and yellow. Think about marking quotes in a single shade, plot factors in one other. This may resonate with readers who prioritize organized studying over pure distinction.
–And if manga is your factor, the Colorsoft’s seven-inch display screen fits it nicely sufficient, assuming your eyes can deal with smaller textual content within the balloons. However for vivid colour graphics, conventional tablets like iPads nonetheless present higher visuals.
–The Colorsoft is waterproof, just like the Paperwhite and Oasis.
–It has wi-fi charging.
–Be mindful that is only a first-generation colour reader from Amazon. I’m 100% sure the tech from there and elsewhere will get a lot higher, and I may even see colleges and libraries buying many hundreds of colour readers to lend out to manga followers and others. The colour could particularly attract youngsters. It will possibly occur if Amazon and others drive down the prices and enhance the ruggedness and enhance the tech usually. Bear in mind, ereaders don’t include the standard distractions of cell telephones. This can be a very child-friendly expertise, and I’m actually cheering for Amazon and the others to succeed. I see colourful manga as a gateway to conventional studying in lots of circumstances, particularly if mother and father, lecturers and librarians information them. I really feel the identical about textual content to speech in E Ink Kindles. Could that come, too!
The decision
As soon as Amazon fixes the glitches, the Colorsoft might be a distinct segment hit amongst manga followers, meticulous annotators, and readers who worth illustration-heavy genres. Nonetheless, as famous, pure textual content readers may wish to skip the colour and go for the Paperwhite. And, after all, readers who miss the page-turn buttons on the Oasis will preserve ready or perhaps begin shopping the Kobo web site.
In order that’s my take. Is the dearth of page-turning buttons a downer for you, too? Or does the colour outweigh the issues?
A press release from Amazon on the yellow band: “A small variety of clients have reported a yellow band alongside the underside of the show. We take the standard of our merchandise significantly—clients who discover this will attain out to our customer support group for a substitute or refund, and we’re making the suitable changes to make sure that new gadgets won’t expertise this concern shifting ahead.”
