Amazon has launched its first ever ereader with a color display, in addition to the latest versions of the other models in its Kindle lineup. The company says it designed the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition to deliver “rich, paper-like color.” You’ll be able to see book covers, images, comics and graphic novels as authors intended on the device, and you’ll be able to highlight passages in colored markers instead of in the usual gray.
Since it is a Kindle, and you’re mostly going to use it to read, Amazon made sure that the device has a good color and a good black-and-white experience. It promises high contrast, high resolution and high clarity whether you’re looking at a full color image or a black-and-white page. Zooming in on images will not make them look pixelated, Amazon says. Based on what we’d seen at the company’s event for the new ereaders, the model does deliver accurate colors. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ green skin and different-colored eye masks looked accurate in the comic book we looked at, even under direct sunlight or the orange lights in the event.
The model is pretty much the new Paperwhite Signature Edition with a different display, and that one promises 25 percent faster page turns than the previous iteration. However, putting a color display on an ereader can slow it down, lessen its contrast ratio and drain its battery life faster. To make up for that, Amazon made some hardware and software changes, such as using nitrate LEDs that work with the company’s algorithm to enhance color and brightness without washing out images. Its custom coding focuses the light through each pixel so that colors don’t blend together on the screen.
The Colorsoft is the first Kindle with a color display, but it’s not the first color e-ink product. There’s the reMarkable Paper Pro, for instance, which you can write on in colored digital pens. You can’t write on the Colorsoft like you can on the Paper Pro (or the Kindle Scribe), but it is cheaper: It’s now available for pre-order for $280 and will start shipping on October 30.
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