Amazon is overhauling its entire Kindle e-reader lineup today. And nestled among the nice-but- straightforward updates to the base model Kindle, the mainstream Kindle Paperwhite, and the pen-centric Kindle Scribe is a first: the Kindle Colorsoft, Amazon’s first color e-reader.
The Colorsoft will launch on October 30 and starts at $279.99. That’s quite a bit higher than the new Kindle Paperwhite, which starts at $159.99, but it’s a little less than the $290 launch price of the now-discontinued Kindle Oasis. The Colorsoft also includes 32GB of storage, wireless charging support, and sensors for automatically adjusting screen brightness and color temperature, all features that are only available in the $200 Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition.
Book covers and illustrations will be displayed in color on the Colorsoft’s screen, and it will also support the same color-coded highlighting as the Kindle phone and tablet apps. Monochrome text and images are displayed at 300 PPI, the same as all other devices in the Kindle lineup, while color is displayed at 150 PPI.
Stylistically, the Colorsoft looks essentially identical to the new 7-inch Kindle Paperwhite, just with a 7-inch color screen instead of a black-and-white one (the Colorsoft is also a shade heavier at 7.7 ounces instead of 7.4 for the Paperwhite). This separates it from older “premium” Kindles like the Oasis or the Voyage, which offered other niche features like capacitive or physical page-turn buttons or nicer front lights to separate themselves from the Paperwhite. The Colorsoft comes with a color screen. That’s it.
