Amazon finally introduces the colour Kindle that I’ve been asking for in its 2024 product refresh

Now that the Amazon Prime Big Deal Days sale is out of the way for another year, the retail giant has turned its attention to the next generation of one of its most popular products, unveiling three new Amazon Kindle e-readers.

Two of them are upgrades to existing models, with a new Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Scribe – the standard Kindle doesn’t get a refresh but you can now buy it in a striking Matcha Green colourway – but the third is a very welcome surprise. The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition is the first Amazon e-reader to offer a full-colour display, allowing users to enjoy comics and magazines for the first time. Other e-readers have catered to this audience for a while now, so this move by Amazon has been a long time coming.

We’ll get into exactly what’s new in the two refresh models just below but first things first, let’s talk about what exactly you get from the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft, and how much you’re going to have to pay for that colour display.

Amazon Kindle Coloursoft Signature Edition

At first glance, the Kindle Colorsoft looks nearly identical to the new Kindle Paperwhite. The dimensions are the same 128 x 7.8 x 177mm (WDH), although the Colorsoft is marginally heavier, at 219g (vs 209g). The IPX8 rating carries over as well, certifying the Colorsoft as able to withstand a 60-minute dunk in two metres of fresh water, so you should be fairly safe taking it with you for a long bath.

Ironically, for the first device to add a splash of colour to the display, the Kindle Colorsoft is currently only available with a standard metallic black frame. It does, at least, fit the same covers as the Paperwhite, giving you the option to throw a jacket of Jade green or Raspberry pink over the boring black.

The display is also identical to the new Paperwhite for the most part. It’s a 7in panel with 300ppi in black and white mode and a built-in light. The only difference is that the Colorsoft also has a colour mode, which dials the pixel density down to 150ppi. As with most colour displays, you can choose between natural and vibrant profiles, with Amazon stating that both have been engineered to resemble realistic paper colours. In this mode, you can enjoy colour content like comics and magazines and annotate books with coloured highlights.

There’s 32GB of onboard storage – twice that of the standard Kindle and the Kindle Paperwhite – and wireless charging carries over from the Paperwhite Signature Edition. If you want to stick with wired, Amazon reckons it should take around two and a half hours to fully recharge the Colorsoft with a 9W power adapter, which is again the same as the Paperwhite. Battery life is weaker, though, with Amazon estimating eight weeks of use on a single charge.

The Amazon Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition will be released on 30 October 2024, with pre-orders open from today. You can order yours for £270.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (12th Generation, 2024)

Most of the new features of the 12th Gen Kindle Paperwhite are covered in the above section on the Colorsoft, so let’s quickly recap: this is the thinnest Paperwhite yet, measuring 128 x 7.8 x 177mm (WDH), although it’s slightly heavier than the previous generation (209g vs 205g). The display is a slightly larger 7in and apparently offers the highest contrast ratio on any Paperwhite to date, while the IPX8 waterproofing returns.

The two biggest improvements mentioned by Amazon concern speed and stamina. This is said to be the fastest Kindle yet, with Amazon saying the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite can carry out page turns 25% faster than its predecessor. I can’t imagine this is something that people have been really crying out for, but if you often find yourself tapping your watch while turning the page on your Kindle, I guess it’s good news for you.

The other improvement I can appreciate more, and that’s simply that the estimated battery life has swelled by a solid fortnight. Where the previous model was said to last for around ten weeks on a single charge, the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite can now apparently stretch to twelve weeks. A good three months without having to reach for the charger sounds very useful, indeed.

The Kindle Paperwhite (2024) comes with 16GB of onboard storage and can be ordered in Black, Jade or Raspberry colours for £160. That’s with lockscreen ads – if you want it without it’s an extra £10 and it’s only available in black, for whatever reason. You can also double the storage and add wireless charging with the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (2024), which costs £190 and comes in those same three colours.

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2nd Generation, 2024)

The new Kindle Scribe feels a little like a misnomer, in all honesty, as there doesn’t appear to be all that much new about it. We’ve got the same front-lit 10.2in display with a pixel density of 300ppi, storage options of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB and even the dimensions are essentially identical. The tablet measures 196 x 5.7 x 230mm, which is 1mm shorter and 0.1mm thinner than its predecessor. It also weighs the exact same 433g.

Where the previous model gave you the option to purchase the Scribe with either a Basic Pen or a Premium Pen, this generation ditches the basic one and only comes with the pricier Pen. Considering that we found the pricing to be a little messy last time, that’s probably a good move, and the Pen includes useful features like a customisable shortcut button and a soft eraser that makes it more useful.

The big new feature is Active Canvas, which allows you to write directly onto books and have your notes become a part of the page. This sees the regular text shuffling around to incorporate your annotations into the space without overlapping. It’s a nifty feature that should make revisiting notes much easier than squinting to see scribbles that previously may have been consigned to the margins.

Dropping the basic pen model means the Kindle Scribe is locked into its higher price now, with the 16GB model costing £380, the 32GB at £400 and the 64GB at £430. All three are available in the Tungsten Grey colourway and the 64GB model gets an exclusive Jade Metallic variant. Preorders are open now, with the new Kindle Scribe set to launch on 4 December 2024.

As an avid reader of comics, I’ve been waiting for a full-colour Kindle for as long as I can remember. The relatively small 7in display gives me some misgivings (standard comics are usually around the 12in mark), but that’s still a tradeoff that I’d be willing to try for the sheer convenience. As for the other two, I can see a lot of the appeal with the new Paperwhite but in all honesty, I’m not there yet on the new Scribe.

We’ll be getting our hands on review samples of all the new Kindles in the near future, so check back with us soon to see what we make of Amazon’s latest e-readers, and whether or not the wait for the colour Kindle was worth it.