Novels may simply be the Kindle Colorsoft’s greatest weak spot

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 fans have identified for a while: Studying on shade gadgets does 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 supply a high-quality studying and writing expertise in each shade and black and white. It’s possible you’ll discover that the feel or brightness of the show seems to be completely different than the Kindle Scribe show. That’s due to the colour filter layer that creates the simple on the eyes shade studying expertise on Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. If you’re in search of a barely crisper black and white studying expertise, you could need to take a look at Kindle Scribe.

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

• Storage

  32GB

  Model

  Kindle

  Display screen Measurement

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

  Connections

  USB-C

  Measurement

  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 sort

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

  Connectivity

  Helps 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz networks

  Measurements

  7 x 5 x 0.3-inch

  The latest technology of the Kindle Paperwhite is available in an ultra-thin design with a glare-free display screen 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 properly. 

  
  

Filtering in shade

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

The expertise that powers nearly all trendy shade E Ink shows known as Kaleido 3, which makes use of an RGB Coloration Filter Array to current colours on the display screen. This shade filter sits on high of the black E Ink and mixes purple, inexperienced, and blue with the underlying black and white to create a complete of 4,096 colours. The expertise, whereas it does not produce colours as vibrant as one thing you’d see on an iPad, works very properly for many who learn shade content material like comics or manga, and the impact of the colour filter on high of the black and white seems to be just like that of an old-school newspaper’s Sunday shade web page.

Whereas this expertise helps convey 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 screen. 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 screen can produce small delays and a special writing really feel, which may result in those that use these gadgets for drafting, drawing or taking detailed notes to want black and white over shade.

And whereas the writing downsides of Kaleido expertise are one thing I’ve written about before, this replace from Kindle does accurately level out one thing that I’ve roughly 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 may 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 screen. Although it’s one thing my eyes adjusted to quite rapidly, if that is one thing that would hamper your enjoyment of studying a purely text-based novel, it’s price contemplating if you’re 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 hold my Colorsoft as my “essential” Kindle system. I can not 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 mentioned that in the event you solely learn novels, this system in all probability is not for you, and I feel that is in all probability 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 properly.

I do not assume that studying novels on the Kindle Colorsoft (or any shade E Reader for that matter) is essentially a foul expertise, but when studying textual content is your one and solely purpose, I feel the Kindle Paperwhite and even simply the standard Kindle is perhaps your finest wager in the event you’re in search of a brand new E Reader, as you are assured to get one of the best studying expertise obtainable, with the one concession actually being color cover screensavers. And in the event you ask me, that single characteristic is not price paying an extra $100 (or extra) for within the first place.