Like most people, I love a good story.
Whether fiction or non, reading is one of life’s pleasures that can be enjoyed almost everywhere and by almost anyone. Indeed, it has been said countless times, and attributed to many people, that “everyone has a story to tell”. I mean, in the case of many modern celebrity autobiographies or Dan Brown, they should really have kept it to themselves, but there we are.
As a youth, I consumed vast quantities of books, of all different genres, taking fantastical voyages to places far away in space or time, or space and time, vividly picturing the wonders laid down in letters before me, as my imagination was ever expanded by authors old and new.
Of course, today, as a bitter middle-aged man with children, a job to do, and a house that constantly needs cleaning, I have little spare time for reading, so when I do have time set aside for other people’s work, I choose very, very carefully. Otherwise, I’d just end up with a pile of unread books by my bed.
Or at least that would be the case, had it not been for Amazon and its cunning ploy to sell more books. Somewhere around 2010, while stuck at Heathrow awaiting a delayed flight, I fished out the Kindle I’d been gifted and decided to give it a chance. Late to the party, maybe, but what a revelation.
No more bags weighed down with paperbacks, but an almost endless supply of reading matter in my hands in a supermodel slim, featherweight format. Although I initially bemoaned the absence of feel and scent of proper paper like the grumbling mid-life bloke I was about to become, I soon realised that this plastic page-turner was going to change the reading game for the better.
The Reading Spectrum
Of course, 2010 was a long time ago, and there have been many new iterations since my Kindle Keyboard (or Kindle 3 as it was originally known). Now, there are 12 generations to date, with many variations on the basic Kindle, some aimed at kids, some at those who want to scribble, and some designed for those who want a splash of colour in their reading.
Which brings us to: the Kindle Colorsoft, the Kindle reimagined for 2025, alongside the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, and the Colorsoft Kids. Does it pain me to have to spell colour without the ‘u’ that the origin language so rightly demands? Yes, yes it does. I’m just going to say “Americans” and leave it there.
Kindle Colorsoft
So, the big question: why a colour Kindle? Well, not everything available to read is just black and white.
Aside from the standard e-ink on paper books, there are photo-filled cookbooks, magazines and graphic novels to download, all of which would lose their impact if presented in monotone.
And while nobody seems to know just how many books are available on Amazon, the Kindle Unlimited subscription offers access to over four million titles, and browsing colourful covers is considerably easier on the eye than having to glare at endless rows of greyscale.
So, breaking with tradition like the rebel I am, before we carry on with the benefits, let’s look at the price.
Retailing at £240, the new Colorsoft costs quite a bit more than its nearest achromatic stablemate, the Kindle Paperwhite (12th Gen), which sells for around £170.
But then, this is a different beast, with a display that not only adds colouration to your word-based world, but also lets you highlight text in fun colours, and even adjust the display from white to amber to counteract bright and dark conditions.
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Kindle Colorsoft
Featuring 16GB of storage, there’s room aplenty for all your literature. The seven-inch, 300ppi B&W, 150ppi colour screen and nice light weight of just 215g makes the Colorsoft comfortable on the eye and also in the hand. Meanwhile, the epic battery stamina last up to eight weeks, means your poolside Kindlecation will go utterly uninterrupted by power-outages.
And, yes, I say poolside, because it’s also IPX8 water-resistance rated meaning that it not only can it shrug off odd splashes, it can survive for up to 60-minutes fully immersed in two-metres of water, so whether you’re by the waiter-rich pool at the l’hôtel du Ostentation in Bali or merely having a soak in the bath, your Colorsoft can be your constant companion.
Key specs
Buy now £239.99, Amazon
Kindle Signature Edition
Say hello to the Signature Edition of the Colorsoft. The same size and with almost the same spec, the Signature Edition comes aimed at heavy readers, those people who live for the written word and harbour an insatiable appetite for eye-entertainment and/or knowledge, so the difference here is a doubling of onboard storage at 32GB. Putting that in perspective, that’s capacious enough to contain somewhere between 9000 and 15,000 books – a veritable library.
Key specs
Buy now £269.99, Amazon
Kindle Colorsoft Kids
Last up in this multihued ménage à trois is the Colorsoft Kids, the first colour Kindle for kids. The specs remain identical to the Colorsoft proper, though the addition of a ‘kid-friendly cover’ bump up the physical dimensions, but that just helps assist with grip.
Now, what sets it apart is the fact that it comes with a Parent Dashboard that lets you add books, check on reading progress, set switch off times, and adjust age filters, so that you can rest assured your little darlings haven’t accidently blundered down some awful ’50 Shades…’ style avenue, awful both in terms of the explicit content and poor command of English they're exposed to.
The kiddie Colorsoft also comes with 12 months of free subcription to Amazon Kids+ which gives access to exclusive content from the likes of Marvel, Disney, Nickelodeon, National Geographic and LEGO. Suitable for ages 3 to 12, after the free subscription ends, it’ll cost from £4.99 per month.
An excellent option to get your offspring into reading if they find the world of black and white too boring to be bothered with, and let’s face it, with all the online distractions of the modern world seeing generations growing up blissfully free from an attention span, this can only be a good thing.
Key specs
Buy now £260.00, Amazon
Verdict
I’ve been a Kindle convert for quite some time, and while the addition of paper-like colour may seem like a minor change to the more sceptical out there, the Kindle Colorsoft really does up the ante. The e-reader brings a whole world of media to vibrant life and, of course, puts it all right in the palm of your hand.
