The new Kindle Colorsoft. Photo: Amazon
Better late than never? After years of clamouring, Amazon has finally released its first Kindle with a colour display and it’s called the Colorsoft.
The highlight of this device has to be its 7-inch “Colorsoft” display. Like most colour e-readers in its class, the Colorsoft’s screen has a pixel density count of 300 PPI when showing black and white content but drops to 150 PPI when there’s coloured content on the screen.
The screen also has a built-in light for convenient reading in the dark. The light can be adjusted from white to warm amber. It sounds trivial, but amber lights makes a noticeable difference when reading at night.
The Colorsoft charges via USB-C and has a claimed battery life of up to 8 weeks. It can also charge wirelessly with Amazon’s new Wireless Charging Dock, which is sold separately. Amazon claims you can fully charge it in under 2.5 hours if you have a 9W or more powerful adapter.
The Kindle Colorsoft with its new wireless charging dock. Photo: Amazon
Folks who like reading by or in the swimming pool will be happy to know the Coloursoft is waterproof. Amazon says it has an IPX8 waterproof rating and can stay submerged in up to two metres of water for an hour. It has also 32GB of internal storage, which should be sufficient for thousands of books.
In other news, Amazon also released new versions of its popular Kindle Paperwhite, which has a larger display (now 7 inches up from 6.8). It also updated its basic Kindle with a display that has a 25% brighter front light, and a new Matcha colourway.
Colour e-readers appear to be the next big thing. Earlier this year, Kobo released the Clara and Libra Colour e-readers, so it’s nice to see Amazon getting on the colour e-reader bandwagon.
Availability and pricing
Photo: Amazon
The Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is US$279.99 (S$368). It’s available for pre-order now and goes on sale in the US on 30 October.
No word yet on local availability and pricing, but we have reached out to Amazon and will update this section once we have details.
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