The Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is the answer to devices like the Kobo Libra Colour, offering a vibrant e-ink colour display, a more book-like ergonomic feel, and the benefit of a long-lasting battery. Those comfortable being locked into the Amazon ecosystem will have no complaints about the Kindle Colorsoft.
I love the tactility of a good book, but with dwindling shelf space and the constant fear of dog-eared pages and creases, I found myself transitioning to the realm of eReaders. Happy with my Kobo Libra Colour, I wanted to see what Amazon had on offer in 2026 with their equivalent. The Kindle Colorsoft features a 7” colour e-ink display, with a resolution of 300ppi (150 ppi for colour), available in both 16GB and 32GB variants. The Amazon Kindle Colorsoft has a single button for power and sleep, while operating the eReader itself is done via its capacitive touchscreen.
Reading is an absolute pleasure on the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft. While the colour display opens the door to coloured illustrations, such as book covers, comics, manga and magazines, it also allows the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft to offer a more flexible and robust schema that adjusts to most lighting conditions while being easy on the eyes. Compared to my Kobra Libra Colour, the contrast and colour gamut of the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft were comparable, with rich and distinct colour separation that looked akin to a paperlike display, selling the illusion of print media.
“The Amazon Kindle Colorsoft offers instant access to Amazon’s massive and growing library of new and classic releases.”
Setting up the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is a fast and simple process, especially if you’re already an Amazon customer, requiring users to promptly connect to Wi-Fi, update the device, and log in using their existing credentials. On the topic of updating, if you’re an advanced user like me and want the flexibility of an open device, such as what comes with custom firmware from KOreader and Plato, I advise looking into that before connecting to your home network.
For Amazon users looking for a quick and easy way to access and purchase books, the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft offers instant access to Amazon’s massive and growing library of new and classic releases, on top of options to test out its Kindle Unlimited subscription program, which gives customers access to a plethora of both ebooks and audiobooks for download. With Bluetooth functionality and up to 32 GB of storage, even if you’re not an avid reader, Amazon has you covered for your audiobook listening needs.
Despite a fairly locked-down ecosystem, the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft still allows third-party apps like Calibre, making it effortless to sideload your own content, such as EPUBs and CBZ files. Regardless of where you get your content, the reading experience on the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is fantastic. From its 7” display to its vibrant use of colour, Amazon’s latest efforts provide users a solid reading experience that goes beyond just texts. And despite any physical buttons (other than power), the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is intuitive and responsive to touch, making it easy to dial down the reading experience to your liking.
Swiping from the top of the device opens a drop-down menu, reminiscent of any Android device or smartphone you may have used, offering general settings, such as aeroplane mode, brightness, and more. Conversely, swiping from the bottom recedes your current page to the back, opening a settings menu for the book or media itself. letting users adjust fonts, jump between chapters, view annotations, and even search.
“Now, as far as reading print or text-based media is concerned, the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is perfect.”
Now, as far as reading print or text-based media is concerned, the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is perfect. Colour or illustration-based content is also quite robust on the device, offering a fairly rich viewing experience that looks akin to something like newsprint or a paperback release, giving a much more analogue look. Manga in particular looks quite striking, as that medium still primarily uses black and white to convey its art.
Comics and magazines that use full colour look great, but can suffer from colour banding and fringing, particularly if what you’re feeding is a scan, where artifacts and other imperfections may manifest on the page. In other words, stick to what Amazon has on offer. You’ll be guaranteed higher quality results.
If you’re new to the world of eReaders, particularly e-ink displays, one of the major benefits of devices like the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is its use of physical ink or pigments, which only change per refresh or page turn, affording users long battery and standby time. Although I’ve had the device for only around a month, I’ve been using it daily for 20-30 minutes, and I’ve noticed the battery has only diminished to around 70%, with Amazon stating an average of 8 weeks of use with similar reading habits.
In closing, the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is a standout e-reader with great battery life, a solid colour display and easy access to all the literature you could ever want, just as long as you’re comfortable with sticking to the Amazon ecosystem.
