Amazon just introduced a whole new 2024 Kindle lineup, and it includes a few huge splashes of color. Not only are the basic Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Scribe getting upgrades with new color option designs but there’s the brand-new Kindle Colorsoft — the first Kindle with a color screen. I got to see and try the entire new Kindle family at a private press event yesterday, and I walked away impressed by Amazon’s latest bids for the best e-reader throne.
You can buy the new Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite this very second, while preorders for the Kindle Colorsoft and new Kindle Scribe are up now ahead of their release dates of Oct. 30 and Dec. 4, respectively. But should you grab one? It’s time to separate the facts from the hype before you hit “Add to cart.”
Amazon’s entry-level Kindle became more pocket-friendly and gained a new maximum brightness as well as a striking new Matcha green color option.
Amazon’s waterproof Kindle Paperwhite now offers a slightly larger 7-inch screen, and it’s faster than ever with shockingly quick page turning.?
Amazon’s first Kindle with a color screen brings your books to life with excellent hues and detail.
Amazon updated the Kindle Scribe's writing, erasing and note-taking experience to make it more seamless than ever before.
The Kindle Colorsoft is the e-reader you’ve been waiting for — at a high price
After years of customer wishes — and the recent launches of the Kobo Libra Colour and reMarkable Paper Pro color e-ink tablets — Amazon’s finally letting your book covers sing in proper color on your Kindle. Meet the Kindle Colorsoft, the newest member of the Kindle family, which comes in at $280 and delivers excellent color and sharpness for photos and illustrations alike.
Checking it out for myself, I was immediately drawn to one of the less colorful but still impressively crisp images on the cover of Robert Jordan’s “The Great Hunt,” which showed “The Wheel of Time” cast members Rosamund Pike and Josha Stradowski in clear and modestly colorful detail. That precise imagery is interesting considering how the Colorsoft switches from 300 points per inch (ppi) to 150 ppi when you’re viewing anything in color, just as the Kobo Libra Colour does, even though the Colorsoft’s image quality looks sharper in color. Then I saw great blue-green hues in a zoomed-in frame from an issue of the “Spider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider” comic book. And while the reds of Michelle Zauner’s “Crying in H Mart” memoir didn’t exactly pop as you might expect (even when I enabled the vivid color mode), I admired the detail in a black-and-white photo from inside the book.
The Colorsoft’s color output also looks a bit nicer than what I saw with the Libra Colour. Kevin Keith, VP of Kindle Devices at Amazon, told me that the Kindle Colorsoft’s vibrant output can be traced to its use of “Nitride LEDs and custom coatings that basically focus the light directly through individual color pixels instead of mixing colors together, to get redder reds than what you might see through a standard filter.” And those colors better be better than those of the Libra Colour given the Colorsoft costs $60 more.
Amazon consumer electronics lead Panos Panay told the assembled press that this device’s primary allure for many readers will be that it lets them see their book covers in full color, often when the device is asleep, instead of the monochrome renderings that previous Kindles limited them to. And that belief — combined with its full name of Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition — explains why this device is a little more expensive than the rest of the Kindle e-readers. Amazon’s Signature Edition e-readers cost slightly extra because you’re also paying to remove lockscreen ads. What purpose would a color screen have if it was just showing you ads for books you’re not reading when it’s turned off?
As for the rest of the Kindle Colorsoft specs, consider it to be the colorized version of the updated Kindle Paperwhite I’ll get to below. You get a 7-inch display that’s faster than you might expect — all thanks to the new display tech, including the oxide backplane that also enables improved contrast and battery life. Other standard table-stakes-level features include auto-adjusting front lighting, a waterproof design, weeks of battery life and wireless charging (for which Amazon sells a charging stand).
Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite is faster than I could believe
The next-most important news from the updated Kindle family comes from the changes to the ultra-popular Paperwhite, Amazon’s waterproof e-reader. This 12th-generation model replaces our current pick for the best e-reader, and its biggest features are a slightly larger screen that moves from 6.8 inches to 7 inches — without getting bulkier — and remarkably fast page-turning.
You can see the latter for yourself below, as I snapped some footage of rapid-fire page turning that looks more like scrolling and not like the slow pauses between page refreshes that e-reader users are used to. Amazon also upped the display contrast to make text pop more, and it looked super crisp when I flipped through pages of Ann Napolitano’s “Hello Beautiful” and Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s “Take My Hand.”
Amazon’s continued evolution of the Kindle Paperwhite, with a larger screen and improved performance, made me wonder about how the sausage is made. When I asked Keith about how change-averse people are about their favorite gadgets, he explained that Amazon knows to prioritize “one-handed, long-form reading,” an internal shorthand of how customers say they “want to read in one hand, and … don’t want [their] hand to get really tired. [They] want to be able to sit there for minutes, for, you know, hours to be able to keep reading. And so you have to have the right weight. You have to have the right size that doesn’t get tippy.” This means that Amazon’s been in a constant fight to balance the Kindle’s screen, bezel and weight, all while keeping the device great for both righties and lefties.
The other big change with the Paperwhite is a pair of new color options — Jade (green) and Raspberry (reddish purple) — for the folks who either go caseless or use a clear case. As for the specs, it’s got a 7-inch display that’s flush with the bezel and up to three months of battery life. Amazon also touts that it’s got a thinner design, but it’s not so thin that I noticed and I’ve reviewed Kindles for years. The base model is $160 and comes with 16GB of storage, while the $200 32GB Signature Edition also packs wireless charging, removes lockscreen ads and features an auto-adjusting front light. These prices are $20 and $10 more than before, and while that bump is annoying, it feels earned given the performance gains.
Amazon’s also selling a Kids’ edition of the new Paperwhite, with cover options ranging from aquatic and techy looks to a Diary of a Wimpy Kid image designed by author Jeff Kinney. It also packs Amazon’s standard two-year “worry-free guarantee” and six months of its Amazon Kids+ subscription service for “kid-friendly” and “age-appropriate” books and audiobooks. Pricing is TBA, but note that it should be close to the Signature Edition, as Kids’ versions also remove lockscreen ads.
The new entry-level Kindle comes in an adorable new color
As for the regular $100 Kindle? Well, the 2024 edition of Amazon’s smaller, entry-level e-reader now costs $110, and it’s been redesigned to be even more portable than before, as this 158-gram lightweight e-reader will actually fit in (some) pockets now. For that extra Hamilton, Amazon’s also improved the display’s contrast ratio and maximum brightness, as it now gets as bright as the Kindle Paperwhite.
In my humble opinion, the bigger news is on the shallow, aesthetically focused side: a new Matcha green color option that looks absolutely adorable. I’m sure it will be loved by folks of all ages.
The new Kindle Scribe rethinks writing inside the margins
Lastly, let’s talk about Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe, which also got a price hike, going from $340 (with Basic pen) or $370 (with Premium Pen) to (gulp) $400, with only a Premium Pen option. To merit this uptick, Amazon’s improved the whole feel of using its 2-in-1 tablet, improving the tactile feel of writing and erasing on its screen. Yes, to those unfamiliar with the Scribe and its raison d’être, this is an e-reader with note-taking and writing functionality. So, this 10.2-inch tablet uses its larger screen to give you space to write in its Notebook app and take notes on the e-books you’re reading. The new Kindle Scribe also features slightly larger white bezels, moving away from the black framing of the previous model. This look resembles matte framing and is meant to replicate the look of a notebook.
The new Kindle Scribe comes in black and a greenish blue that I love, and its Premium Pen offers an improved feeling to writing on the screen (though I think the reMarkable Paper Pro offers a more realistic tactile sensation). Using its butt-end like an eraser actually erases what you wrote, and it actually felt like I was dragging a No. 2 pencil eraser on the Scribe’s screen. That said, I’m not sure that’s a sensation that should have been added, as erasing doesn’t need that feeling if you ask me.
Amazon completely changed how you write inside the books, with a new method that basically lets you write on the text. Except, well, you’re not. Amazon’s Active Canvas display tech makes it so that your writing turns into a sticky note of sorts that pins itself to the lines you wrote on, and the paragraphs around your note adjust on the page to fit your note. Amazon’s choice to do this — instead of actually letting you write on the text like the Kobo Libra Colour does — was done with some intent. As much as I think it’s more natural to write around words, Amazon’s thinking of what happens when you change font sizes or when authors update books. This way, your text stays in place. You can still highlight and underline text, though, so it’s not like Amazon treats the printed text as some untouchable gospel. There’s also a new collapsible side panel for notes, which Amazon calls its Expandable Margins.
Since this is 2024, Amazon’s also found a way to throw generative AI tricks in here, continuing a tech trend that is better at making me roll my eyes than actually impressing me. Fortunately, there are only two generative AI features and, of course, one of them summarizes your writing into a synopsis for those who don’t want to actually read. The arguably valuable AI trick they showed was Refined Writing, as I saw a demo where the Scribe changed handwritten text into a cleaner, more legible font. Once I get to test the Kindle Scribe for myself, I’ll see how well this works. For now, I’m having a hard time bringing myself to see these as worth it.
The takeaway
As you can probably tell, I’m both impressed by the 2024 Kindle lineup and a tad frustrated that this year’s models cost more. That said, the faster Kindle Paperwhite and its bigger screen improves an already-great e-reader, while the Kindle Colorsoft looks like it might be the best e-reader on the market — if you’ve got the money, that is. Oh, and for fans of the Kindle Oasis, we too are wondering if and when Amazon will give us an e-reader with physical buttons again.
As for the regular Kindle? It seems like a no-brainer, especially if the Matcha hue calls out to you. I’m reserving judgment about the new Kindle Scribe and its generative AI features, but I’m happy that Amazon is only focusing on a handful of tools and not a whole truck-load like Samsung packs into every new phone and tablet. Stay tuned for our reviews of this new lineup, as I’ll have to actually use them to feel confident in saying these e-ink tablets are truly worth your paper.
Henry T. Casey is a writer for CNN Underscored covering electronics. He reviews hardware and accessories to help Underscored audiences make the right purchases for their needs. Something of a movie buff himself, he's a member of multiple movie theater membership programs and collects physical media.
