It’s fair to say I didn’t love the Kindle Colorsoft as much as I had hoped when I reviewed it, with one of my main issues being the high starting price.
Well, today Amazon is looking to rectify that by launching a cheaper version of the colour screen-toting e-reader without the ‘Signature Edition’ branding.
Retailing for £239 rather than £269, the Colorsoft doesn’t offer a dramatic price decrease, but it does offer a cheaper entry into the series that I can see as enticing more people.
The majority of the Kindle Colorosoft’s features are the same as the Signature Edition’s. The 7-inch Colorsoft is the same (whether or not it suffers from the same yellowing issues remains to be seen), with a 150PPI resolution for colour content and 300PPI for monochrome. A single charge should last months, rather than weeks, and all the software features are the same.
So, which features are missing?
Three big features are missing in this iteration of the Colorsoft. The first is that the internal storage has been slashed in half, going from 32GB to 16GB. That’s still plenty of space for books, although it could fill up quickly with lots and lots of audiobooks and large graphic novels.
Wireless charging has been ditched too, so you’ll have to use the included USB-C cable to juice up the standard Colorsoft. Hardly a massive loss, especially as I have always found the wireless charging on the Kindle only really useful if you buy Amazon’s dock.
Finally, while the screen, of course, retains its light, it’s not auto-adjustable anymore, so you’ll need to manually increase and lower the brightness.
While £30 cheaper doesn’t sound much, none of these features are standout, so losing them isn’t a massive issue. Three months of Kindle Unlimited is also included in the package.
There’s a Colorsoft Kids, too
Another new product joining the Colorosoft family is the first Kids edition. The Colorsoft Kids (£259.99) comes with a two-year guarantee, a specially designed cover for added protection and 12 12-month Kids+ membership.
Both the new Kindle Colorsoft models are available to order today (July 24), and we’ll have reviews of both best e-reader candidates very soon.