Novels would possibly simply be the Kindle Colorsoft’s largest weak point

Earlier this week, Amazon made a small however essential change to its Kindle FAQ web page (as noticed by Good E-Reader), all-but-confirming what many E-Reader lovers have identified for a while: Studying on shade gadgets would not fairly hit the identical because it does in black and white. The up to date textual content on the FAQ web page says, partly,

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is designed to offer a high-quality studying and writing expertise in each shade and black and white. You could discover that the feel or brightness of the show appears to be like totally different than the Kindle Scribe show. That’s due to the colour filter layer that creates the straightforward on the eyes shade studying expertise on Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. In case you are in search of a barely crisper black and white studying expertise, you might need to take a look at Kindle Scribe.

Although many on the web had been fast to say that that is Amazon admitting that its normal Colorsoft mannequin and its upcoming Scribe Colorsoft aren’t as much as the duty of standard text-based studying and writing, I do not suppose that is precisely what’s taking place right here, and a fast understanding of how E Ink know-how for shade fashions would possibly assist clarify why text-only novels look totally different whenever you transfer from a normal or Paperwhite Kindle to a Colorsoft mannequin.

• Storage

  32GB

  Model

  Kindle

  Display screen Dimension

  7-inch Colorsoft Show (300ppi BW, 150ppi shade)

  Connections

  USB-C

  Dimension

  5 x 7 x 0.3-inches

  Weight

  7.7oz (219g)

  Amazon’s first-ever Kindle e-reader with a 7-inch shade E Ink show, excellent for studying magazines, comedian books or graphic novels.

  
  

• 

  Storage

  16GB

  Battery

  As much as 12 weeks

  Ports

  USB-C

  Show kind

  Amazon’s 7-inch Paperwhite show know-how with built-in gentle, 300 ppi, optimized font know-how, 16-level grey scale.

  Connectivity

  Helps 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz networks

  Measurements

  7 x 5 x 0.3-inch

  The most recent era of the Kindle Paperwhite is available in an ultra-thin design with a glare-free display that is bigger than its predecessors. With as much as 12 weeks of battery life, waterproof security, and free cloud storage, this e-reader can go wherever you do and take your entire library there as nicely. 

  
  

Filtering in shade

There’s one thing in between you and your textual content

The know-how that powers virtually all trendy shade E Ink shows is named Kaleido 3, which makes use of an RGB Colour Filter Array to current colours on the display. This shade filter sits on high of the black E Ink and mixes pink, inexperienced, and blue with the underlying black and white to create a complete of 4,096 colours. The know-how, whereas it would not produce colours as vibrant as one thing you’d see on an iPad, works very nicely for individuals who learn shade content material like comics or manga, and the impact of the colour filter on high of the black and white appears to be like just like that of an old-school newspaper’s Sunday shade web page.

Whereas this know-how helps carry shade content material to life on an E Ink show, it does put extra distance between the viewers’ eyes and the textual content on the display. This impact is especially notable in E Ink Tablets just like the Boox Note Max and Tab 4C which emphasize their writing capabilities. Having the extra shade filter between your stylus and the display can produce small delays and a unique writing really feel, which may result in those that use these gadgets for drafting, drawing or taking detailed notes to choose black and white over shade.

And whereas the writing downsides of Kaleido know-how are one thing I’ve written about before, this replace from Kindle does appropriately level out one thing that I’ve kind of ignored in my time with each shade and black and white tablets: textual content sharpness.

Is the Kindle Colorsoft actually worse than the usual Kindle for studying?

It is all about your utilization and luxury

As you would possibly anticipate, including a filter on high of an present E Ink show does hamper how clearly you’ll be able to see textual content on a display. Although it’s one thing my eyes adjusted to relatively rapidly, if that is one thing that would hamper your enjoyment of studying a purely text-based novel, it’s price contemplating in case you are on the fence about selecting a Colorsoft mannequin of Kindle, or actually any color-enhanced E Ink system over one with a black and white show.

As a result of I learn a mixture of comics, manga, and novels, I typically maintain my Colorsoft as my “important” Kindle system. I am unable to say that the discount in textual content sharpness has ever actually hampered my enjoyment of a text-based novel on the system, however as with something, your mileage could fluctuate. In my review of the Kindle ColorsoftI stated that if you happen to solely learn novels, this system most likely is not for you, and I feel that is most likely true for actually any color-enhanced E Ink pill. Not solely do black and white E Ink tablets have extra textual content sharpness, however they’re usually a lot inexpensive as nicely.

I do not suppose that studying novels on the Kindle Colorsoft (or any shade E Reader for that matter) is essentially a nasty expertise, but when studying textual content is your one and solely purpose, I feel the Kindle Paperwhite and even simply the standard Kindle may be your greatest guess if you happen to’re in search of a brand new E Reader, as you are assured to get the perfect studying expertise accessible, with the one concession actually being color cover screensavers. And if you happen to ask me, that single function is not price paying an extra $100 (or extra) for within the first place.