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I love Kindle e-readers, and have been using them since the first Kindle Paperwhite came out in 2012, but until recently, my dream of reading color comics on a Kindle was just that. But then last November, Amazon finally released the Kindle Colorsoft, It finally came out in November with the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, and it’s now on sale for $224.99 (originally $279.99), the lowest price it has reached since its release, according to price-tracking tools. In fact, it’s only $25 more to upgrade from the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition to the color version.
You can also get it with three months of free Kindle Unlimited (it’ll auto-renew unless you cancel it), and if you’re a Prime Member, you can fill it up with some free e-books. Here’s what you can expect from the Colorsoft.
The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition is exactly what it sounds like: It’s a Kindle e-reader with color. It’s essentially the same hardware and design as the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, with the same dimensions, weight, and 32GB of storage. It also has the same features, like the automatically adjusting front light, the IPX8 rating waterproof rating, wireless charging, and an ad-free lock screen that either shows the cover for the book you’re reading, or a generic wallpaper. The battery life is shorter than the Paperwhite’s, with Amazon suggesting it can last up to eight weeks compared to 12 for the Paperwhite, but that’s still plenty for most people.
The seven-inch Kaleido 3 display offers the industry standard 300 pixels per inch (ppi) for black-and-white content and 150ppi for color, but it employs a unique, Amazon-developed stack that improves the color quality. If you love reading comics, this is where the Colorsoft Signature Edition shines: As Lifehacker tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt’s review notes, colors look like printed newspaper quality, and there’s a feature that provides a close-up of each comic panel so you can enjoy the art without having to manually zoom in to each panel.
What do you think so far?
Color e-ink is still a developing tech, but the Kindle Colorsoft makes it look better than ever—and for not much more money, at least right now.
