🏆 Review score: 4.5/5
🏅 Editor’s Choice Award
✅ Pros
🌈 More colorful and vibrant Colorsoft display than the original
📚 Color e-ink display brings front covers and comic books to life
🖍️ Highlighting in multiple colors for note-taking
🤏 Thinner, aluminum chassis
🎨 Color-matched front face plates
❌ Cons
🔅 Colorsoft display vibrancy is still no match for a real LCD screen
😶🌫️ Layers of coatings make the screen look hazy compared to the Kindle Paperwhite
🔵 Slight blue tinge on the e-reader display
The Shortcut Review
The new Kindle Colorsoft (2026) is a categorical improvement on Amazon’s first color e-reader. Colors are rendered more vibrantly and beautifully, and paired with the Kindle Colorsoft’s sleeker aluminum chassis, this just became the best e-reader to buy and gift this holiday.
It costs a pretty penny at $319 for the Signature Edition or $289 for the standard version, $90 more than the $199 Kindle Paperwhite, but you get a nice bit of extra functionality with that color e-ink display.
One immediate benefit of the Kindle Colorsoft is seeing gorgeous cover art and magazines in soft color, plus enjoying comics in all their multicolored glory. The Colorsoft also lets you highlight lines of text in five different colors – one more than the previous model – making this Kindle even better for saving quotes.
Color in general is slightly improved on the new Kindle Colorsoft, appearing more saturated and vibrant. However, colors still look ultimately softer than you’ll see from a true LCD screen, including the Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro.
Lastly, the new Kindle Colorsoft is physically thinner and looks even nicer with the color-matched front display. Amazon said it revised its entire backlight to make this possible, and it lets you appreciate the new Fig color, now available on another Amazon e-reader besides the Kindle Scribe, for the first time. The aluminum chassis makes the Signature Edition a worthy $30 upgrade. It makes the Kindle Scribe feel much sturdier, and it also lets you use Amazon’s spiffy new magnetic cases and charger.
Should you buy the Kindle Colorsoft?
✅ Yes, if…
🦸🏻♂️ You own magazines and comics from Amazon’s Kindle store
🖍 You want the ability to highlight text in different colors
❌ No, if…
📖 You read strictly books (get the Kindle Paperwhite instead)
💸 Your e-reader budget caps out at $200 or even $100 (get the 6-inch Kindle instead)
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam