The Kindle Colorsoft + Essentials Bundle pairs the 16 GB Kindle Colorsoft with a plant-based leather cover and a 9W power adapter. The Colorsoft is Amazon’s first Kindle to ship with a true color display, which means book covers, comic panels, cookbook photography, travel guides, and color-coded highlights all render in actual color on the e-ink screen. Everything that made past Kindles the leader in ebook readers carries over as well. So, you get a no-glare screen, long battery life, and a focused reading experience.
The Kindle Colorsoft + Essentials Bundle is on sale at Amazon for $217, marked down from the $313 list. That’s a $96 savings, or 31 percent off.
The Kindle you love with a color screen and higher resolution
The 7-inch ColorSoft Display shows black-and-white text at a high resolution of 300 dpi, making it look as if you are viewing the text with printed ink rather than seeing individual pixels on your screen. The new feature is a full-color reading experience with two color modes, Standard and Vivid, which can be changed in the settings. Like previous Kindle e-Ink displays, the ColorSoft’s screen reads well in any environment (day or night), with an adjustable front light that shifts from cool white during the day to warm amber at night, which is ideal for reading before bed.
Battery life is up to 8 weeks per charge based on typical reading time of 30 minutes per day with
wireless off. The ColorSoft charges via USB-C, and viewing content in color doesn’t consume any more energy than black and white.
Color highlighting is one of the most immediately useful upgrades. Yellow, orange, blue, and pink each work as separate highlight categories, useful for organizing notes by theme, character, or importance. Reading nonfiction with multiple research threads, marking favorite passages, or color-coding sections of a textbook all work the way a paper book with a four-pack of highlighters used to.
The Colorsoft carries an IPX8 waterproof rating, which covers reading by the pool, in the bathtub, or anywhere a splash or spilled drink could land on the device. Storage is 16 GB, enough for thousands of standard text books or several hundred illustrated titles. Access to the Kindle Store puts more than 15 million titles within a few taps, and a Kindle Unlimited subscription opens up the all-you-can-read catalog for a monthly fee.
The plant-based leather cover protects the front and back of the Kindle with its wraparound design. In addition, the Kindle has an auto-wake and sleep function, enabled by the magnet in the cover. When you open the case, your ColorSoft springs to life. When you close it, the screen turns off, and the Kindle goes into standby mode. You also get a charging cord and 9W adapter in the box, but you can use pretty much any USB-C power adapter since the Kindle has such a low power draw.
The Kindle Colorsoft + Essentials Bundle normally costs $313, and right now it’s $217. Buying the Kindle, the cover, and the power adapter separately lands within a few dollars of the $313 list, so the bundle price effectively adds a leather case and a wall charger to the Kindle for about $40 over the standalone device price.