Is the Kindle Colorsoft 2026 good enough to be one of the best e-readers? Yes, definitely. This is the King of e-readers — and it knows it. With a bright, 7-inch display (1 inch bigger than its nearest rival, the Kobo Clara Color) and up to 8 weeks of battery, the Kindle Colorsoft 2026 is here to stay.

But because it’s the King of e-readers, it’s priced like it. The Kindle Colorsoft 2026 is $90 pricier than the closest Kobo alternative, an increase of 56%, and I’m… not really sure why. Yes, the Kindle library is bigger than Kobo’s, and Kindle Unlimited is better than Kobo’s, but does that justify a price increase of 56%? The initial $250+ cost might put off newcomers.

The Kindle Colorsoft 2026 is a fantastic e-reader, though — just an expensive one. I thoroughly enjoyed my time testing this device. It’s easy to use, lovely to look at, and has bright color for comic books. Want to find out more? Keep reading this Kindle Colorsoft 2026 review.

All images showing e-books have been blurred for copyright. Screen is sharp and detailed in real life.

Kindle Colorsoft 2026 review: Specs

Kindle Colorsoft 2026 review: Price & availability

There are two models of the Kindle Colorsoft 2026: 16GB and 32GB. I tested the 16GB model, which can hold almost 6,000 books (depending on length, images, and the like). The 16GB model is $249 from Amazon U.S. and £239 from Amazon U.K.. The 32GB model is an extra $30/£30, making it $279 in the U.S. and £269 in the U.K..

Kindle also makes the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, which is not this product. If you want the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, that’s $279 from Amazon U.S. (yes, the same price, annoyingly). The Signature has automatic brightness adjustment and wireless charging.

I recently tested the Kobo Clara Colour, which is $159/£169. Honestly, if you want a great e-reader for as little money as possible, I’d go for the Kobo. Of course, the library isn’t as large — the Kindle Store has a near-incomprehensible 15 million titles, and a much wider self-published selection — but I’ve been able to find every book on my TBR on the Kobo store.

The Kindle Colorsoft Gen 1, 2024, launched at $279/£269, so no price increase there, which I like to see.

Kindle Colorsoft 2026 review: The ups

There are so many things to like about the Kindle Colorsoft 2026, including its speed, screen, and library size.

Processor go Brr!

The Kindle Colorsoft is faster than the Kobo Clara Colour. Not by much — it’s more “blink and you miss it” than countable seconds — but every little helps, right? When I turned both e-readers on at the same time, the Kindle displayed the reading material a touch faster than the Kobo.

Kindle store is a modern-day Library of Alexandria

As much as I loved testing the Kobo — and I think it works much harder than the Kindle — the Kobo store is nowhere near as large as Amazon’s. The Kobo store is still fantastic, don’t get me wrong, with millions of books available for purchase, and a Kobo Unlimited subscription too.

However, it just can’t compete with Kindle’s whopping 15-million-plus titles. This is an incomprehensible number. I couldn’t even imagine 15 million plotlines if I spent the rest of eternity locked in a dark room.

But Kindle has everything, including obscure self-published books penned by Susan who lives down the street. If you’re the kind of reader who absorbs books like they’re going out of fashion, then you might be better off with the Kindle.

With my purchase, I also got 3 months free of Kindle Unlimited and 1 month free of Audible, which is great and something other e-reader brands simply can’t compete with.

Kindle Unlimited is better than Kobo Plus

I’ve tried Kobo Plus and Kindle Unlimited, and what they say is true: Kindle offers a wider range of books, both big-name authors and midlist novels alike. Unlike Kobo’s library, KU isn’t just self-published/thriller type books. You’ve got huge names, like Holly Black, Colleen Hoover, Freida McFadden, and more. Kobo Plus just doesn’t have this range.

Kindle Unlimited is $11.99 for literally unlimited books, magazines, and audio, whereas Kobo Plus is $7.99/$9.99 (for books and audio).

Night mode for those tired eyes

Just like the Kobo Clara Colour, the Kindle Colorsoft 2026 has a warm filter. Although any electronic light source can interrupt sleep, research has shown that front-lit e-ink screens with warm filters interfere less than blue light devices (like phones).

You can access the display settings easily by scrolling down on the left margin, much like the Kobo Clara Colour.

Although I don’t have any scientific, quantitative data detailing my improved sleep quality, I can report that my sleep was no more interrupted than normal after reading before bed. I read before bed every single night, e-reader or paper, and didn’t notice any difference.

Direct sunlight? No problem

As the Kindle Colorsoft uses a front-lit e-ink screen, which means the screen is lit from the front rather than the back, it is visible even in direct sunlight. As you can see from the photos throughout this review, the screen looks vibrant under strong sun.

This performance is identical to the Kobo Clara Colour, both of which offer natural, e-ink screens with fantastic visibility.

IPX8 rating for bathtub adventures

Like the Kobo Clara Colour, the Kindle Colorsoft 2026 is IPX8 rated. In real terms, this means it will survive if you accidentally leave it on the hood of your car before going through the car wash. Or something less ridiculous, like accidental dips in the bathtub.

Kindle Colorsoft 2026 review: The downs

Although there’s lots to love about the Kindle Colorsoft 2026, it’s not perfect. It isn't as customizable rivals, and it's much pricier, too.

Not as customizable as Kobo

One of my favorite aspects of the Kobo Clara Colour is that you can change the screen layout. You can also do this on the Kindle, but it’s more restrictive. On the Kindle, you can change orientation and font size, margins, and text alignment, but on Kobo, you can customize the actual layout of the menus.

On Kobo, you can change the ‘home’ button (the area of the screen you tap to bring up the main menu) depending on your preferences. By default, it’s set to: center tap brings up the menu, and then you turn the page forward or back by tapping the edge of the screen. I set mine so I have to click on the bottom of the screen to bring up the menu and 75% of the screen turns to the next page. I think this feels more natural because I’m left-handed and naturally tap to turn the page on the left side of the screen (don’t ask).

On Kindle, you can’t actually do this at all. You’re stuck with tapping on the top of the screen to bring up the menu, and 50% of the screen turns the page in its corresponding direction.

If there is a way to adjust this on Kindle, it’s not in the ‘Settings’ tab or in any of the device options menus, which is a con in and of itself.

Much more expensive than Kobo

Now, this is the biggest con there is. In our current, seemingly endless cost of living crisis, you need to save every penny you can get — or at least, I do.

The Kindle Colorsoft 2026 starts from $249, which is $90 more expensive than the Kobo Clara Colour. I don’t think the benefits justify the price increase.

The Kindle grants you access to Amazon’s huge library, which is a pro, and… that’s it? The other great features (front light, IPX8 rating, color, e-ink screen, long battery life, night mode) are all present on the Kobo. I totally recommend the Kindle, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re serious about saving every dollar you can, then I’d go for the Kobo.

Kindle Colorsoft 2026 review: Verdict

I really enjoyed testing the Kindle Colorsoft 2026. It’s got everything you’d want in an e-reader: a frontlit e-ink screen visible even in direct sunlight, and has night mode for those tired eyes. The battery life matches the Kobo Clara Colour — “up to” 8 weeks, but mine’s at 37% as we speak because I’m always using it — and the IPX8 rating means it’ll survive a dunk in the tub.

The only thing holding it back is the price. $249 is $90 more than Kobo’s competitor, which is an increase of 56%. Sure, the Kindle has a larger screen, but it’s not noticeably brighter. You can make the text on the Kobo as large as you want. The only main thing is the Kindle has a larger library, but whether or not this is a dealbreaker is something only you can decide.

At the end of the day, the new Kindle Colorsoft 2026 is a great e-reader, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by it at all. I thoroughly enjoyed reading on this device.

After buying my Kindle Colorsoft during Prime Day last October, I've become attached. My Kindle goes everywhere with me — be it the office, commuting, to any kind of appointment and is easily accessible in moments of doomscroll boredom.

I love it so much that I have very few complaints — it's my first e-reader, so it beats carrying around heavy physical books, and I've even invested in a holder and wireless scroller for easier reading in bed. That said, I fear I may be starting to regret my purchase, thanks to the Australian launch of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, Amazon's 2-in-1 notetaker and colour e-reader.

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft launched globally in other markets last year, touting similar specs to the Kindle Scribe, but with a full colour 11-inch screen. The e-reader scored a tidy 4 stars in our review, with my colleague Alex dubbing it "the Cadillac of Kindles" thanks to its bright display, premium stylus and notetaking features, which is pretty huge praise for an e-reader.

Alongside the slightly larger, e-paper display, the new model features an adjustable warm light, up to 8 weeks of battery life on a single charge, 40% faster page turns and writing responsiveness, and comes in either a Graphite or Fig colourway with an accompanying stylus. You can also choose your preferred storage capacity, at either 32GB or 64GB. It also has improved Google Drive and OneDrive support for easy document import and annotated PDF export, and features a new AI-powered search so you can check your notes more effectively.

The only thing stopping me from immediately pulling the plug right now, you ask? The inflated price tag. The 32GB model will set you back AU$999, whereas the 64GB model will cost AU$1,099. Both models are currently available to preorder on Amazon ahead of the June 10 release.

More new Kindle Scribes incoming

While its pricing is indeed a tough pill to swallow for most right now — the models cost the same as the latest 2026 iPad Air and don't feature the same capabilities as a tablet would — not all hope is lost on the new Kindles front.

Amazon is also updating the Scribe as we know it, with a new 2026 model starting at AU$849 (32GB) and AU$949 (64GB). In terms of notable upgrades, the 2026 model is ultra-thin, measuring just 5.4 mm, and is extremely light, weighing just 400g. The Scribe (2026) also features the same AI-capabilities, Google Drive and OneDrive support as the Scribe Colorsoft.

Alternatively, if you'd prefer an e-reader or notetaker without a bright screen, Kindle is also introducing the Scribe without a frontlight for just AU$699, with the same components but at a smaller storage size of 16GB.

All of the new Kindle Scribe models are available to preorder now on Amazon, with shipping expected from June 10, 2026. And not that it's anyone's business, but I may be waiting at my front door that day for a delivery… if you catch my drift. 👀

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• Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: This is the Cadillac of Kindles
• Blink Video Doorbell (2nd gen) review: A basic, barebones video doorbell

Outside of signing checks at a restaurant, I haven’t regularly written by hand since the early 2000s. My handwriting was always terrible, so when keyboards (both physical and digital) became the standard, I never went back to “real” writing again. As you can imagine, my handwriting has only gotten worse over the decades. Hence, testing the new ReMarkable Paper Pure has been an interesting experience.

In case you don’t know, ReMarkable has made a name for itself with its digital paper tablets designed for writing, sketching, and reading—all without distractions. The company is best known for the ReMarkable 2 and the color-enabled Paper Pro. Now, it is releasing the ReMarkable Paper Pro, which is effectively a spiritual successor of the ReMarkable 2.

I’ve used the new ReMarkable Paper Pure for the better part of a week, and I find that it lives up to its promise of being a distraction-free way to write digitally. There’s a lot to like here if you’re looking for such a device. However, if you’re used to keyboards, it might feel like technological regression. Here’s what I think of the ReMarkable Paper Pure.

What’s new with the ReMarkable Paper Pure?

The Paper Pure is the back-to-basics entry in ReMarkable’s 2026 lineup, sitting right under the more expensive, back-lit Paper Pro. This 10.3-inch monochrome tablet is essentially a digital version of a high-end legal pad. It’s just about as slim and light, weighing 0.79 pounds and thin enough to carry easily in your backpack.

Don’t mistake this for one of the best iPads or best Android tablets, as it has no color, web browser, and perhaps most importantly, no backlight. Because of that, you’ll need to be in a well-lit room or other light source to see what you’re doing. I’ll expand on this last bit shortly.

Another interesting aspect is that this device is made with 38% recycled materials and features a new, repairable design that’s held together with screws rather than glue. Thanks to that, it’s relatively easy to repair, which makes it more future-proof than traditional tablets on the market.

The writing experience

As I mentioned above, I haven’t handwritten for any serious length of time since I finished college in the early 2000s. Because of that, my first hour with the Paper Pure was admittedly a struggle. I’ll freely admit that it didn’t take long for my hands to cramp—something I wasn’t exactly prepared for. But I persisted, and the device slowly began winning me over.

I wouldn’t say that writing on the Paper Pure feels like writing on actual paper, but the amount of friction I feel when I put stylus to screen is satisfyingly tactile. In fact, I like the experience much more than using the Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro since it doesn’t feel like I’m writing on glass. It legit feels much closer to using a ballpoint pen.

Thanks to its 21-millisecond latency, the digital ink appears almost instantly on the screen. I say “almost” since you do see the delay, but it’s not egregiously long. And that’s fine, since I had to slow down anyway for my scribblings to resemble actual words. The intentionality of writing each letter took me back decades, which is likely why many still prefer to write by hand. You’re forced to slow down—something that’s almost unheard of in this fast-paced age we live in.

As for the lack of a backlight, I honestly didn’t find it an issue. I purposefully turn off the backlight on my Kindle Paperwhite to spare my eyes from yet another screen burning my retinas, so using the Paper Pure near a light source came naturally to me. I know some might legitimately need a backlit display, but I feel that would ruin what the Paper Pure’s attempt to function more like actual paper.

Useful features

Since we live in a digital world, the Paper Pure lets you transfer or upload files to and from the device. And if your handwriting is as bad as mine, you can even use some of the built-in AI features to clean things up. Don’t worry, as this is good AI that doesn’t get in the way.

With a Connect subscription, you can tap a button and watch your messy scribbles turn into a clean document. There is also an “Action Items” feature that scans your notes and automatically creates a separate to-do list, if necessary. I find this extremely useful, especially if I want to send a note to someone and don’t want them to spend unnecessary time deciphering my handwriting. This feature is also helpful if you take notes during meetings.

Speaking of meetings, you can sync your Outlook or Google Calendar, and the Paper Pure will pre-populate a note template with the date, time, and attendees of your next meeting. I wasn’t able to try this feature because my work account wouldn’t let me sync with my reMarkable account, but I can see it being handy.

Bottom line

Though I’m not yet ready to return to analog writing, I love what ReMarkable is doing overall. With so much digital noise around us, I appreciate that a device like the ReMarkable Paper Pure exists to deliver a more grounded and distraction-free experience.

Sometimes, it’s not all about how productive you can be, but how engaged you are with your work. If you agree with that sentiment, do yourself a favor and check out the ReMarkable Paper Pure. No pun intended, but it truly is a remarkable device—even for keyboard warriors like myself.

More from Tom's Guide

• ReMarkable Paper Pro Move review: E-paper in your pocket
• Kindle Scribe vs. ReMarkable Paper Pro: Which e-reader is right for you?
• I just tested the Kindle Scribe — and it will be hard going back to the Paperwhite

The Kobo Clara Colour is a godsend. Combining the best features of all of Amazon’s flagship e-readers, the Clara Colour has it all: color screen, warm night lighting, a touchscreen, 49-hour battery life, full waterproofing, and native Libby e-book borrowing. And my favorite part? It’s $90 cheaper than the Kindle equivalent, the Colorsoft.

But is this enough to make the Clara Colour one of the best e-readers you can get? Heck yeah! I love my Clara Colour. It’s everything I could ever want in an e-reader. The screen is paperlike and visible even in direct sunlight, and when I’m reading on a plane or car at night I can up the brightness without needing to turn on a separate light.

However, the Kobo library is considerably smaller than the Kindle library — which, personally, is a non-issue as every book I’ve tried to purchase has been available on Kobo — but if you’re a KU self-pubbed kind of reader, you might want to stick with the larger library. To find out the full story (pun intended), keep reading this Kobo Clara Colour review.

Kobo Clara Colour review: Cheat sheet

• Who is it for? If you want an e-reader without paying the Kindle tax
• What does it do well? It’s $90 cheaper than the Kindle Colorsoft and does everything just as well
• What are its weaknesses? The Kobo library doesn't have as many books, but this is a non-issue for readers like me
• What should you use it for? Um, getting back into reading like the insatiable little bookworm you are

Kobo Clara Colour review: Specs

Kobo Clara Colour review: Price & availability

I blurred all book text to protect copyright. The Kobo Clara Colour display is clear and distinguished in real life.

Interestingly, the Kobo Clara Colour is spelled the same in the U.K. and the U.S., despite “colour” being the British/Canadian/Australian variant. In the U.S., you’ll find the Clara Colour for $159 at Amazon, and for £149 in the U.K..

Even so, the clue’s in the name: the Clara Colour is the color version of the BW model, which is $139/£139. This is Kobo’s entry-level e-reader: if you want a Kindle Scribe ($449) equivalent, you’d be looking at the Kobo Libra Colour ($229) or Kobo Elipsa 2E ($399).

The Kobo Clara Colour is considerably cheaper than the Kindle equivalent — the Colorsoft is $249, $90 pricier than the Clara Color. Similarly, the BW Clara is $139, whereas the Kindle Paperwhite is $159. True, the basic Kindle is just $109 — but this doesn’t have a warm light setting (unlike the Kobo Clara), so you can’t switch to night-safe reading.

Kobo Clara Colour review: The ups

The Kobo Clara Colour has so much going for it: night mode, the display clarity, the bright color, IPX8 rating, super lightweight feel, scrollable library, and more.

Night mode!

Unlike the basic Kindle, which lacks a night mode/warm setting, the Kobo Clara Colour offers both daytime and nighttime display. You can either select night mode to come on automatically, or you can manually adjust.

When I first started testing the Clara Colour, I set my bedtime at 9:00PM (yes, I am a grandma). You can choose between 9:00PM-3:00AM, which I think is a bit crazy. Who’s out here going to be at 3:00AM? In a perfect world, I think it’d make more sense for bedtime to align with your location’s sunset and sunrise times — but this isn’t a major issue, as you can just manually turn on night mode whenever the sun sets in your area.

But even if you’re reading at nighttime in a dark environment — think of being on a plane where you don’t want to disturb your neighbor by turning on the overhead light — you can just up the brightness while in night mode. While not completely blue light free, reading a frontlit e-reader with a warm filter isn’t overly detrimental to your melatonin production.

Paperlike display

As touched on briefly above, the Clara Colour uses a frontlit display rather than the LED, backlit display you might be used to. Generally, smartphones and tablets utilize backlit, blue-light displays, which are both difficult to read in the sun and can be detrimental to your melatonin production.

The Clara Colour has a frontlit display, meaning it uses tiny LEDs that illuminate across the screen itself rather than up into your eyes. This is also a paperlike display — I genuinely think it looks 99% like real paper.

Take a look at the screen in direct sunlight.

As you can see, the text is clearly legible, even in strong, direct sunlight. I don’t think the screen is grainy at all, nor suffers from leftover shadows (A.K.A “ghosting”) like the Kindle Paperwhite is known to, either.

Pool-safe, dunk-in-the-tub-surviving IPX8 rating

The Clara Colour is IPX8 rated, which means it’ll survive up to 60 minutes in up to 2 meters of water. The Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Paperwhite have the same IPX8 rating, but the Kindle basic has zero waterproofing.

In real terms, this means you’ll be able to accidentally drop your Clara Colour in the bathtub or dry off from the pool beside it without it saying goodbye forever.

E-book renting — local library dependent, of course

If your local library uses Libby (Overdrive), you can rent e-books like you would borrow normal books. Unfortunately, my local library uses BorrowBox, which isn’t directly available on the Kobo store. However, I can still download ebooks from BorrowBox and manually load them onto my Kobo using Adobe Digital Editions and a USB-C cable.

I’d like to see Kobo introduce direct BorrowBox compatibility soon, as it’s much, much more widely used than Libby in the U.K., where I live.

If you’re in the U.S., though, you’re in luck. Libby is used by 22,000 libraries across the United States, so your local library might just be one of them. In this case, you can select Libby directly in your Clara Colour and browse available ebooks.

As you can see, the app is native to your e-reader itself, so don’t worry about downloading books onto your computer and manually installing onto the Kobo.

Manga, audiobooks, Kobo Unlimited, oh my!

If you’re a manga reader, audiobooks listener, or Kindle Unlimited devourer, don’t worry. Kobo has you covered. You can still get manga on the Kobo Store — and it looks fantastic. The clarity is incredible, and the full color cover is gorgeous.

As you can see, the color cover is beautiful, with no grainy, faded, or blurry areas. This is easily Kindle Colorsoft-equalling, and you save $90 in the process. Despite being on a 6-inch screen, I was able to read all the text on this manga, and I was never struggling to make out smaller words. Of course, you read manga right-to-left, so remember to tap the left side of the screen to change page.

In the Kobo Store, you can also browse tons of audiobooks. You’ve got the big names — think Stephen King, Sarah J. Maas, Terry Pratchett — but also books I’d never heard of by authors I’d never heard of. Of course, you can check Kobo’s ebook and audiobook store online without going through an e-reader.

Finally, if you’re coming from a Kindle, you’re in luck! Kobo also offers Kobo Plus, an unlimited service, where you pay a subscription for unlimited books each month. Kindle Unlimited is $11.99 a month for unlimited books and e-books. Kobo Plus is $7.99 for either just ebooks and just audiobooks, or $9.99 for both.

Kindle offers 5 million books, whereas Kobo offers 1.5 million books — this may or may not be an issue, depending on what kind of reader you are, which I’ll get into now.

Kobo Clara Colour review: The downs

As much as I’m enamored with my Kobo Clara Colour, there’s one thing that might hold me back from recommending it for everyone.

Kindle library is much bigger

Now, this one is a little weird for me. I think it depends on what kind of reader you are. Personally, I mostly read traditionally published books, and all of the books I’ve tried to buy from the Kobo Store have been available.

If you’re the Kindle Unlimited self-published kind of reader, you might be better off sticking to the bigger library. This is not to say that Kobo’s bookstore is lacking or threadbare, but more so that the Kindle bookstore had a wider variety of lesser-known, self-published books.

However, if you’re the kind of person who buys books from Barnes & Noble and your local independent bookstore, you’re probably going to be fine with the Kobo Store. As I said, every book I’ve tried to buy has been available, so this is a total non-issue for me.

Kobo Clara Colour review: Verdict

Would I recommend the Kobo Clara Colour to 99% of the population? Without a shadow of a doubt. I flew through every book I was reading on the Clara Colour because it was so easy to read everywhere — in bed, at the park, on the bus, you name it. The sleep cover also has a magnetic kickstand, so I could prop the Clara Colour up to read hands-free.

All that being said, if you’re predominantly a Kindle Unlimited self-published book lover, you might want to stick with the bigger library. Kindle offers millions of indie books, whereas Kobo offers just one million.

Even so, this is a non-issue for me. Every book I’ve looked up on the Kobo Store has been instantly available. If you’re the same kind of reader, you’ll be just as obsessed with the Kobo Clara Colour as I am.

Amazon is making a slew of older Kindle devices obsolete starting in May. This means that you won't be able to download new books unless you find a workaround or purchase a newer model.

As reported by The Verge (and elsewhere), starting on May 20th, 2026 Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets released in 2012 and before will "no longer be able to purchase, borrow, or download new content via the Kindle Store."

Any books you already have on those devices will still be accessible. And you can still access your accounts and purchases via the Kindle mobile app, Kindle site and newer models. Additionally, if your older Kindle is factory reset or deregistered, you won't be able to re-register after May 20.

Here's the complete list of Kindle devices losing support going back to the original Kindle, which launched in 2007.

• Kindle 1st Generation (2007)
• Kindle DX (2009)
• Kindle DX Graphite (2010)
• Kindle Keyboard (2010)
• Kindle 4 (2011)
• Kindle Touch (2011)
• Kindle 5 (2012)
• Kindle Paperwhite 1st Generation (2012)
• Kindle Fire 1st Gen (2011)
• Kindle Fire 2nd Gen (2012)
• Kindle Fire HD 7 (2012)
• Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (2012)

The youngest devices on that list is 14 years old at this point.

According to the report, Amazon will send out emails to impacted Kindle owners before the deadline which will outline what your devices can and cannot do. The pre-2012 Kindle Fire devices won't be able to download new books, but other Amazon services and apps you have shouldn't be updated.

Amazon is offering a 20% discount on new Kindle devices and a $20 ebook credit that will arrive on your account after the upgrade. The credit only lasts a month valid through June 20, 2026 at 11:59 pm PT.

Up until now, Amazon has largely left owners of older Kindles alone, letting them purchase and download ebooks as desired. There was a 2016 software update that maintained access to the Kindle Store.

Before last February, you could have gotten around this restriction by downloading your books on your computer and transferring them using the USB port. However, Amazon killed that function.

What are your options?

If you insist on keeping your older Kindle, especially if it's still working well, you could consider jailbreaking it. I won't tell you how to do it here, but there are ways.

If you want to upgrade, currently, Kindles start at $110 for the entry-level version. The Kindle Paperwhite will set you back $160, while the color-screen Kindle Colorsoft is $250. At the high-end, there is the giant Kindle Scribe writing tablet, which starts at $400 for the non-color version.

If you need help deciding, check out our guide to the best Kindles. We've also included recommendations for some non-Amazon ereaders if you're looking to get out of the Amazon ecosystem.

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I thought I’d seen everything in the world of displays, from foldable glass to transparent OLEDs that look like something out of Minority Report. But Samsung just threw a curveball that I genuinely didn't see coming. The company just announced a new 13-inch Color E-Paper display that’s built using a bio-resin derived from phytoplankton, or plankton. No, I’m not making that up!

As Samsung detailed in a blog post, the company is essentially using microscopic marine organisms to build a screen. It sounds like a plot point from a sci-fi novel where we’ve run out of plastic, but the goal here is sustainability. By using this bio-resin, Samsung claims it can slash carbon emissions during the manufacturing process by over 40% compared to traditional petroleum-based plastics. It’s a crazy science project turned into a real-world device.

The tech inside the screen is just as impressive as the plankton-based shell. This is a 13.3-inch panel with a 1600 x 1200 resolution that looks and feels like actual paper, according to Samsung. Since this is a digital paper display, it consumes 0 watts of power when showing a static image. It only drains a bit of juice when it changes to another image.

Now, before you get excited about a potential Samsung Galaxy Tab e-reader, I have some bad news. Right now, this device (the EM13DX model) is aimed strictly at businesses. Samsung wants these on store shelves, restaurant menus, and office doors to replace traditional paper signage. You can’t buy this device from Amazon or Best Buy just yet.

If you’ll permit me to speculate, I can see Samsung eventually bringing this tech to the consumer market. If that happens, we might finally see a true rival for the Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. Those are fantastic tablets that I use all the time, but it would be fascinating to see Samsung’s color-imaging algorithms applied to an e-reader. Again, this is likely wishful thinking on my part—but a man can dream!

More from Tom's Guide

• How to read library books for free on your Kindle or other e-reader
• Kindle Colorsoft vs Kobo Clara Colour: Which is the better color e-reader?
• Amazon's Kindle Colorsoft finally convinced me to get an e-reader

Amazon just launched the new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, an upgraded version of the Kindle Scribe that lets you read and write in color. It's a welcome upgrade for the Scribe that opens up some fun new possibilities, like color-coding your notes on a book or being able to read your favorite manga and comic books in color. But it's also quite expensive. In my Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review I called this slate the Cadillac of Kindles, and for good reason: Amazon slapped a $629 starting price on this e-paper tablet, so it costs more than a new iPad Air.

At that price, you have to be someone who loves reading and writing to buy one of these new Kindles, because otherwise you could get more features and a better screen for less by buying an iPad or Android tablet. And if you are someone who prizes the ability to put stylus to screen to jot down notes or doodle during boring meetings, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft has serious competition in the ReMarkable Paper Pro.

I know because I wrote our ReMarkable Paper Pro review last year and loved it, calling it the best e-paper tablet for writers I'd ever used. Now that I've had a chance to test out the new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft side-by-side with the Paper Pro, I've learned a lot about which is best for what, so I figured I could help you make your decision by breaking down the differences between the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs. ReMarkable Paper Pro. Let's dive in!

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs ReMarkable Paper Pro: Price

One of the tricky things about deciding between these two e-paper slates is the price: they both start at $629, though that climbs depending on what accessories and upgrades you want.

So let's quickly talk through what you get for that price: Amazon's Kindle Scribe Colorsoft starts at $629 for the 32GB model and comes with a free Kindle Premium Pen stylus, which has a built-in "eraser" tool on the rear end as well as a function button you can customize to do things like switch to a specific art tool, etc.

You can pay $50 more (so $679) for an upgraded model of the Scribe Colorsoft with 64GB of storage space, effectively doubling how many documents you can store at once. If you want a folio to protect the Kindle, you can get one direct from Amazon for $139.

The ReMarkable Paper Pro, by comparison, starts at $629 and comes with 64GB of storage and a basic ReMarkable Marker stylus that has no eraser end or function button. If you want the fancier ReMarkable Marker Plus stylus with the "eraser" tool on the end it will cost you (surprise!) $50 more, for a total of $679.

If you'd like to cover up your ReMarkable Paper Pro to protect it, you can get a basic Book Folio cover from the company for $89 or pay $229 for the Type Folio, which has a keyboard built in. ReMarkable offers some small discounts if you buy multiple products in a bundle, such that if you were to splurge for the Paper Pro with Marker Plus and Type Folio it would cost you $829 before tax, rather than something north of $900.

So if you want to get the best possible device for the least amount of money, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft has the slight edge here because it comes with the Kindle Premium Pen stylus no matter what — you don't have to pay extra for the better stylus. The trade-off is that you get less storage space on the Kindle, and you have to pay $50 more if you want the same amount of space as you get with the ReMarkable Paper Pro.

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs ReMarkable Paper Pro: Design

Both the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and the ReMarkable Paper Pro are thin, rectangular slates, though the Paper Pro is bigger and sports a slightly larger (11" vs 11.8") display. Both also have tiny feet on the back which help them rest flat on a table without scratching anything.

The e-paper tablets both weigh around a pound, though the ReMarkable slate is slightly heavier (14 vs 18.5 oz) and has a thicker bezel at the bottom of the device than the Kindle. This little lip at the bottom can be handy when you want to hold the device upright without touching the screen, but while using both tablets I don't find I miss it much on the Kindle.

Similarly, both have a single power button near the top (on the top edge for the ReMarkable vs on the top right edge of the Kindle) and a single USB-C port on the bottom edge for charging and data transfer.

So in terms of design, there really isn't a huge difference between the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs ReMarkable Paper Pro. However, the ReMarkable Paper Pro does have a slightly larger screen and weights slightly more than the Kindle, so if screen real estate is king you probably want the Paper Pro.

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs ReMarkable Paper Pro: Display

The screens on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs ReMarkable Paper Pro look similar but are very different in their construction, which matters if you care about how it feels to drag the stylus across the screen.

I'll dig into that in depth in the Writing section, but before I do I want to point out that there is one area in which the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft clearly outperforms the ReMarkable Paper Pro. Put simply, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft can get brighter than the ReMarkable Paper Pro, so it's going to be easier to use in dark settings without external light.

In terms of display quality, well, some of this is going to be anecdotal because I'm no display expert. But first let me point out that technically the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is capable of displaying black and white images slightly sharper than the ReMarkable Paper Pro, while color images will be slightly less sharp.

That's because the ReMarkable Paper Pro's unique Canvas Color display has a rough PPI (pixels per inch) of 229 no matter what you're looking at. But the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft's Kaleido 3 screen has to halve its resolution when displaying color, so you get B&W images in 300 PPI but color images in 150 PPI.

In my experience, you won't notice the difference between the different resolutions unless you're paying very close attention. However, the fact that the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft can get noticeably brighter than the ReMarkable Paper Pro will make a difference in dark areas. Plus, the colors on the Scribe Colorsoft can seem to "pop" a bit more than they do on the Paper Pro because you can crank up the brightness for a bit of extra vibrancy.

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs ReMarkable Paper Pro: Performance

I have both the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and the ReMarkable Paper Pro in front of me on my desk right now, and I have to admit that neither seems to perform basic functions in a particularly snappy or fast way. So if you're expecting responsiveness on a par with the best tablets from Apple and the rest, you're in for a disappointment.

Both slates are powered by quad-core CPUs, but the Kindle has double the RAM of the Paper Pro (2GB vs 4GB).

That said, I'm having a hard time figuring out which of these e-paper slates actually "performs" better because I've noticed inconsistent results when running basic tests like tapping the same file on both screens and seeing which opens the document faster.

The one thing I can say about using both at the same time is that the ReMarkable Paper Pro seems to load documents and new pages in those documents at pretty much the same (reliably slow) speed. But while testing the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft I noticed that load times seemed much more variable: sometimes the Kindle loaded the next page in a document or a recently opened document within two seconds, whereas other times loading the next page or a recent document seemed to take 3-5 seconds — not very long, obviously, but long enough to doubt whether the device had registered my input.

So ultimately I don't think you're going to notice a big difference in performance between these two e-paper slates, and their relative snappiness shouldn't make a big impact in your buying decision.

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs ReMarkable Paper Pro: Writing

Both of these e-paper tablets come with a stylus because writing and annotating documents on them is half the reason to buy one. So if you care about what it's like to put stylus to screen, I have some key details you need to know before you buy.

This is an area where there's a big difference between the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs ReMarkable Paper Pro. For my money, no stylus and tablet have ever been as nice to write with as what ReMarkable sells, but the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is no slouch in this department either.

That's because Amazon put special effort into trying to make the feel of dragging the Kindle Premium Pen against the screen of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft feel as much like paper as possible. The company crows about having put new texture-molded glass on the Scribe Colorsoft and further squished the display stack (that is, all the tech beneath the screen) further to minimize the lag between when you put the stylus to the screen and when your input appears. And I can vouch that it seems to have made a difference, because I enjoy the feel of writing on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft more than I did when testing last year's basic Kindle Scribe.

But while the feel of writing on the Scribe Colorsoft is better than any Kindle I've tested to date, it still can't hold a candle to what it feels like to write on the ReMarkable Paper Pro.

That's because the Paper Pro's Color Canvas display is more textured than the Scribe Colorsoft (though they feel equally smooth to the touch) so that when you drag the ReMarkable Marker across the screen it feels and sounds like a pencil scratching across paper.

Maybe not as much as an actual No. 2 pencil would on real notebook paper, but as close to the real thing as to be indistinguishable unless you were doing both side-by-side. The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, by comparison, does give you a bit of texture and resistance when dragging the Premium Pen across the screen but mostly feels like dragging plastic across glass.

Another reason I prefer writing on the ReMarkable Paper Pro over the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is the way annotations work on each device. See, with the ReMarkable Paper Pro you can open pretty much any document or file and start making marks directly on the page using the Paper Pro's 10 different art tools (including a highlighter, marker, pen, pencil, paintbrush and the like) and 9 different colors.

The marks you make on a document stay directly where you put them no matter how you move or change the document, which means you can do things like scratch out words (if you're editing someone's school paper, for example), color in illustrations and doodle on the document wherever you please, just like it was a real piece of paper.

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, on the other hand, offers you two ways of marking up documents (besides highlighting passages) and neither feels as intuitive as what you get on ReMarkable slates.

First, you can use the "Active Canvas" feature to jot down notes and annotations directly on a document. However, the Kindle doesn't actually render what you write or draw directly where you put it; instead, it automagically creates a space between the text (between paragraphs or sometimes between sentences) and puts your annotation in an "Active Canvas" between the text. That way, when you scroll around or change the size of the text your note will stay readable between the lines.

The other option to take notes on the Kindle (as of publication) is to use the expandable margins, which let you tap a little arrow icon on the side of the screen to pull out an expandable margin where you can jot down notes tied to the text.

This enables you to make annotations that feel like footnotes, since you can see a little icon that you have a note on this page but can't actually read the note(s) until you open the margin and look at them.

Both of these systems are effective on the Kindle, but they feel a bit like a compromise compared to the ReMarkable Paper Pro's intuitive "write directly on the page and see it" feature. For my money I much prefer the experience of writing on the ReMarkable Paper Pro over the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, but both are perfectly usable.

Kindle Scribe vs ReMarkable Paper Pro: Libraries

Now let's talk a bit about what kinds of files you can get on these devices, and how easy they are to access.

If you just want to load them up with your own documents for work, you're in luck: both slates can display PDF and EPUB files with no trouble. ReMarkable has a nice suite of software that makes it easy to quickly drag and drop files to your Paper Pro, but you have to set up additional connections to third-party services (i.e. Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive) to do more advanced tricks like send Google Docs/Slides/Sheets to the slate as PDFs, transferring Word documents, PowerPoint files and more.

One key limitation of the Paper Pro is that it can't easily display DRM-protected ebooks like those you buy in Amazon's Kindle store, so you're limited to buying/downloading ebooks from DRM-free sources.

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft has the advantage here because you can buy any ebook on the Amazon Kindle store and have it sent directly to your Kindle Scribe Colorsoft in moments, giving it a huge leg up in terms of available content. The Kindle Store is filling up with products specifically for Scribe users too, like ebooks full of Sudoku puzzles you can do right on the screen as well as digital coloring books you can work on using the Scribe Colorsoft's limited palette.

The Scribe Colorsoft also supports Bluetooth while the Paper Pro does not, so you can connect a pair of Bluetooth headphones to the Kindle and use them to listen to your Audible audiobooks on the go. Plus, you can also send files from outside Amazon's walled garden (like term papers and DRM-free ebooks) using the Send to Kindle feature.

So while ReMarkable's Paper Pro is fairly versatile, there's no question that the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft has the edge in terms of library access and the convenience of the Kindle Store.

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft vs ReMarkable Paper Pro: Bottom line

If you've made it this far you know that while these two $600+ e-paper slates look awfully similar, there are some key differences between them which can help you make the choice between where to spend your money.

For most people I suspect the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is the wiser choice because while it doesn't feel half as nice to write on as the ReMarkable Paper Pro, the Scribe has a brighter screen, more features and easier access to ebooks and other digital goodies via the Kindle Store accessible right on the device.

But for me personally, I think I still prefer the ReMarkable Paper Pro because it just feels so much nicer to use than the Kindle. Sure, the Kindle can feel snappier sometimes and gets brighter, but when I put the stylus on the screen no other tablet I've ever used feels as nice beneath my hands as the ReMarkable Paper Pro. And while I appreciate that the Kindle supports Bluetooth and gives you easy access to the Kindle Store, I'd rather jump through the hoops of loading the ReMarkable up with whatever I want to do (books to read, documents to edit, digital coloring books to fill in) than put up with the inferior writing experience and frustrating Amazon focus of the Kindle.

So if you care about writing and editing above all, I still recommend the Paper Pro. If you just want a fancy e-paper tablet with color for entertainment, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is probably your best bet. And if you just want a great slate for entertainment and don't care about writing or e-paper at all, get an iPad Air—it's just as expensive and way more versatile than either of these (excellent!) e-paper slates.

More from Tom's Guide

• Real books are good, but Kindles are better
• No Kindle? No problem: 5 places to buy DRM-free e-books
• I never liked e-readers, but the Kindle app on my phone has converted me

Amazon is rolling out a new generative AI feature for the iOS version of its Kindle app, the digital version of one of the best eReaders. The new “Ask this Book” tool is a chatbot that will provide “spoiler-free” answers about the book’s plot, characters, and more.

The AI feature was announced in a blog post proclaiming that the bot is available for “thousands of English-language best selling” books. .

Amazon is pitching the AI chatbot as an “expert reading assistant” that makes it “easier for you stay immersed in your books.” As you’re reading, you can highlight a portion of the book to get started with the bot.

Ask this Book can seemingly provide a broad array of information from plot details and character relationships to thematic elements, but the company claims it will only reveal information up to your current reading position.

Amazon also announced another AI-based feature, “Recaps”, which is supposed to give you a refresher about book series you’re reading while you wait for the next book or when you’ve taken a prolonged break.

How Ask this book works

According to Amazon, when you highlight a section of your book in the Kindle app you should see a new “Ask” button in the menu. Tapping that button will let you type in a prompt before being placed in a chatbox with the AI.

Additionally, some pre-made suggested queries will be available if you didn’t have a question prepared.

The feature is rolling out to the Kindle iOS app now. As mentioned, the Android Kindle app won’t receive this feature until next year. Additionally, Amazon says it will come to Kindle devices in 2026, though a specific timeline wasn’t provided.

Authors concerned

When it comes to artificial intelligence, there has been a lot of concern about rights and AI’s effects on authors. Most every AI company has been accused of copyright infringement, and Anthropic settled a class action lawsuit with authors earlier this fall.

Insider publication Publisher’s Lunch (via Writer Beware) highlighted the feature earlier this week with concern over the AI bot generating information without permission or rights. The site apparently did not receive a definitive answer from Amazon about the company’s process regarding the AI bot or what rights it relies on.

They did learn that the feature is always on and authors and publishers can not opt out.

“The primary focus has been on preventing unpermissioned AI training, but with the technology embedding itself at warp speed in all aspects of the book business, the rights implications are expanding just as fast,” Writer Beware notes.

This isn’t the first time the company has done something controversial to the Kindle platform this year. Back in February Amazon took away the ability to download Kindle books and back them up on a PC using USB transfer.

Let us know if you believe Ask this Book infringes or will it be a helpful tool for readers?

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I’ve used the best Kindles for years, with the Kindle Paperwhite being my go-to tablet for reading my favorite novels. That’s going to change, as I’ve fallen in love with the new Kindle Scribe after using and testing it for the better part of a week. Though I won’t completely abandon the Paperwhite, the Kindle Scribe is now the main Kindle I’ll use, both for reading novels and black and white comics.

What’s so great about Amazon’s latest e-reader? While it doesn’t have a color e-paper display like the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, the new standard Scribe features a more streamlined design than its predecessors. The tablet’s lightweight design makes it comfortable to hold for long periods of time. The 11-inch display and its auto-brightness feature also enable me to read without much (if any) eye strain.

You can read my full Kindle Scribe (2025) review for more details, but here are some thoughts on why the new Scribe is now my favorite Kindle model — and why my Kindle Paperwhite might not get as much attention as usual.

Easier reading

With the right font size and spacing, you can reasonably approximate the experience of reading a mass-market paperback on a Kindle Paperwhite. It reminds me of the days when I used to buy these small (and cheap) novels from the local pharmacy.

I don't read physical books as much as I used to, but when I do, I now tend toward the larger paperback or hardcovers since they’re easier to read than mass-market paperbacks. Going back to the comparatively smaller Kindle Paperwhite can be jarring.

This is no longer an issue with the Kindle Scribe, since its screen is either as large or larger than that of a standard paperback or hardcover. And like I said in my Kindle Scribe review, the default font size and line spacing make for comfortable reading out of the box. Don’t get me wrong, I fiddled with the settings to see what I preferred (since I always do this with a new Kindle). In the end, I just settled for default since it’s practically perfect.

I almost always turn off the front lights on a Kindle since I like reading near a light source the same way I would when reading a real book. I mostly do this on the Kindle Scribe, though I sometimes switch its front lights on so that the display matches the white bezels surrounding it. I actually wish the bezels were black, but that’s a minor complaint. Regardless, whether it's with the display’s front lights on or off, the Kindle isn’t scorching my eyes as the display on something like an iPad Pro M5 would.

Comfortable to hold

The Kindle Scribe’s aluminum body makes it feel more premium than the Paperwhite, which has a plastic chassis. I don’t dislike the latter, especially since its rubbery backside makes it comfortable to hold, but I just like the Scribe’s smooth and sturdy chassis more. It’s also very light to hold, and is actually a tad lighter than an 11-inch iPad Air M3 (14.1 ounces vs 16.2 ounces, respectively).

I mostly hold the Kindle Paperwhite with two hands as I would a real book, but I do occasionally prefer holding it in one hand. Though it’s not hard to hold the Scribe this way, I can only comfortably hold it for so long before my arm and wrist get tired. This is one of the few downsides when reading, but it’s not a deal-breaker since I generally use two hands anyway.

Another minor complaint is that the Scribe’s aluminum chassis can get pretty cold now that winter is approaching. Obviously, the Scribe’s back warms up as I hold it, but initially picking it up in between sessions isn’t always fun for my fingers. I’m considering purchasing the Amazon Kindle Scribe Folio Cover to alleviate this issue.

Versatility

Kindles are fantastic for reading books, but they’re not so great for comics since their screens are smaller than a comic’s page. Manga (black and white Japanese comics) aren’t as bad to read on a Kindle Paperwhite, but I enjoy reading this kind of book more on an iPad mini since the screen is larger and there’s better contrast between the white pages and black ink. Things are different on a Kindle Scribe, however.

The Scribe’s 11-inch e-paper display is roughly the same size as a standard American comic book page. That size, combined with the screen’s sharp 300ppi resolution and paper-like appearance, makes for an enjoyable comic book reading experience. Naturally, manga also looks fantastic on the Kindle Scribe. Of course, the main downside here is that all comics are in black and white. If you want color, you’ll need the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.

I appreciate that the Kindle Scribe has expanded my reading options since it can expertly handle novels and black and white comics. It’ll be more convenient than always switching between a Kindle and an iPad to accommodate the kind of book I’m reading at the moment.

Read on!

The Kindle Scribe's main selling point is that it's a Kindle you can write or draw on. While that aspect works as intended, that's actually the least interesting feature since I don't like writing by hand. If that's what you're looking for with the Kindle Scribe, then you won't be disappointed when taking notes or doodling. For me, however, it's all about the reading experience, and the Scribe excels at that.

I was smitten the instant I unboxed the Kindle Scribe, and that feeling hasn’t diminished over the subsequent days. I’m still fond of the Kindle Paperwhite, and will no doubt use it when I’m on a cramped airplane ride to CES next month. But aside from specific situations, the Kindle Scribe will now be my go-to Kindle for novels and black and white comics.

More from Tom's Guide

• Real books are good, but Kindles are better
• How to set and manage bookmarks on Kindle
• This one Kindle Colorsoft shortcoming is getting under my skin

The new Amazon Kindle Scribe ($499) delivers meaningful improvements over its predecessors. Featuring a more streamlined design, larger e-paper display, and easier-to-access notes, it’s arguably the best standard Kindle Scribe yet.

I’ve been a Kindle Paperwhite user for years, so reading my favorite novels on the expansive 11-inch e-paper display has been a revelation. The 300ppi resolution makes everything from written text to black and white comic books appear sharp and defined. I appreciate not being forced to adjust the font and spacing to get a better reading experience. I get that right out of the box.

The lightweight design is another highlight. The Scribe is so light in my hands that it makes the 11-inch iPad Air M3 feel bulky in comparison. I also appreciate the sturdy aluminum chassis that makes this device feel more premium than a Kindle Paperwhite. Though I wish the bezels were a tad thinner, they’re thick enough to let you comfortably hold the device without having your thumbs on the actual display.

Writing is generally satisfying thanks to the chunky included stylus and how there’s virtually no lag when you write. The Quick Notes section on the Home screen allows you to instantly jot down or draw whatever comes to mind at the moment. Unfortunately, annotating text is as clunky and unintuitive as ever.

Faults aside, the new Kindle Scribe is an overall satisfying update. If you’re a Kindle fan who wants a device for taking notes and drawing, this and the new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft are excellent (if expensive) options. And if you’re not a notetaker or artist, you’ll have an enjoyable experience reading novels and black and comics on this device. I’ll explain further in my full Kindle Scribe review.

Kindle Scribe (2025) review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Kindle Scribe (2025) is an e-reader that allows you to take digital notes with its included stylus and to read books from the Kindle store. This updated model features a thinner design, a larger display, and a snappier interface.
• Who is it for? This tablet is for anyone who wants an e-reader that also allows them to take notes or draw.
• What does it cost? The Kindle Scribe (2025) starts at $499 for the 32GB model and $549 for the 64GB variant. You can purchase it from Amazon.
• What do we like? I like the lightweight design, sharp 11-inch display, and seamless integration with the Kindle store and Goodreads.
• What don’t we like? Annotating text is clunky and unintuitive. The Kindle Scribe also costs as much as an 11-inch iPad Air M3 but does less.

Kindle Scribe (2025) review: Specs

Kindle Scribe (2025) review: The ups

The Kindle Scribe (2025) impresses thanks to its thin and sturdy design, sharp 11-inch display, and generally enjoyable writing and reading experience.

Lightweight design

The new Kindle Scribe isn’t just a refresh, as it features a brand-new design. Besides a larger display, the tablet is thinner and lighter, and features a uniform look since it dropped the previous model’s asymmetrical handle design. The new Scribe has an aluminum chassis, which makes the tablet feel sturdy and more premium in hand.

The Kindle Scribe actually weighs less than an 11-inch iPad Air M3. Because of that, you can easily hold the e-reader for long periods of time without your hands or wrist getting tired. Sure, it’s not as comfortable to hold in one hand as a Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Basic, but it’s still very light for its size.

As I said in the intro, the bezels are a tad thin, but they’re just large enough to let me hold the Scribe without my thumb touching the display. I still prefer this over the previous design, which might have been more comfortable to hold but was awkward-looking. The Kindle Scribe hits the sweet spot of comfort and elegance.

Gorgeous e-paper display

The first thing I do on a new Kindle is dive into a book’s settings to adjust the font, letter size, and margins. I entered the Kindle Scribe’s settings only to find that I didn’t need to change anything, since the out-of-the-box reading experience is practically perfect. This is a testament to how easy reading novels and comics is on the 11-inch e-paper display.

I typically read Titan Comics' black-and-white Savage Sword of Conan comics on the iPad Pro M5, as its OLED panel delivers such inky blacks. While the Kindle Scribe doesn’t offer the same level of contrast and defined detail, black and white comics still look great on such a large and sharp canvas.

I normally keep the Kindle’s front light off to better simulate reading on paper, but when I want to read at night, the built-in front lights get the job done. Even if you crank the brightness all the way up, the lighting isn’t as harsh as on a typical tablet or monitor. The adjustable warm light is good for minimizing blue light, and the auto light feature smartly adjusts to your ambient lighting.

The Kindle Scribe’s large and sharp screen is so good that I don’t see myself going back to reading on a Kindle Paperwhite unless I want a smaller device for reading on a cramped plane. Pardon the pun, but the Scribe’s display is really a wonder to behold.

Comfortable stylus and easy note-taking

The included Kindle Premium Pen is a brilliant stylus that feels amazing to use and hold, thanks to its thick and chunky design. The tip easily lets you draw thick and thin lines, depending on how hard you push it against the screen. The texture-molded glass display creates a nice amount of friction when you write. There’s also an eraser on the end for when you need to correct mistakes.

You’ll also find a shortcut button that lets you highlight passages, at least by default. If you want, you can head into system settings and change the shortcut to perform other actions, such as changing the lines produced to simulate a pen or pencil. Conversely, you can also disable the shortcut button. I didn’t use the shortcut button much, but it’s good to have in case I do want to enable a specific function.

For easier note-taking, there’s a convenient Quick Notes option on the Home page. Tapping it will open a new note, which is useful for when inspiration hits or you want to jot something down before you forget it. You can create as many notes as you’d like, and the most recent will remain in the “jump back in” section on the Home page. You can view all your notes by clicking on the “Workspace” tab at the bottom of the Home page.

On a related note, the Scribe’s built-in AI does an admirable job of cleaning up your handwritten notes. This is especially true for my barely legible handwriting. The AI also lets you search for notes, and even has a “chat” feature, though I haven’t taken enough notes to try this myself. I can see this being useful if, for example, you’ve taken exhaustive notes on a sci-fi manuscript and want the AI to assist you in finding what you need.

Same great Kindle experience

Beyond the hardware upgrades and new features, the Kindle Scribe offers the same fantastic Kindle experience you’re familiar with. The Home page has selections from your library and recommendations from Amazon, along with your most recent notes. Navigating your library and settings is a snap thanks to the responsive interface.

Since this is an Amazon device, you can seamlessly connect to the Kindle store and Goodreads. I know some folks have justifiable reasons for disliking these services — DRM (digital rights management) and the amount of spammy self-published books being two of many. But I like being able to purchase digital books from the Kindle store with a simple tap, or updating my Goodreads followers on how far I am into the latest novel or comic I’m reading.

Kindle Scribe (2025) review: The downs

Using the Kindle Scribe for note-taking and doodling generally works as intended, but this e-reader has some notable setbacks you should be aware of.

Active Canvas feature is clunky

I share the same frustrations with annotating text as my colleague Alex Wawro, who reviewed the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. To be specific, I’m not a fan of the Active Canvas feature.

Sure, you can write or draw right on a document or page and have your annotation appear alongside the text. However, the way Active Canvas automatically inserts annotations breaks up the text of said document or page, which can make things extremely confusing and messy. I wish your annotations or drawings stayed exactly where you placed them without distorting a page, as they do on the ReMarkable Paper Pro.

The other way to take notes is to open the expandable margin and write them there. This is a cleaner option since it doesn’t warp pages, and you’re able to hide your notes when you want. I hope there’s a fix for Active Canvas awkwardly moving text around, but the margin is the best way to go right now.

Fewer features than a similarly priced iPad Air

The 2024 Kindle Scribe was already expensive for what it offered, and its 2025 counterpart costs $100 more. While the Scribe offers meaningful upgrades and updates over its predecessor, said improvements might not be worth $499 — especially for a device that is mainly for reading books and note-taking.

For the same price, you can purchase an 11-inch iPad Air M3. You can read all of your Kindle books from the Kindle App for iPad, and even read those books (and comics) in full color. The iPad Air is also great for doodling, so long as you don’t mind the smooth, glassy display. Beyond those basic Kindle Scribe features, you can also watch videos, play games and surf the web much easier on Apple’s thin tablet.

If you’re already invested in the Amazon ecosystem, then it might be easier for you to justify the Kindle Scribe’s asking price. However, if you want a device that offers more features for the same cost, you might want to consider the iPad Air instead.

Kindle Scribe (2025) review: Verdict

The Kindle Scribe (2025) might not have the same robust note-taking features as some of its competitors, but if you like writing by hand or drawing, it will get the job done. Just don’t expect the best note-taking e-reader out there. For that, you might want to check out the ReMarkable 2 ($449).

While the Kindle Scribe might fall a little short when it comes to the scribing part, it’s a phenomenal e-reader for avid bookworms. The 11-inch display is perfect for novels and black and white comics, which you can comfortably read for hours — thanks to the device’s lightweight and sturdy design. Seamless integration with Amazon services like the Kindle store and Goodreads is also a highlight, especially if you’re invested in the company’s ecosystem.

I instantly fell in love with the Kindle Scribe when I unboxed it, and it will now be my main e-reader when I’m at home. The Kindle Paperwhite is still brilliant, but if you need a larger display that’s easier to read on, this is the Kindle to get.

Amazon's new Kindle Colorsoft Scribe ($629) is the biggest and most expensive tablet the company has sold yet.

Luckily, Amazon packed a slew of features into this expensive slate. With a big 11-inch e-paper display that lets you view documents in color and a packed-in stylus you can use to highlight passages and jot down notes, you can get a wide variety of reading and creating done on this device.

There's also some level of AI assistance built in, just like there is on the Kindle Scribe. The Colorsoft Scribe uses it to do things like decipher your handwritten notes and summarize them as well as make them searchable, so you can search for something like "vet" and among the search results you'll find the "pick up cat from vet" from your to-do list.

Factor in the built-in backlight, and you start to see why this is one of the best e-readers I've tested in years. Of course, it's also more expensive than an iPad Air.

Is it worth it? The answer depends on what you plan to use it for. I'll walk you through what I mean in this Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review!

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft (2025) is the first Kindle Scribe to let you read and write in (a limited set of) colors.
• Who is it for? This premium Kindle is well-suited for anyone who expects to read and write a lot and likes to do so in color. Students, writers, educators and anyone with $600+ to drop on a Kindle will appreciate it.
• What does it cost? The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is available to purchase via Amazon at a starting price of $629 for the 32GB model, though you can pay an extra $50 ($679) for the 64GB version.
• What do we like? The big, easy-to-read 11-inch screen and the thick stylus are nice, and colors look pretty good on the display, especially with the brightness maxed.
• What don’t we like? This e-reader costs more than an iPad Air yet does less. There's also no waterproofing (avoid the beach), and it's a little annoying that the homepage is full of ads for books and other things to buy on Amazon.

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: Specs

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: The ups

After using the new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft for a few days, I'm impressed by how handy this device can be for the right person.

Big 11-inch e-paper screen makes reading easy

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft feels roughly about the same size as the Kindle Scribe (2024) I reviewed last year, but the display is actually bigger at 11 inches vs. 10.2 inches, so it feels even easier to read on than last year's Scribe.

The large e-paper display makes reading documents and comic books easier than on any other Kindle I've used to date. It also gives you enough room to work on documents while opening the expandable margin to take notes, and when doodling with the various colors, it's nice to have all this space.

However, one minor drawback about that is that I find the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft a little tricky to hold without smudging up the screen because the bezels are fairly thin. Not as thin as on an iPad Air, mind you, but still thin enough that if you have big hands or aren't delicate, you will find yourself accidentally tapping the screen occasionally.

I haven't found that to be a problem when doodling since you can typically rest your hand or wrist on the screen without triggering input, but it can be frustrating when reading because accidentally tapping the edge of the screen with your finger can cause your page to flip forward or back, losing your place.

Colors unlock a whole new world of entertainment

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft effectively marries the color e-paper screen of the Kindle Colorsoft with the expanded design and capabilities of the Kindle Scribe, and the screen has a special color filter and light guide (using nitride LEDs) that helps it display colors in a way that feels fairly bright and vibrant.

That effectively unlocks a whole new realm of use for the Scribe family, as you can now read comics, graphic novels and manga in color. And while your comics and images will likely look sharper and more colorful on an iPad, I never felt like I was compromising or settling while reading issues on our Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review unit.

However, I did sometimes need to flip between the two display modes (Standard and Vivid) depending on what I was reading. While you might expect Vivid to deliver better colors across the board, in some cases, I found switching back to Standard mode was better for parsing text or making out details in small images.

Likewise, I really appreciate the option to sketch and take notes in 10 different colors. Admittedly, two of them are black and grey, but the rest are more exciting options like aqua, pink, orange and green. I appreciate that you get some bright colors to work with on the Colorsoft screen, and they show up brighter than colors do on the comparable ReMarkable Paper Pro e-paper tablet I tested last year.

Premium Pen stylus is versatile and comfortable in the hand

I have big hands, which is often a problem when using modern gadgets because they're so gosh darn small. Heck, even this Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is a little too thin for my liking, as being less than a quarter-inch thick makes it tricky for my clumsy paws to keep hold of.

I can't make the same complaint about the thick, chunky stylus that comes with the Colorsoft, which magnetically attaches to the side of the device and is bulging with useful features. It's technically called the Kindle Premium Pen, and in addition to the tip, it has a screen-sensitive rear end you can use to "erase" what you've written, as well as a shortcut button on the side you can customize to your liking.

By default, the shortcut button enables the highlighter tool, so no matter what you're doing, you can quickly squeeze the pen to start highlighting a passage. But I changed that in the system settings so that when I squeeze the pen, I can drag it to turn the page forward or backward, and I'm loving using the stylus itself to interact with the tablet because it feels more accurate and responsive than my fat fingers. Plus, it cuts down on screen smudges!

AI features are nice to have

There are a few AI-driven features built into the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, and while I haven't had enough time with the device to thoroughly test them yet, what I've seen so far seems fairly benign and useful.

In the days I've had with the device, the Scribe Colorsoft has been able to decode my horrid handwriting at least 80-90% of the time. It's nice to be able to scribble down notes and be able to search them later, and I could easily see this form of AI assistance being a boon for folks who love to write by hand.

However, I haven't yet taken enough notes or spent enough time with the device to effectively test the new feature, which lets you "chat" with your notes. This involves using a chat interface to ask questions in natural language (like "what is the screen size" if you have a page of notes about a gadget, for example) and get responses back, with a link to the notebook the answer was sourced from.

In my early testing, I've seen a few (minor) errors in the answers, but again, this product just came out on December 10, so I expect (and hope) the software will improve with time. I also think I need to put down a larger quantity of notes to really put this thing to the test — it seems well-suited to pages and pages of lecture notes or fiction writing, for example, than the few hundred words I've gotten in so far. Stay tuned!

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: The downs

I'm quite fond of the new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, but there are some frustrating aspects that you ought to know about before buying one yourself.

Costs more than an iPad Air, does less

I already felt like last year's Kindle Scribe was priced a smidge too high (for what you get) at $399, so the fact that Amazon is asking $629 for the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft feels painful.

I'm torn about how to discuss this because I don't know how much money and effort was spent fine-tuning the Colorsoft display for the Scribe, so I don't want to suggest that you're not getting what you're paying for here.

No, what I'm saying is that you get more for less with other tablets. Apple's 11-inch iPad Air M3 launched earlier this year with a starting price of $599, for example, and right out of the box, an iPad can do a lot more than a Kindle Scribe — including running games, playing music, streaming videos and downloading all sorts of apps.

Of course, the iPad Air doesn't come with a stylus included, but toss in a $129 Apple Pencil Pro and you have a faster, more useful tablet with a better stylus for roughly $730. That's more than any Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, but not much more, so I find it very tricky to understand who the Scribe Colorsoft is for.

Ultimately, I think it really only makes perfect sense for inveterate Kindle Scribe users who are already used to working within Amazon's ecosystem and want the added option to write, doodle and read in color. If that's not you, I suggest considering your alternatives before pulling the trigger on a new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.

Annotating text is a bit frustrating

I haven't been a fan of the way you annotate text on the Kindle Scribe since I reviewed one, so I'm not surprised that it hasn't changed significantly on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.

If you're not familiar, there are two main ways you can jot down notes when reading a document: my favorite requires you to open the expandable margin and write down notes there, then close it to hide them until you want to look at them.

The other way to do it is to use the Kindle's Active Canvas feature, which lets you write or draw directly onto a document and have your annotation appear alongside the text. It sounds good in theory, but in practice, I find it irritating to use because the Active Canvas inserts your annotations in ways that break up the text of the document.

So while you can write a note at the end of a paragraph or chapter easily enough, it's annoying to try and do things like edit a student paper because you can't easily annotate a single word or add in a bit of punctuation where it belongs — the Active Canvas automatically moves your annotations off the text and into blank spaces on the page.

This is in disappointing contrast to the ReMarkable Paper Pro ($579) I reviewed, which lets you basically draw a line or letter anywhere on the page and makes it appear to stay right where you made it, no matter how you scroll or adjust the page.

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: Verdict

The new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is, without a doubt, the best Kindle I've ever used. While I wish it was slightly thicker with chunkier bezels so my big paws could comfortably hold it, I can't complain about the build quality or features of this Kindle Cadillac.

Well, okay, I can complain just a little: I wish I could annotate text directly like I can on ReMarkable slates, without having to rely on the Active Canvas or expandable margins. But that's a problem common to the Kindle Scribe family, and it's hardly a deal-breaker.

However, the high price does feel like just that for a lot of people. You can get a ReMarkable Paper Pro with a high-end stylus for the same $629 asking price, for example, and while I think the brightness is a bit better on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft (and thus the colors look more vibrant), I prefer the experience of writing on any ReMarkable tablet over any Scribe.

And if the "feel" of writing on glass with a stylus isn't important to you? Then it's hard to know why you wouldn't want to go for an iPad + Apple Pencil combo (or a comparable Samsung tablet) instead of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, given that you have to pay over $600 for this e-reader.

While I think the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is probably the best Kindle made yet and an impressive device, the high price and steep competition from comparably-priced tablets make it hard to give this expensive e-reader a full-throated endorsement.

But hey, if you've got $700 burning a hole in your pocket and you (or someone you love) wants an e-paper slate that lets you read and write in color, this is a great one!

Chinese firm Onyx International has been making and selling e-paper tablets for years, and the Boox Note Max ($699) is one of the newest and largest.

With a 13.3-inch e-paper display, a fairly open Android 13 operating system and a packed-in stylus, it's a strong competitor to the Kindle Scribe and could be one of the best e-readers for folks who want a big e-paper slate that can create as well as consume.

I've been testing the Boox Note Max for a week or two now, and I'm enjoying myself. While I was initially perplexed by the interface and the intricacies of using Android on an e-paper slate, once I got the hang of it I've become pretty fond of this beefy tablet.

The experience of writing on it with the packed-in stylus is not as satisfying or as tactile as you'll get when writing on ReMarkable's e-paper tablets, but I find the Note Max to be as good or better than the Kindle Scribe in a few ways.

But of course, the Boox Note Max costs nearly twice what you'd pay for the Scribe and more than you'd pay for the ReMarkable Paper Pro, which offers a better writing experience as well as limited colors. Heck, it costs more than the entry-level iPad Air.

So is the freedom of having access to Android 13 and the Google Play Store worth the extra cost of the Boox Note Max? I'll walk you through the details and help you decide for yourself in this Boox Note Max review.

Boox Note Max review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A 13.3-inch monochrome e-paper slate that runs Android 13 and sports speakers and a microphone, plus it comes with a stylus included.
• Who is it for? Anyone who wants a general-purpose e-paper tablet you can write on and run limited Android apps on, allowing you to create art, take notes, annotate documents and more.
• What does it cost? $699 on the Onyx website, though I've seen it on sale for as low as $620. You can also order from a warehouse in the US, the UK or Hong Kong in order to avoid import tariffs.
• What do we like? I like the large screen, comfortable stylus and broad access to a wide variety of Android apps that allows you to access a variety of e-books and other file types with ease.
• What don’t we like? I don't love the lack of a backlight (so you need to be in good light to use the tablet), and I often find text and images on the screen look dark and harder to read than on other e-paper slates I've used. I also wish it was a bit cheaper.

Boox Note Max review: Specs

Boox Note Max review: The ups

I'm pretty fond of the Boox Note Max after spending some time testing it, and there are some features that I really wish other e-paper slate makers would copy.

Big, comfy design makes working easy, even in split-screen

I'm a fan of the Boox Note Max's expansive 13.3-inch e-paper display because it gives you plenty of room to read, doodle, take notes or annotate documents.

It's big enough that the built-in feature to be able to use two apps at once in spit-screen mode is both useful and fairly usable, as I was able to easily annotate PDF files one one half of the screen while taking notes on them in the other half.

At 13.3 inches diagonally the Boox Note Max offers notably more screen real estate than either the monochrome Kindle Scribe or the ReMarkable Paper Pro, whch is remarkable given that the Note Max is also a hair thinner than either of those competitors.

Android app access

When I first set up our Boox Note Max review unit I was surprised to discover it comes with a slew of apps already installed, including a web browser, a gallery app, a music player, Boox apps for pushing documents and files to your tablet and even an RSS reader.

Moreover, you can open up the Google Play Store (or at least, a monochrome e-paper version) and start downloading basically whatever Android app you want. You can install YouTube to watch (grainy, choppy, black and white) videos, download Spotify to listen to (tinny) music or pull down a game to entertain yourself with.

As you might imagine, most Android apps are a little tricky to use on the Note Max's 13.3-inch (3200 x 2400) e-paper display. The tablet has some built-in software tools you can use to fine-tune how apps look on the screen, allowing you to do things like darken, lighten or change the spacing on text and images so it's easier to read.

And input lag isn't terrible, either. While it takes longer than a standard Android tablet to change apps and the slow refresh rate doesn't serve games well, you can often play and enjoy slow-paced games that look good in black and white. However, I didn't find anything I much enjoyed playing on the Note Max and I expect the Play Store is better used for downloading sketching apps, note-taking tools and other software that plays to the slate's strengths: big display, decent writing experience and compatibility with a wide variety of files.

Personally, I've found basic Android apps like Google Drive, Google Docs and Evernote to be pretty useful on this e-paper slate. I can easily imagine folks who use such apps for work taking advantage of the Note Max's fairly open OS to use this e-paper slate as a productivity device at work.

Boox Note Max review: The downs

I confess I'm a bit surprised at how much I like the Boox Note Max, but in addition to the usual slow refresh rate you get on e-paper slates I think it has some downsides you should consider before pulling the trigger on a purchase.

No backlight is frustrating

I find it very frustrating there's no built-in lighting option on the Boox Note Max. While I appreciate that e-paper displays are less grating on the eyes since they don't emit bright light, I also hate that I constantly feel like I'm squinting to read or make out details on the Note Max.

Admittedly, you can buy an attachable light or flip on a lamp and hold the slate under it in order to see details more clearly. But I found that annoying, and I can imagine some folks (say, those on a red-eye flight or sharing a room with someone who's sleeping) might find it hard or impossible to increase the ambient light enough that you're not squinting and hurting your eyes to make out details on the display.

Moreover, it seems like such a minor detail to add a decent backlight to the screen (every Kindle has a backlight, even the cheapest model) that it almost feels like an oversight on Boox's part not to include one. Still, it's frustrating because other Boox tablets (including the cheaper Boox Palma 2) do offer built-in backlights.

Costs more than an iPad Air, does less

As much as I've grown to like the Boox Note Max, it's hard to recommend to anyone except e-paper afficionados at the $689 asking price. You get a decent amount of value out of the tablet and stylus, especially if you like the idea of doodling and annotating documents or taking notes.

Of course, you can probably wait for a sale to ease the sting. But it's hard to forget you can get a new iPad Air starting at $599 here in the States. Obviously they're two very different devices with different applications, so it's not a completely fair comparison. But what is fair is saying that the basic iPad Air offers a lot of features the Boox Note Max can't match, including a faster, brighter and far more colorful screen, a camera, better speakers and a wider variety of useful apps.

Admittedly, to get an iPad Air that can duplicate the functionality of the Note Max would cost closer to $700 since you'd need to get an Apple Pencil or Apple Pencil Pro as well. But even then an 11-inch basic iPad Air M3 with the basic Apple Pencil would cost you roughly $679, which is still cheaper than the Boox Note Max.

But of course, the Note Max does satisfy a specific niche desire that the iPad Air does not: demand for an e-paper slate that's easier on the eyes than an iPad, yet can still access many basic Android apps and deal with a broader variety of documents and files than you could access on e-paper competitors like Kindles.

Boox Note Max review: Verdict

While the Boox Note Max has as many flaws as it does strengths, I think it's generally a good e-paper slate with a much broader range of capabilities than any Kindle you'll own.

And while it doesn't feel nearly as good to write or sketch on as ReMarkable's e-paper slates, in a way I think the Note Max does a better job of delivering the core experience ReMarkable promises because you can do a lot more with it.

For example, many e-paper slates (including ReMarkable tablets) are marketed as reading and productivity devices that are less intrusive and eye-searing than a tablet or laptop with a bright display. Buy a Kindle Scribe or a ReMarkable Paper Pro for work or school, the ads usually go, and you'll be less distracted and more connected to your colleagues and your work.

And maybe that's true, but on the Boox Note Max it seems more true because you can do a lot more with this e-paper slate than you can with anything from Amazon or ReMarkable. Not only can you read e-books of all types (including EPUB, MOBI, CBZ and all basic document types) but you can listen to MP3s or WAV files, stream music via Spotify, access files on services like Google Drive or Box and even play games.

Perhaps that's enough functionality that you're back to the same distractions you'd be dealing with on an iPad, and of course a lot of iPads and Android tablets are cheaper than the Boox Note Max even if you factor in the cost of buying a stylus.

But I'm hard-pressed to think of a better device for someone who wants a big e-paper slate for work and play that can also do much of what a standard Android tablet can do. If I was in the market for an e-paper slate that I could use for both work and play, I think the Boox Note Max is one of the best choices I could make.

Amazon finally brought color to its Kindle Colorsoft lineup in the last year, but the color e-paper displays may not be the best for reading.

Notably, the Good e-Reader spotted recently-updated FAQ pages for the Kindle Colorsoft and the just announced Kindle Scribe Colorsoft that assert the Colorsoft displays deliver a "high-quality reading and writing experience." However, they also note that other Amazon e-readers offer a "slightly crisper black and white" reading experience.

"You may notice that the texture or brightness of the display looks different than the Kindle Scribe display. That’s because of the color filter layer that creates the easy on the eyes color reading experience on Kindle Scribe Colorsoft," reads an excerpt of the FAQ.

The page goes on to recommend one of Amazon's monochrome readers for customers who want the crispest reading experience. And it's likely correct, which is a surprising and welcome admission from any company, let alone Amazon.

Display tech

The folks at Good E-Reader claim most color e-readers today (like the Kobo Clara Colour) feature a Kaleido 3 e-paper display, which halves the resolution to 150ppi when in color mode. So if you're looking at a page in color and hold it side-by-side with the same page on a monochrome e-reader, the black and white version should look sharper.

The color is pretty good for comics, magazines, and more colorful PDFs. In our Kindle Colorsoft review, Tony Polanco praised the e-reader for reading comics and manga. However, he has found that the Paperwhite is sharper for regular black and white.

I've found that it's not a huge difference, but you might notice a slight fuzziness in side-by-side comparison.

Colorful alternatives

One of the advantages of an e-reader is that the e-paper display is easy on the eyes, especially in darker rooms. Adding color gives you more reading options, but it may not be the best way to read graphic novels and other hued texts.

We've found that the iPad is an excellent way to read comic books. The iPad Pro OLED (one of the best iPads and best tablets in general) features a vibrant OLED display, and its thinner design makes it more comfortable to hold. As we found, it's especially good for double-page spreads.

If you prefer the size of the Kindle, the iPad mini 7 is a great alternative that's cheaper than the Kindle Colorsoft Scribe and only marginally more expensive than the 16GB Kindle Colorsoft, which costs $249.

The current iPad Mini, meanwhile, starts at $499 for the base 128GB model.

When we compared the iPad Mini and the Kindle Paperwhit, we found that Apple's tablet is perfect for manga or comics thanks to great contrast and a similar size to Amazon's device.

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I am a big-time reader. I burn through books like they're going out of fashion, often committing to my next read before finishing my last. So when the Kindle Colorsoft — the e-reader I've been eyeing — was discounted for Prime Day last week, I snapped it up, thinking there was absolutely no harm in nabbing the newly released Kindle. But to my surprise, Amazon's first color e-reader has been plagued by an ongoing issue, and potentially some of its other models, too, due to Amazon's own actions.

As per multiple Reddit threads, Kindle Colorsoft users have found that "sideloading" e-books — the process of transferring e-books onto the device via the USB port or Wi-Fi from third-party libraries — failed to work correctly, as book covers did not appear on their device. The same issue was also found in older models, including one user's 2018 Paperwhite.

Undeterred, I attempted to sideload some new books via Calibre, a well-known program in the e-reader community, and was annoyed surprised to find that the book covers didn't appear in my Kindle's library either. Instead of seeing gorgeous, colorful covers of my latest fantasy reads (one of my main reasons for investing in the color version), I was greeted with bare title texts and authors' names, making my e-books look like boring PDF files.

Sideloaded kindle paperwhite / colorsoft from r/ereader

Upon further digging, Calibre's forum alleges that Amazon "deliberately broke this functionality in their ColorSoft and newer devices" to discourage users from reading third-party books on their devices.

While there is no real confirmation from the e-retailer that this was true or rolled out in a recent software update, it wouldn't be the first time that Amazon has blocked users from downloading e-books and their covers.

Back in February, Amazon removed the ability to download Kindle e-books to users' computers. This meant that users couldn't use files as a backup or convert them for use on another non-Kindle e-reader; they could only download books via Wi-Fi or through Amazon's own platforms. And we can't forget the incident that involved the ironic deletion of George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-four' and 'Animal Farm'.

That said, as per an Amazon spokesperson, "Kindle supports a variety of ways for customers to easily upload and read their own personal documents using Send to Kindle" — an Amazon-branded service used to send PDFs, Word documents and EPUBs to a user's Kindle library.

The spokesperson suggested that "some third-party files may display differently depending on how they’re created or formatted, but customers can continue to enjoy reading their personal documents across their Kindle devices and apps".

No true fix for the missing covers

Amazon has announced new Kindle devices at its hardware event today in New York City. Hosted by Panos Panay, the event — which also saw new Echo and Ring security devices announced — revealed the brand new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is joining the company's e-reader lineup alongside a standard Kindle Scribe 3.

The original Amazon Kindle Scribe is Amazon's tablet-sized e-reader with a stylus that launched back in 2022. We've had revisions since then, but this is the first time Amazon has given it a color display, and for comic book fans, this could be close to the perfect device.

The device has been on something of a diet, too. The latest model(s) come in at 5.4mm thin and weigh just 400g. According to Panay, the texture-molded glass display has a 12 millisecond latency when it comes to the pen input, which makes it feel just like "you're writing on paper".

That display has been made bigger, though. It's now 11 inches across up from last year's 10.2 inches.

The new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft boasts a customized chip and more memory, making it 40% faster on actions like page-turning and writing. There's also a non-color version, the regular Kindle Scribe 3, too.

We don't yet know how the new Kindles will hold up in terms of longevity, but Amazon says the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft will offer "weeks of battery life".

AI productivity updates

Because it's 2025, and we can't have anything without AI in it, Amazon has also listed a bunch of new AI features coming to the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.

Here's how the company pitches it:

• All-new Home: From our all-new Home, we’ve added Quick Notes so you can easily jot something down whenever inspiration strikes. You can also open recently opened and added books, documents, and notebooks.
• Access all your docs: With support for Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, it’s easy to import documents for mark-up and export annotated PDFs.
• AI-powered search: Search your notes naturally across your notebooks and you’ll get simple AI summaries. You can also dig deeper with follow-up questions.
• Send to Alexa+: Early next year, you’ll be able to send your notes and documents from Kindle Scribe to Alexa+ and have a conversation about them.
• Share notebooks with OneNote: Export your notes as converted text or as an embedded image to OneNote so you can keep them all in one place and keep editing from your laptop.
• Color pens and highlights: Write, draw, and annotate in one of 10 pen colors or highlight in one of 5 highlighter colors.
• Shading: Artists and creators can create smooth gradients and subtle tones with our new shader tool, giving you even more control over the depth and richness of your art.
• Workspace: Organize your documents, notebooks, books, and more in the same folder.

Pricing and availability

The Kindle Scribe 3 will be available starting at $499.99 and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft will be available starting at $629.99. Kindle Scribe without a front light will be available early next year for $429.99.

Currently, the products are limited to the U.S., but Amazon says it will be bringing them to the U.K and Germany in 2026.

Speaking of price, I should point out that if you're not fussed about the latest version, you might be pleased to learn Amazon has knocked $100 off the price of the original Scribe in the lead up to next week's Prime Day event.

If you want to know more about what's been announced, check out our up-to-the-minute Amazon live blog for the latest news.

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After overcoming a rather heinous reading slump, I have rediscovered my love for all things books. From burning through overrated 'romantasy' (romance/fantasy) novels to digesting the occasional biography, I spend all my free time reading, and now, my most-wished-for ereader has come within reach, making it easier to carry my favourite books with me everywhere.

The Kindle Colorsoft — the first ever colour Kindle — launched overseas late last year, but Amazon AU quietly released the device in July this year in Australia, listing it for a not-so-nice price of AU$399 for the 16GB model and AU$449 for the 32GB Signature Edition.

Since then, I've had an eye out for a discount, waiting with bated breath for a fair chunk of change to be knocked off the RRP. And after reading our glowing Kindle Colorsoft review, I knew it was the ereader that I wanted to get my hands on.

Right now, the Colorsoft has been discounted to AU$329 on Amazon — that's AU$70 off RRP! It’s the first discount in Australia on the colour Kindle, putting it within grasp for many a bookworm and entry-level ereader user (like me). Sure, it’s probably going to get a better discount when the second Prime Day sale in Australia takes place in October (even Black Friday sales aren’t too far away), but it's definitely worth considering if, like me, you've been eyeing this new Kindle.

Scoring an impressive 4.5 stars out of 5, our reviewer praised the Colorsoft’s sharp and vibrant display. A half star was knocked off as we thought the device was "decidedly expensive," given that it costs more than the entry-level Paperwhite and the Paperwhite Signature Edition. Even the Kobo Libra Colour is a better value at AU$379 with 32GB of storage and writing capabilities. But with this AU$70 discount on offer, this little niggle becomes almost irrelevant.

Thanks to its display, you can also enjoy book covers, comics and graphic novels in all their vibrant glory. You don't have to read colour texts to take full advantage of the display, as our reviewer found that the "monochrome performance remains strong" as black text benefits from the Colorsoft’s boosted contrast.

You can also fuel your reading addiction with Kindle Unlimited for AU$13p/m. Kindle Unlimited is similar to an online library, where you can "borrow" up to 20 books every month. The storefront is home to over 4 million ebooks and audiobooks; however, it’s important to note that Bluetooth connectivity is not available on any Kindle sold in Australia, so you can't listen to audiobooks via an Amazon ereader.

You'll need to be on the same page as me (pun very much intended) to snag this deal — this Kindle Colorsoft discount won't stick around long.

Amazon may be testing out a new smaller Kindle with a color display. Recently, a post appeared on the Kindle subreddit (spotted by The Verge) that showed off a device labeled as a prototype Kindle.

The Redditor, Successful_Bear4855 writing in Portuguese, shared a couple of images, one of which showed the device with the name Kindle Petit Color in the corner of the screen. The poster does claim that the name hasn’t been finalized by Amazon yet.

They went on to say that the device will launch in November of this year. The Kindle ColorSoft is among the best Kindle e-readers, but has been hard to recommend because of its much higher price.

The display on Petit Color is supposed to be much better than the one on the Kindle Colorsoft, with a greater density of color and the ability to adjust the intensity and saturation of individual colors. The poster also said in a comment that you can change the colors of the icons, like the battery, wifi, and shopping cart.

The text of an ebook you're reading can also be colored and will transition from say black through four different colors as you progress. Alongside the status bar, this would be an additional visual clue telling you how much of an ebook you’ve read.

At first glance, the prototype appears to be similarly sized to the basic black-and-white Kindle, though the poster says it will be smaller than the 11th-generation version of the Kindle. Successful_Bear added that the prototype does not feature a screen light, but the final edition will have one.

More from Tom's Guide

• Kindle Colorsoft vs Kobo Clara Colour: Which is the better color e-reader?
• These are the best Kindles you can buy right now
• I didn't love the Kindle Scribe when I reviewed it, but this new feature changed my mind

Amazon just announced two new versions of the Kindle Colorsoft — a more affordable 16GB Kindle Colorsoft at $249, and a Kids edition to bring that color e-ink display tech to a child-friendly device.

The current Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition retains its $279 asking price and has features like auto-adjusting front light, wireless charging, and 32 GB storage. And just like Amazon's other Kids edition options, the Kindle Colorsoft Kids comes bundled with a kid-friendly cover, a year of Amazon Kids+, parental controls and a two-year warranty.

The aforementioned cover comes in two colors: Fantasy River or Starlight Reading. This reader will also have learning features such as the OpenDyslexic font and Bluetooth connectivity to listen to audiobooks with a pair of the best wireless headsets. Naturally, there will be parental controls via the Amazon Parent Dashboard.

I reviewed the Kindle Colorsoft when it launched last year, and it has been my main Kindle ever since. Despite being a fan of this device, it has been difficult to recommend because of its steep asking price. While $249 is still expensive compared to a $159 Kindle Paperwhite or an even cheaper $109 base Kindle, the $30 discounted price is at least more palatable.

The Kindle Colorsoft Kids announcement isn’t exactly surprising, but it’s a nice option for parents who want to get their kids a Colorsoft. The $269 asking price is a bit steep, but you at least get a year of Amazon Kids+. That service offers a range of age-appropriate content like books, movies, educational apps and games, which could be well worth it for parents. The bundled cover is also a great bonus—and a necessary accessory for keeping the tablet safe.

The 16GB Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Colorsoft Kids are available now on Amazon. If their respective prices are a tad steep, I’m sure we’ll see price reductions during the next Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday. As always, we’ll keep you posted!

More from Tom's Guide

• Real books are good, but Kindles are better
• No Kindle? No problem: 5 places to buy DRM-free e-books
• Kindle Colorsoft vs Kobo Clara Colour

You might be paying too much for your e-books when you can get them for free from your local library and read them right on your Kindle, Kobo, or even your phone.

A lot of people don't realize their local public library offers ebooks, which are often more convenient to check out than physical books (and get automatically returned on time so you don't get late fees).

I've saved a ton of time and money by getting my e-books from the library, and it's a lot easier than you might think, whether you're on Kindle or Kobo.

Getting started with a library card and Libby

Regardless of what type of e-reader you're using, you need to get set up with your local library first.

If you don't already have a library card, stop by your nearest public library, where you can usually get one for free in just a few minutes. While you're there, it's also a good idea to ask if your public library system offers e-books. Most public libraries do, but it's not a guarantee.

Next, you'll want to download the Libby app for Android or iOS. Most libraries in the U.S. that offer e-books go through Libby. You can search for, check out, renew and read e-books in the Libby app. If you're using a Kobo e-reader, you don't absolutely need it, but it's a must-have for Kindle users.

After you download the Libby app, all you need to do is enter your library card info in the app to access your library's e-books.

How to read library books on your Kindle

The easiest way to read library books on your Kindle is by going through the Libby app. Once you find the book you want, check it out and head over to the "Shelf" tab on Libby.

Select your book from the list and tap "Manage Loan." Here you should see a "Read With…" option. Tap it and choose "Kindle" to connect to your Amazon account and send the library book to your Kindle.

The next time your Kindle syncs up, you should see the library book in your Kindle library. You can download, read, and annotate it like any other Kindle book but once your library loan expires, you won't be able to open it anymore unless you renew the loan, which you can do through Libby.

You can return library books from your Kindle by tapping the three dots icon on the library e-book's cover and selecting "return early." Any other changes to your library loan have to be made through Libby, though.

How to read library books on your Kobo

There are a couple of ways to check out library e-books on your Kobo e-reader. My preferred method is to do everything directly through my Kobo without going through the Libby app.

On the Home screen on your Kobo you should see an option for "OverDrive." That's the legacy system for circulating library e-books. Libby is a newer version of the same thing, but Kobo still uses OverDrive. It's all the same books, though.

Tap the "OverDrive" tab on your Home screen and you should get a pop up screen where you can connect your library card to your Kobo to access all of your library's e-books. If you don't see that option on your Home screen, there's also an OverDrive option in your Kobo settings under the "More" tab.

OverDrive load times can be a tad slow on Kobo, but it's worth it. Once you have your card connected, you will see an option on all available books in the Kobo store to "Borrow with OverDrive" instead of buying the book.

That means you don't need to go to a different app or device. You can simply search for whatever book you want on the "Discover" tab on your Kobo and see if it's available at your library just by tapping the three dots icon next to the book's "Buy" and "Wishlist" buttons.

After you check out a book, it will appear in your "My Books" tab where it should show up as an "OverDrive" book with the days left in your loan displayed below your reading progress. Like on Kindle, once the loan expires the book will stay in your library but you'll need to renew your loan to open it again.

You can also check out library e-books to read on your Kobo through the Libby app, but it's not as straightforward.

Once you check out a book in the app, select it on your shelf and select "Manage Loan" then "Read With…" then "More Options" and choose "EPUB." This will let you download a DRM-protected EPUB version of the ebook, which you can manually send to your Kobo using the Adobe Digital Editions app.

Reading library books on your e-reader: FAQs

The steps above should be all you need to get started reading library books on your e-reader, but if you're new to e-readers or using them to check out library books, you might still have a few questions.

• Q: How do you place a hold on library ebooks on Kindle and Kobo?
  A: Like physical books, libraries don't have unlimited copies of ebooks they can lend out, so you might find that a book you want is currently unavailable, meaning you'll need to place a hold to get on the waitlist for it.
  
  If you're on Kindle, the easiest way to do this is through the Libby app. Simply search for the book you want and select the option to "place a hold." When it's your turn for the e-book, you'll get a notification from the Libby app.
  
  If you're on Kobo, when you search for the e-book you're looking for, the option to "Borrow with OverDrive" will say "Place a hold with OverDrive" if the book is currently unavailable. Simply tap that to join the waitlist. Then you'll get a notification on your Home screen (a badge on the bell icon at the top of the screen) when your turn for the ebook comes up.
• Q: Can you get library late fines for ebooks?
  A: No, which is one of the most convenient benefits of reading library books on your ereader. When the due date for your ebook arrives, it will be automatically returned, so you'll never get late fees. This applies regardless of whether you're reading on a Kindle, Kobo, or in an e-reader app like the Kindle or Libby apps.
• Q: Can you check out e-books from the library if you don't have an e-reader?
  A: Yes! Some may be surprised to learn that you don't need an e-reader to read e-books from your local library. As long as you have a library card and your library offers e-books, you can read them for free through the Kindle app, the Kobo app, or the Libby app.

More from Tom's Guide

• I read 100 books a year —and Meta AI struggled to come up with new recommendations
• I never liked e-readers, but the Kindle app on my phone has converted me
• No Kindle? No problem: 5 places to buy DRM-free e-books

Ever gotten so lost in a book series that you don't remember a particular character's arc or the ending of the last novel? Thanks to an AI-automated summary feature for Kindle devices, you’ll be back on track in no time.

Simply known as Recaps, the new feature acts like a "Previously on…" television segment, giving readers a quick refresher on storylines and characters before reading the next book in a series. This feature, however, is only available for books borrowed (aka via Prime Reading or Kindle Unlimited) or purchased from the Kindle Store and, of course, across ebooks in a series.

Users can access the new feature by downloading the 5.18.1 update on a 10th-gen or newer Kindle device. Once updated, readers should look for the “View Recaps” button in the series page in the Kindle Library or the “View Recaps” item within the series grouping three-dot menu. If the "View Recaps" button isn't available, the feature is inaccessible for that series.

Tap, tap the side to turn

Another great feature included in the latest software update is Double Tap to Page Turn. As the name suggests, the feature can be switched on in Kindle settings, and instead of pressing the screen, users can double-tap the Kindle's frame to turn a page or scroll down (i.e. on the Home or Library screen).

This is a fantastic new addition that makes Kindles with no physical page-turn buttons easier to use in one hand. There’s one disadvantage though: you can only move forward with double taps when reading, and users will have to rely on the usual screen taps to go back.

Both of these features are a real page turner for Kindle users, as they allow forgetful readers (like me) to recap a previous book or flip through pages without smudging the device's screen. So far, Double Tap is available globally, whereas Recaps has only rolled out on Kindle devices in the US and on the iOS app. Amazon has not confirmed when it will be accessible for readers globally.

How does Recaps work?

While the company's press release doesn't explicitly mention the use of AI in Kindle's new feature, it has been confirmed in a statement to TechCrunch. As per an Amazon spokesperson, "we use technology, including GenAI and Amazon moderators, to create short recaps of books that accurately reflect book content".

This isn't Amazon's only foray into using AI across its devices. The Kindle Scribes have AI summaries and handwriting recognition, while Ring cameras recently introduced a Smart Video Search for premium subscribers, using text-to-image prompts to scour saved footage.

Readers have raised some red flags on Reddit about these AI-powered features, with concerns about recap accuracy and how Amazon plans to ensure that moderator checks are actually completed. The company claims recaps do accurately reflect content, but we have reached out for verification of these processes. We'll keep you updated on how this narrative pans out.

The Kindle (2024) is the latest entry-level e-reader from Amazon. As always, the base model Kindle delivers on the essentials, providing a crisp display that boasts the same features as the panel on the Kindle Paperwhite (2024).

With a smaller footprint than others in the line-up, this Kindle is ultra-portable and easier to hold. Surprisingly, this device excels at displaying manga. Though smaller than the average manga volume, the display makes details even sharper. The 6-week battery life, which is likely closer to two or three weeks in real-world scenarios, doesn’t disappoint.

Unlike the 2022 Kindle, which underwent a significant redesign, the 2024 Kindle stays largely the same. Aside from a slightly brighter display, the device isn’t much different from its predecessor. And while we liked the older model enough to give it a 4-star review three years ago, this new Kindle offers essentially the same experience for $10 more.

The Kindle (2024) remains a solid, budget-friendly e-reader for those who want a bare-bones device. While this is probably the best Kindle for most people, it leaves me wanting more.

Kindle (2024) review: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? This is the 11th-generation entry-level Kindle from Amazon.
• Who is it for? For people who want a simple e-reader that doesn't cost too much.
• What does it cost? The Kindle (2024) costs $109 on Amazon
• What do we like? The portable design, ergonomics, and battery life.
• What don't we like? Higher price tag than the previous version, has no dust or water protection, and has a small storage capacity.

Kindle (2024) review: Specs

Kindle (2024) review: The ups

The entry-level Kindle doesn't have all the bells and whistles of its higher-end counterparts but it manages to impress thanks to its portable design, sharp display and decent battery life.

Ergonomic and portable

This Kindle is the most portable e-reader I've ever used. It easily fits in my jeans’ back pocket and it's durable enough that I don't have to remove it when sitting down. Whether I'm going for a walk or taking the train, I can stash this Kindle in any pocket before heading out. This is great for me because I find it hard to read at home — there are too many distractions. While I still haven't made significant headway on my backlog of e-books, this Kindle makes it more manageable.

If you want a smaller e-reader backed by a company that will continue to update it for years, the Kindle is a good choice. The 6-inch display, though a turn-off to some, makes this Kindle an absolute pleasure to use. I can hold it in one hand for long periods and feel no fatigue, and I can easily grip it on the sides for extra security when lying on my back.

The one minor setback is the placement of the power button, which is where I typically rest my pinky. It's not a dealbreaker because the button requires more force than the graze of a pinky to actuate. However, it's worth mentioning. Having the power button at the top makes more sense.

Classic Kindle reading experience

I've owned several Kindles over the years, but I still rock the Kindle Oasis—boy, do I miss buttons on e-readers. Though the Oasis is getting old, its frequent updates have kept it relevant, making switching to the new Kindle seamless. If you have used a Kindle in the last few years, the experience won't shock you. Expect the same interface and settings.

When reading Seven Games: A Human History, I adjusted the font size and switched to the OpenDyslexic font, which is helpful for concentration. You can also adjust the layout, including changing the margins, spacing, alignment, and switching between portrait and landscape orientations. You can also find other essential features such as highlighting, note-taking, bookmarks, and jumping to chapters or sections.

My favorite feature, Lookup, is also available on this Kindle and lets you look up definitions and Wikipedia entries by highlighting a word or phrase. The review unit I received was set to Italian by default, so I had to download the Oxford Dictionary of English to get it to work.

Outside of the reading experience, this Kindle offers an interface that's easy to navigate. Hitting the kebab menu on the homepage lets you view your lists, Goodreads, the web browser, and your settings. The home screen is too busy for my taste, but at least it scrolls fast enough. Speaking of speed, browsing the Kindle Store is not bad at all. It's not lightning-fast, but it's also not frustratingly slow.

The dropdown menu on the Kindle is the main hub for enabling settings such as airplane mode, Bluetooth, sync, brightness, and dark mode. You can also jump to the settings page from here. In the settings menu, you can view device information and wireless settings but don't expect the kind of robust settings menu found on the best phones.

As with any Kindle, you can find your Send-to-Kindle email in the settings page, a feature that lets you send books and other media directly to your Kindle via email. This setting has saved me from a boring trip on more than one occasion, including when I went camping last year.

Great for reading manga

When you think of the Kindle, you think of books, not comics or manga. Yet, the Kindle is one of the best devices for reading manga. The display is smaller than a volume of manga, which is called a tankōbon, but that doesn't bother me. Sure, words are smaller and harder to read, but manga looks crisp on the 300 ppi display — the 94 nits of brightness, which is the same as the Kindle Paperwhite, keeps everything illuminated even in direct light.

Reading through the first volume of Vinland Saga, I noticed every little detail, which made me appreciate the work of the manga artist a lot more. The pages flip just as fast as if reading a book, and ghosting is barely noticeable. You have to squint to really notice it. Another plus is that the Kindle automatically flips the book's orientation, so you can flip pages from left to right as manga is meant to be read.

Arguably the best part of reading manga on this Kindle, or any Kindle for that matter, is access to Amazon's huge library of manga. You can purchase digital volumes of almost any manga you can think of, saving you shelf space in the long run. With a subscription to Amazon's Comixology Unlimited, you can access loads of manga titles, including heavyweights like Attack on Titan and Fire Force. Unfortunately, this subscription only provides access to a fraction of the available volumes —- e.g., the first 11 volumes of Fire Force. As a gateway to popular manga titles, that's not a bad deal for $5.99 monthly, especially because you can read thousands of comics and graphic novels on other devices.

Strong battery life

Amazon claims the Kindle has 6 weeks of battery life, but there are some caveats. To get 6 weeks on a single charge, you have to shut off wireless, read no more than 30 minutes per day, and keep the backlight level at 13. In other words, take that claim with a grain, or large pinch, of salt. A 6-week battery life is unlikely for more people. What's more realistic is a few weeks. That will vary based on the light level, reading time, and use of wireless features.

During my time with this device, I put the battery through its paces by cranking up the screen brightness to the max. In that time, I read for about five hours over four days and kept the wireless features turned on. I lost about a quarter of the battery in that time. Theoretically, if I were to continue at the same pace, I would have to recharge roughly every two weeks.

My advice is to lower the brightness and shut off the wireless features unless you're downloading media, which will lower battery usage when idle. Do that, and you can likely get away with charging once or twice a month.

Kindle (2024) review: The downs

Like the previous base Kindle model, this Kindle is good but far from perfect. Rather than fixing the flaws of the previous iteration, this new Kindle mostly stays the same while costing more. The lack of a version with more storage and no protection against water or dust makes it a lackluster follow-up to the 2022 Kindle.

Few upgrades for a higher price

Look behind the fun matcha color and you'll find a Kindle that's virtually the same as the 2022 model.

Ostensibly, there was no reason to fix what wasn't broken, especially since the 2022 Kindle was a big refresh that included a higher resolution display and double the storage than the model before. Yet, calling this a new Kindle and charging $10 more because the screen is a little bit brighter deserves to be called out.

In this economy, no one is immune to inflation, but you still have to offer something new when raising a product's price. To be fair, the display on this Kindle is as bright as the Paperwhite. But brighter lighting isn’t enough. The Kindle has the same design and virtually the same specs as the Kindle from two years ago, and the same flaws as well.

Paltry amount of storage

With the last iteration of the base model Kindle, Amazon doubled the internal storage to a grand total of 16GB, bringing it up to speed with modern standards. That's more than plenty for storing thousands of books. Yet, it's not nearly enough for manga or audiobooks.

Manga file sizes vary depending on the file type and the length of the manga volume. Typically, you can expect a volume of manga to take up as little as a few hundred megabytes to as much as a gigabyte or more. For example, the first volume of Vinland Saga is nearly a gigabyte, and it's just one of 13 available volumes. That severely limits the device, capping storage at a few dozen volumes of manga. Audiobooks also vary in file size, but they are typically around a few hundred megabytes, putting you in the same position.

I won't waste time roasting Amazon for not including a microSD card slot — that ship sailed a long time ago — but it is frustrating that there isn't a basic Kindle version with 32GB of storage, which is something that is offered with the new Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition. The only fix is to constantly delete older files as you download new ones. It's doable, if not a bit annoying.

Slow downloads

Downloading manga on this device takes longer than I'm used to. When downloading the same volume of manga on the latest iPad Mini and the 2024 Kindle, the iPad beats the Kindle by over 5 minutes. Despite being an unfair comparison, it paints a picture of how the Kindle stacks up to modern devices when it comes to downloading files.

It's not a dealbreaker if you're downloading a few volumes of manga every month. However, if you like to stock up on downloading media before a big trip, it will take you a long time. Good luck downloading several volumes of manga via the airport Wi-Fi before your flight.

No water or dust protection

Many modern devices have some form of water and dust protection. It's become so standard that I hardly look for it anymore. In this case, the lack of protection stands out because this is a device meant to be taken everywhere.

I don't expect the Kindle to be completely waterproof. That would be too much to ask from a budget device. What bothers me is that it's not even water-resistant. A slight drizzle or coffee spill could ruin this device.

Other Kindles, which have bezels that are flush with the screen, offer this type of protection, making them more expensive. With Amazon charging $10 more for a device launched two years ago, this could have been the feature that justified the $10 price hike. Instead, we have a super portable e-reader that becomes a liability as soon as it's overcast.

Kindle (2024) review: Verdict

The Kindle (2024) is as good as the model that came out two years before because it's effectively the same device. You get a small e-reader that's the ideal companion when leaving the house or going on a trip. The bright, crisp display lacks color temperature adjustment, but it's every bit as good as the display on the more expensive Paperwhite model.

Although this Kindle delivers the same basic experience as the previous model, it's more expensive while only offering a bump in brightness. Instead of buying this Kindle new, try to get a used or refurbished 2022 Kindle; you'll get the same experience at a fraction of the cost. If you’d rather have this model, you can wait until Amazon Prime Days to get a better deal.

You have just over a week to download your Kindle e-books before Amazon removes the ability to download them to your computer.

Starting Feb. 26, 2025 (via ZDNet) you will no longer be able to download copies of your Kindle books and use those files as a backup. After that date, you will only be able to download books via Wi-Fi or through the Amazon platforms.

Most people probably won't notice this latest example of an Amazon service getting worse, but the feature has existed for over a decade and is useful for backing up your purchases or converting them to formats compatible with other non-Kindle e-Readers or devices. It's also useful for those times when you don't have access to Wi-Fi, and of course, there's peace of mind knowing you have copies of your books.

This is not the first time Amazon has made a sweeping change to its Kindle platform that changes how or when customers can use the books they've purchased. In the past the company has removed books from its online store and remotely deleted them from Kindles or replaced books with edited or updated versions. The most famous incident involved the ironic deletion of George Owell's 'Nineteen Eighty-four' and 'Animal Farm', though at the time the company said that the books had been mistakenly published to its platform. More recently, in 2023, a number of Roald Dahl books were updated with 'censored versions.'

All in all it is a reminder that you don't actually own many or most of your digital purchases, as what you are typically actually "buying" are licenses to use content that can be revoked at any time.

Here are some alternatives

If you find this decision annoying and want to find alternatives, here are a few.

To start, might we recommend the Libbyapp which lets you borrow ebooks from your local library. You can also borrow audiobooks. Personally, I haven't bought an ebook from Amazon since I setup the app on my phone. You can use multiple library cards, sample books and tag titles at your leisure. It lets you send the ebook to your Kindle. If you have a different device it will let you download an EPUB version that you can send to your Kobo or Nook.

Speaking of, it may be time to give another e-reader a try like the Kobo Clara Colour or the Nook GlowLight 4. Kindles tend to be among the best e-readers but there are others, like the ReMarkable Paper Pro, that offer an alternative.

You can also try purchasing books from places like Google Books and Apple Books, both of which offer a number of ebooks. eBooks.com offers DRM free books and EPUB formats.

For those looking for free ebooks there is always Project Gutenberg which has over 75,000 free books largely those in the public domain though there are some more recent titles as well.

How to download your e-books for now

Currently, you can download purchased books from your content library on Amazon. You'll need to log in to your account go to Accounts & Lists and click on Content Library in the menu. From there you can see all of the Amazon content you own including ebooks, music and some videos. Your books will be under the Books icon.

For now, when you go to a book you want to download you have to click More actions in the book's menu and then Download & transfer via USB.

You will see this warning:

So, if you want to download your books, you're going to have to get going, especially if you happen to own a lot of Kindle books. It will take a minute but could be well worth the hassle if you ever want to read your Kindle books on anything other than a Kindle again.

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Amazon released a new version of the Kindle Scribe firmware this week that adds a new expandable margin feature for taking notes, and after using it myself I think it makes one of the best e-readers a little bit better for note-takers.

This is kind of a big deal because the Scribe's note-taking features have been a little lackluster since launch.

When Amazon released the Kindle Scribe in 2022, the fact that it was the first Kindle e-reader you could read and write on was pretty neat. But the software felt less than snappy, and taking notes in e-books was a lot less fun and intuitive than just writing them down in the Scribe's separate notebook feature.

Two years later Amazon followed it up with the 2024 Kindle Scribe, and when I reviewed it last year I found a lot to like about Amazon's decision to improve the design and include the Premium Pen stylus with all units.

But as you can read in my Kindle Scribe (2024) review, this e-paper slate still isn't great about letting you take notes directly on a document. When you're reading an ebook or other document you can either make "sticky notes" that auto-hide the text you're writing unless you tap on a small note icon that appears on the text, or you can use the Scribe's "Active Canvas" feature to create empty spaces alongside the text that you can then write or draw in.

The "Active" part of Active Canvas kicks in when the Kindle attempts to reformat text around your note boxes, which I personally found more of a hassle than a help because text often became awkward or frustrating to read.

Now there's a new expandable margin feature that lets you access a persistent, hideable margin on every page where you can jot down notes. The rough location of those notes in the text are then marked with note icons, so you can see which pages have notations in the margins and which don't.

To access these new margins, you just tap a new margin button that now appears along the edge of the screen. This summons an adjustable margin that can expand to cover roughly 1/3 or 2/3 of the screen, with the e-paper text adapting to fit the remaining space.

I think this minor upgrade is bigger than it seems if you take a lot of notes on texts, because I find it makes annotating a text on a Kindle Scribe easier than it was a month ago.

While these new expandable margins don't eliminate my quibble that the Scribe stumbles by forcing you to take notes "off" the page in areas separated from the text, the margins do make it easier to quickly skim the annotations you've made as you move through a text. Since you can keep the margin open as you flip between pages, you're not stuck waiting until you see a little note icon and then tapping it with your finger or stylus to read each individual annotation.

Instead, you can leave the margin open as you read through the text and see every note you've made alongside the text where you made it. And since the Kindle doesn't have to do as much work reformatting the text to accommodate the margin as it does to accommodate notes you make on the text, it's a lot easier to quickly skim through a novel or textbook and see all the notes you've made without ruining the layout of the text.

Outlook

This is ultimately a minor update for the Kindle Scribe, but it does make the device easier to use in my experience and is a nice little upgrade for Scribe owners who take a lot of notes.

I also think this complicates the question of whether to buy a Kindle Scribe (2024) vs. Remarkable Paper Pro a bit, because one of the clear weaknesses of the Scribe vs. Remarkable's color e-paper tablet is the fact that the Paper Pro accommodates you taking notes directly on the text.

That means you can scribble notes around words, cross out things you don't like, doodle in the margins and generally do almost everything on the Paper Pro that you could with a pen on a real paper book.

The Kindle Scribe still can't match that intuitive ease of use, but these new expandable margins do make it a lot easier to take notes on texts and review those notes quickly. It's a big upgrade for note-takers that own a Kindle Scribe, and I think it makes the device a bit better than it was at launch — which is all you can ask from a good update.

More from Tom's Guide

• Real books are good, but Kindles are better
• No Kindle? No problem: 5 places to buy DRM-free e-books
• I never liked e-readers, but the Kindle app on my phone has converted me

When it comes to Kindles, Amazon has not had a great week. It started with reports that new Kindle Colorsoft owners were seeing a distracting yellow band at the bottom of the display.

Soon after, it was alleged that Amazon was cancelling Colorsoft shipments. The shopping giant has acknowledged the display flaws and offered refunds and replacements for affected Colorsoft owners. "We’re making the appropriate adjustments to ensure that new devices will not experience this issue moving forward," a spokesperson told Tom's Guide. At the time, it was not revealed what might be causing the yellowing issue.

But now, we might have an idea of why the flaw appeared. Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote on X that the issue has been traced to Amazon utilising a different version of a component for the Colorsoft display than the one used on the best Kindles with a monochrome screen.

Kuo wrote, "Amazon's use of a different OCA [optically clear adhesive] than that used in grayscale e-paper displays. This change was implemented to enhance the limited contrast capabilities of E Ink's Kaleido color e-paper technology. While component suppliers have developed several hardware solutions, Amazon seems to be leaning toward a software-based fix."

Assuming this is correct, whatever adhesive Amazon picked appears to degrade quickly, causing the yellowing problem.

We should note that in our review of the Kindle Colorsoft, the yellowing issue was never a problem. We've checked the device multiple times since the reports started coming and the Kindle we tested does not appear to have the yellow band.

Tom's Guide has reached out to Amazon to confirm that the adhesive is behind the yellow band and will update this article if the company responds.

Presumably, Amazon either via software or hardware fixes, will have the problem resolved soon so future models of the Colorsoft shouldn't have a yellow band.

Still, if you're looking to try the first Kindle with a color display and willing to roll the dice, it will hit the wallet for $279.99 / £269.99. As we said in our review, "this is the Kindle I've been waiting for. It really is a terrific device." Once the stripe issue is resolved, it might be the Kindle to get.

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This week started with reports from owners of the new Kindle Colorsoft e-reader claiming that a distracting yellow band appeared at the bottom of the screen. Amazon acknowledged that they were aware of the issue. 

Yesterday, it was reported that Amazon was canceling Kindle Colorsoft shipments. That information appeared to come from random Reddit posts. 

Tom's Guide contacted Amazon to confirm if shipments were canceled and to get more information about the display issue. 

An Amazon spokesperson responded today, saying, "A small number of customers have reported a yellow band along the bottom of the display."

"We take the quality of our products seriously — customers who notice this can reach out to our customer service team for a replacement or refund, and we’re making the appropriate adjustments to ensure that new devices will not experience this issue moving forward," the spokesperson went on.

Amazon did not confirm if shipments have been paused, though. It was said that availability dates may shift as new and replacement devices are made available. Nor did they provide information on what "adjustments" are being made to remove the yellow band. 

We are not certain if the band is a software or hardware issue, though since Amazon is offering replacements, we are inclined to believe the issue is hardware-related.

If it is a hardware problem, we will see shipping delays as Amazon works to fix already produced Colorsoft devices or manufacture new ones with the fix in place.

An Amazon spokesperson said that Colorsoft should still be usable despite the yellow screen. We have been told that turning off the e-reader and leaving it off for a few minutes should resolve the issue, though we do not know if the issue will return after doing so.

In our Kindle Colorsoft review, we did not experience the reported yellow bar. We even gave the device a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, praising the vibrant color display. Despite the high marks, we did ding the e-reader because it was priced nearly double the Paperwhite and Paperwhite Signature Edition.

Since the issue started, we have been checking the device but have been unable to recreate the problem.

Enough people are experiencing the problem, and it wouldn't surprise us if Amazon issued a recall to take the issue's core.

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In mid-October, Amazon introduced four new Kindles, including the company's first-ever e-reader with a color display on Colorsoft. As we go into November, devices are supposed to be getting into people's hands, but suddenly, they are encountering problems.

Earlier today, it was reported that new Colorsoft owners are reporting a strange yellow strip on the display. An Amazon spokesperson told The Verge that it was aware of the yellow issue and is looking into it.

The folks over at Good e-Reader are reporting that Amazon is "canceling" shipments of the Colorsoft, at least until after November 26. According to their report, the delay could be through November 18 in the United States and November 26 in the UK. 

Supposedly, Amazon is holding any pre-ordered Kindle Colorsoft e-readers in warehouses due to the yellow stripe on the display. Purportedly, Amazon is working on a software update, or that is, Good e-Reader is claiming Amazon has told customers. 

We are taking this report with a grain of salt, as they did not provide any sources or quotes from anyone who has dealt with Amazon reaching out to them about their orders or the display issues. It's unclear where the information is coming from.

Tom's Guide has contacted Amazon to confirm that shipments are being paused and to comment on the yellow stripe claims. We will update this story if Amazon responds. 

Here is what we do know regarding the Colorsoft display. According to customer complaints, some people see a yellow bar on the bottom of their display, which Amazon is aware of. Supposedly, turning off the e-reader and leaving it off for a few minutes before restarting the Kindle might resolve the yellow bar issue.

In our review, we did not notice a yellowing on the Colorsoft that we used. We found the newest Kindle, which was so good that it immediately made our best e-readers list.

Otherwise, one annoyance is that the Kindle Colorsoft does not have Dark Mode, which Amazon acknowledges on the Colorsoft store page. "Dark Mode is currently not available on this device. Customers can enable a similar reading experience within millions of books using the Page Color feature, which, like Dark Mode, inverts the book page color to black and the book text color to white." 

It's not quite the same.

If your order has been canceled or pushed out to a future November date, please contact us and share your experience. 

Amazon responds

Amazon responded to Tom's Guide and acknowledged the yellow band issue. 

“A small number of customers have reported a yellow band along the bottom of the display," a spokesperson said. "We take the quality of our products seriously—customers who notice this can reach out to our customer service team for a replacement or refund, and we’re making the appropriate adjustments to ensure that new devices will not experience this issue moving forward."

Amazon spokespeople did not confirm that shipping has been halted or that Kindle Colorsofts are just sitting around in warehouses. However, it was said that availability dates may shift as new and replacement devices are made available as the "adjustments" are made to remove the yellow band. What those adjustments are was not stated. 

It is unclear if this is a software or hardware issue, though since Amazon is offering replacements, we're inclined to think it's a hardware issue.

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A new slate of Kindles only hit shelves last month, but problems are already being reported. New owners of Amazon's ereader, the Kindle Colorsoft, have documented an issue where the device is sporting a discolored, yellow-like band at the bottom of the screen.

As first reported by The Verge, Reddit users have highlighted the issue, stating the yellow discoloration is noticeable when the Kindle "is supposed to be evenly lit and colored like a piece of paper". Some users have reported the issue to Amazon and have exchanged the faulty device for a new one or returned it, while others have only noticed the strip while using the ereader's edge lighting mode.

Colorsoft has yellow tinge to bottom of display from r/kindle

Several users have contacted Amazon's customer support to report the issue, with support agents suggesting that the problem may be software-related, and could be fixed by a software update. However, others have reported that the yellow tinge only occurred on their device after updating to the latest operating system.

There's no confirmation of how widespread the problem actually is, but an Amazon spokesperson told The Verge that the e-commerce giant was aware of the issue. They also suggest that customers contact the customer service team if they notice any discoloration on their devices.

Is the pricier Kindle worth it?

In our Kindle Colorsoft review, we gave the device an impressive 4.5 stars out of 5, praising its sharp and vibrant color display. While we didn’t experience any of the discoloration that’s been reported by users, we had already knocked a few marks off as we thought the device was "decidedly expensive" as it is $120 more than the entry-level Paperwhite and $80 more than the Paperwhite Signature Edition.

Reviews on the Kindle Colorsoft listing are also rather mixed — with an average of 2.6 stars out of 5 over 363 ratings. The ereader is the first Kindle that allows users to read their titles in color, sparking popularity among graphic novel fans. However, one of the top reviews on the listing gives the device 1 star, as the screen was muted and the user found the yellow band to be rather "distracting" and disruptive to the reading experience that Kindles typically provide.

The Kindle Colorsoft is only available on Amazon US, so here's hoping that any issues will be fixed before Amazon rolls out the model globally. As always, we will keep you updated if this problem continues to persist.

Amazon has finally released its first color Kindle, the Kindle Colorsoft. The new e-reader features the same 7-inch screen, fast performance and overall design of the latest Kindle Paperwhite — only it can display color images. For Kindle fanatics like myself, the Colorsoft is arguably the best Kindle yet.

We posted a quick hands-on with the Kindle Colorsoft on TikTok, which generated more than a million views and hundreds of comments. One of the most frequent comments we received was about how the Kobo Clara Colour was a worthy rival and potentially a better color e-reader than Kindle’s device. We decided to put that to the test.

Is the Kindle Colorsoft truly the best color e-reader or does that honor go to the Kobo Clara Colour? Below, I’ll go over each of their core features to try to answer this question.

Editor’s note: While the Kobo Libra Colour has a 7-inch display like the Kindle Colorsoft, we’re comparing Amazon’s e-reader to the Clara Colour since that’s the one folks in our TikTok video specifically mentioned.

Kindle Colorsoft vs Kobo Clara Colour: Price

The Kindle Colorsoft is a premium e-reader that commands an equally premium price. Right now, Amazon’s color Kindle costs $279. That’s $120 more than the entry-level Paperwhite and $80 more than the Paperwhite Signature Edition. 

In contrast, the Kobo Clara Colour costs $149, which is $130 less than the Colorsoft and even $10 less than the entry-level Paperwhite. If price is your main concern, then the Clara Color is the clear winner.

Kindle Colorsoft vs Kobo Clara Colour: Display

The main selling point of both the Colorsoft and Clara Colour centers around their color e-reader displays. Though they share that commonality, their respective screens don’t deliver the same experience.

The Colorsoft has a 7-inch display whereas the Clara Colour has a 6-inch screen. Since the former is larger, it can fit more text on the page (depending on your font size). Reading comics on the Colorsoft is also easier thanks to the display’s size.

Differences don’t stop at screen size, however. Though each device has a 300ppi resolution, everything appears sharper and clearer on the Colorsoft. This is especially true for color content, which looks noticeably blurrier and washed out on the Clara Colour. Text and images in monochrome books also appear clearer on the Colorsoft. I also find the Colorsoft’s LED lights can get much brighter.

While I can’t say things look terrible on the Clara Colour, I’m giving this round to the Kindle Colorsoft, which offers the better screen across the board.

Kindle Colorsoft vs Kobo Clara Colour: Performance

While neither e-reader is as fast and snappy as the iPad mini 7, Kindle’s reader has better performance than Kobo’s.

You really see the difference when flipping through comic books. I noticed it took the Clara Colour about a second or two to switch to the next page, whereas pages on the Colorsoft flipped about a split second after I touched the screen. Worst still for the Clara Colour are instances of ghosting, where you can see elements of the previous page.

The Kobo reader performs better with monochrome pages but the Colorsoft is still much faster in this area. Navigating through menus is also significantly faster on Amazon’s device.

Kindle Colorsoft vs Kobo Clara Colour: Design

The Kindle Colorsoft shares the same design as the new Kindle Paperwhite, which itself shares the same basic design as its predecessors. The e-reader’s sturdy all-black matte chassis not only looks great but is also comfortable to hold for long periods. The flush display also gives the device an air of elegance. Though I wish the power button weren’t located on the bottom where it’s easy to accidentally hit, the Colorsoft has the design I’ve come to love.

In comparison, the Kobo Clara Colour doesn’t look or feel as premium thanks to its hard plastic chassis. It also looks tiny next to the Colorsoft since it’s a smaller device. But in its defense, the Clara Colour is easier to hold in one hand due to its smaller size and lesser weight. Also, the Kobo e-reader smartly has a power button on the back, where it’s difficult to accidentally press.

The Clara Colour is a practically-designed e-reader that serves its purpose of letting you comfortably read almost anywhere you want. However, the Kindle Colorsoft has the overall better design — even with its bad power button placement.

Kindle Colorsoft vs Kobo Clara Colour: Libraries

One of the Kindle Colorsoft’s biggest advantages is its integration with Amazon, which gives you access to millions of books. This not only includes books you can purchase individually on the website but also a host of others available on the Kindle Unlimited subscription service. If you’re a serious bookworm, paying $12 a month for an “unlimited” amount of books is a no-brainer.

Speaking of integration, we can’t forget about Goodreads, which is Amazon’s reader-focused social network and a big component of what makes the Kindle experience so satisfying. You’re easily able to update your progress in a book and leave a review when you’ve finished it. Goodreads also does a decent job of recommending books based on your preferences. Though Goodreads is easier to use on desktop or mobile devices, you can perform the basics well enough right on the Kindle.

While its integration with Amazon is one of the Kindle’s greatest strengths, it’s also one of its major weaknesses since you’re effectively tied to the ecosystem. The main flaw is that you can only buy books from Amazon. And while you can add EPUB and PDF files to your Kindle, doing so requires you to go through the Amazon Send website, which can be a hassle.

On the other hand, Kobo doesn’t restrict you to its online store as you get access to other booksellers across the world. The e-reader also supports multiple file types and makes it easier to sideload them. You can even install different font types, which is a nice touch. And if you’re traveling internationally, it’s easier to borrow books from different countries on Kobo than it is on Amazon.

Kindle Colorsoft vs Kobo Clara Colour: Bottom line

Both the Kindle Colorsoft and Kobo Clara Colour are great e-readers. Though I personally prefer the Colorsoft due to its larger and sharper display, faster performance, better build quality and integration with Amazon, the Kobo Clara Colour costs less and gives you more versatility with the books you can buy or install. I don’t think you could go wrong with either.

Get the Colorsoft if you want the best possible picture quality and value easier book access and get the Clara Colour if you want more personalization.

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The Kindle Paperwhite (starting at $159) is often considered the best Kindle for most people. Between the bright screen, comfortable size and ridiculously long battery life, there’s a lot to love about this e-reader.

I’ve never owned an e-reader and have only used one in short bursts. The Kindle Paperwhite is the perfect starting place for me since it offers a fantastic balance of price and features. Sure, the Kindle Scribe and Kindle Colorsoft provide more, and the base Kindle is more affordable, but the Paperwhite sits in the sweet spot with its relatively cheap starting price.

While Amazon didn’t reinvent the wheel with this e-reader, the company made smart upgrades to 2021’s Kindle Paperwhite. The moderate speed increase, longer battery life and larger screen all create a fantastic reading experience. Sure, it costs $10 more, but with the upgrades, Amazon offers reasonable justification to bump the price.

Is the new Kindle Paperwhite worth getting if you already own the previous model? Probably not. But for anyone looking to upgrade from a base Kindle or get their first device, this is the one to get.

Kindle Paperwhite (2024): Cheat sheet

• What is it? The new Kindle Paperwhite, featuring a larger, more vibrant display and faster performance than its predecessor
• Who is it for? The Kindle Paperwhite is for anyone who enjoys reading and is willing to spend a little more than the base Kindle for premium features.
• What does it cost? The Kindle Paperwhite starts at $159 and packs 16GB of storage. You can order it now from Amazon.
• What do we like? The bright display, fast performance and lightweight design.
• What don’t we like? The price increase and power button location.

Kindle Paperwhite (2024) review: Specs

The ups

The Kindle Paperwhite wows thanks to its bright e-reader display and comfortable design. It has better battery life and a larger screen, which makes it slightly better than 2021’s tremendously successful device. It’s about as good as an e-reader can get.

Gorgeous, warm display

The display is arguably the most crucial part of being one of the best e-readers. After all, it’s the part of the device you’ll spend hours staring at as you lose yourself in the worlds of your favorite novels. As we expect from Amazon’s devices, the Paperwhite offers a beautiful, warm display that looks good in any lighting condition. You can adjust the display tinting from white to amber so that you can read in bright sunlight or the dark.

Amazon cranked up the display size while keeping the dimensions the same. This is thanks to thinner bezels surrounding the screen. This design tweak makes the device look and feel more high-end, which is reasonable considering it’s in the middle of Amazon’s e-reader lineup.

Other improvements to the display include an increased contrast ratio and speedier page-turning, thanks to a 25% bump in performance. Sure, it was already snappy on the last-generation Paperwhite, but getting a little performance boost is always lovely.

The 300ppi resolution makes text (and black-and-white images) pop off the screen, much like in a traditional book. The 94 nits maximum brightness is also more than sufficient for all kinds of lighting situations.

We tested the Signature Editon, which adds a nifty auto-adjusting front light sensor. As the light in the room changes, the brightness of your Kindle’s screen adjusts. It’s a nice feature and worth spending the extra money if you constantly move around while reading. This version also gains wireless charging, which is nice to have but not necessary considering the estimated 12 weeks of battery life.

Long battery life

I’ll never not marvel at how long e-reader batteries last. Amazon says the Kindle Paperwhite lasts about 12 weeks on a single charge. Of course, that’s in ideal conditions with the brightness set to whatever level Amazon uses (the company doesn’t disclose its battery testing process).

Unfortunately, we didn’t have 12 weeks to run the battery out before publishing this review, so we’ll have to take Amazon's word. What I can say is that I never charged the device. I pulled it out of the box at about 50% and drained it to 42% after more than a week of testing. No matter how you slice it, that’s some great battery life.

We can also say that Amazon’s battery life rating has jumped from 2021’s Kindle Paperwhite by a whopping two weeks (it was 10 weeks previously). Assuming the company uses the same testing methods, that’s a nice bump, no matter how you slice it.

So much to read

Amazon's most significant benefit over the competition is the massive library of Kindle content. Between the books you can buy, Audible, Kindle Unlimited and the Prime reading library, you’ll have difficulty navigating everything you already own. When you start picking up books on sale, your library will quickly grow to rival that of, well, actual libraries.

And speaking of libraries, you can use apps like Libby or Overdrive to download digital books from your public library without spending a penny. If you have other means of acquiring digital books, you can upload them to the Paperwhite via the Amazon Send website or by using the email address automatically assigned to your Kindle. I used the email address to send books downloaded from my phone to my Kindle and found that it worked well.

The downs

While the Paperwhite is close to perfect, there are a couple of minor flaws — namely, the increased price and terrible power button placement. While not likely to be deal-breakers for most tablet shoppers, they’re still issues worth mentioning.

Price increase

While Amazon made some smart upgrades to the Kindle Paperwhite, it also increased the price by $10. While I’m perfectly willing to accept that upgrades cost money, we see devices released year after year with new features for the same price.

No matter how much Amazon justifies the price increase, we’re never happy to see the price go up. And while I don’t think it’s worth upgrading from 2021’s Paperwhite, the price increase makes me think it’s even less worthwhile.

In the end, though, it’s $10 more for a device you can use for several years before it needs to be replaced, so it’s far from a deal breaker. Plus, you can usually find Kindles on sale through Amazon, espeically around Black Friday.

Power button location

This issue existed on previous versions of the Kindle Paperwhite, and it’s still there — the power button is on the bottom of the device, right where you may rest your finger when reading. If you move it a certain way, you can hit the power button by mistake, shutting the device off in the middle of reading.

Sure, it doesn't happen all the time, but I just can’t understand why Amazon doesn’t put the power button on the top like most other phones, tablets and other e-readers.

Kindle Paperwhite (2024): Verdict

As a first-time Kindle owner, I love the new Kindle Paperwhite. It has incredible battery life, a beautiful, vibrant display and a speedy processor. However, as great as the upgrades are, I can’t recommend buying this e-reader if you already have the previous version. The changes are so incremental that you can’t make a reasonable case for buying a new one (unless something is wrong with the one you already own).

For new buyers, though, this is the Kindle to get. You can read it in any lighting conditions with Amazon’s massive library at your fingertips. If you don’t own an e-reader and are in the market, I’d 100% recommend getting the Kindle Paperwhite. You’ll enjoy reading your books more than ever, which is all you can ask for from a device like this.

The Kindle Colorsoft ($279) is the first color Kindle and something I’ve been waiting years for. Thanks to its display, you can now enjoy book covers and comics in all their colorful glory. It’s effectively the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, only with a beautiful color display.

That 7-inch display is slightly larger than the 6.8-inch screen of the previous Kindle Paperwhite. It has a 300ppi resolution for black-and-white text and images but drops to 150ppi when viewing things in color. Thankfully, everything still appears reasonably sharp even with a diminished resolution. The screen also has a higher contrast than previous Paperwhite models, which helps black lines pop on white backgrounds.

The Kindle Colorsoft doesn’t shake things up design-wise, which is mostly a good thing. The matte black tablet is easy to hold in one hand and is thin and light enough to comfortably tuck inside a backpack—though it’s too big to fit inside most normal-sized jeans or shirt pockets. It’s a sleek and elegant device, though it doesn’t offer any color options besides black. And if you were wondering, the power button still resides on the bottom of the device, which will no doubt frustrate some.

As the company's first color Kindle, the Kindle Colorsoft is an absolute winner and one of the best Kindles available. Though it’s certainly pricey, it’s the Kindle I’ve always wanted.

Kindle Colorsoft review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Kindle Colorsoft is Amazon’s first e-reader with a color display.
• Who is it for? It’s for folks who want to read color comics, see a novel’s cover in color or create color highlights in books.
• What does it cost? The Kindle Colorsoft costs $279 and packs 32GB of storage. You can order it now from Amazon.
• What do we like? The color display, fast performance and lightweight design.
• What don’t we like? The high price compared to most Kindles.

Kindle Colorsoft review: Specs

Kindle Colorsoft review: The ups

The Kindle Colorsoft impresses thanks to its color e-reader display and familiar design. It also has strong battery life and provides instant access to Amazon's Kindle library.

Gorgeous color display 

Colors on the e-reader displays I've seen tend to look washed out and blurry. Because of that, I worried that a color Kindle would suffer from the same issue. Thankfully my fear was unfounded, as the Kindle Colorsoft has excellent color reproduction.

The Colorsoft’s 7-inch display is great for black and white and color content alike. Whether it’s comics or novels, everything appears like it was printed on actual paper. Sure, comics look much brighter and clearer on the iPad mini 7, but the latter doesn’t have that paper-like quality. Even after a week of use, I marvel at seeing the covers of the books in my digital library in full color on the Colorsoft.

There are two color styles to choose from: Standard and Vivid. The former utilizes the full range of colors to show more details while the latter makes colors pop more. While Vivid might sound like the better choice, some images appear better than others, depending on the colors on the screen. Because of that, I prefer the balanced look of Standard where everything almost always looks great.

Color is this device’s main selling point, but monochrome performance remains strong and it’s just as good for reading novels and manga. Black text looks nice and bold thanks to the Colorsoft’s boosted contrast. Drawings in manga volumes also benefit from this. The Colorsoft and new Paperwhite alike are now excellent options for reading black-and-white content.

I prefer reading Kindles with the display’s brightness set to zero, but I will bump up the brightness if I want to do some reading in bed with my room's lights off. The 12 white LEDs and 13 amber LEDs aren’t abrasive, making for a comfortable reading experience in the dark. You can also turn up the light’s warmth, which is easier for your eyes. I’m also a fan of the new auto-brightness feature that adjusts the light level based on ambient lighting conditions. 

Even though color images display at 150 ppi instead of the 300 ppi resolution you get when viewing black and white content, said images appear nice and sharp to my eyes. I read the latest issue of Titan Comics’ Conan the Barbarian and was impressed by the sharpness of drawings and text alike. Even though I could zoom in, I didn’t need to since everything on the screen was so clearly defined. If you love reading digital comics like I do, you’re going to have a blast binge-reading your favorite books on the Colorsoft.

Classic Kindle design

Except for its color display, the Kindle Colorsoft is virtually indistinguishable from the new Kindle Paperwhite. It has roughly the same dimensions and weight, features the same flush display and feels light in your hands. There’s only one design element I’m not too fond of, but I’ll cover that in a moment.

Simply holding the Colorsoft is delightful thanks to the soft matte-black chassis. Though the device is relatively smooth, you never feel like it will slip from your hand. The bezels are slightly smaller to accommodate the 7-inch display, though the bottom bezel is still oversized so you can rest your thumb on it without obscuring what you’re reading.

Ironically, the Kindle Colorsoft only comes in black, unlike the Paperwhite which comes in three different colors (Raspberry, Jade and Black). While I wish there were more color options, it’s not a major complaint since the all-black device makes it easier for me to concentrate on what I’m reading.

There’s a lone USB-C port on the Colorsoft’s bottom edge, along with a power button. The power button’s placement has long been a point of contention for many, and I’m surprised Amazon didn’t place it on the top. Though it doesn’t happen very often, there are times when I accidentally press the power button, which is pretty annoying.

I didn’t try dunking the Colorsoft in a sink full of water to test its water resistance like we did with 2021's Paperwhite, but if you like reading in the tub or by the pool, the device’s waterproof resistance rating of IPX8 means it can survive accidentally falling into shallow water.

Power button placement aside, the Kindle Paperwhite’s design is arguably perfect.

Great user experience 

The Kindle Colorsoft has the same intuitive user interface Kindle fans will be familiar with. The home page displays selections from your library and recommendations from Amazon. You’ll also see a search bar to let you search for books right from the home page. Clicking on the “Library” tab displays everything in your Kindle library. If you have a huge library like I do, you can use the filter icon to make searching easier.

Though it’s not well-liked by some, I’m a fan of the Goodreads reader-focused social network and how it’s seamlessly integrated into the Kindle experience. As I could before, I’m able to update my progress in a book and leave a rating when I’ve finished said book. This might be the gamer in me speaking, but as with trophies on PS5, I like having an account of every book I’ve read.

Navigating your library and settings is much faster than on the previous Kindle Paperwhite. This is good considering how painfully slow older Kindles once were. Since you can practically breeze through menus and options, you’re more inclined to fiddle with settings since it won't take a long time.

The actual reading experience is also better since page turns are much faster; up to 25% faster, according to Amazon. Because of that, I found myself reading faster than usual. Pages turn noticeably slower for comics or any other color book. However, I found the speed comparable to the previous Kindle Paperwhite, which isn’t bad at all. Regardless, you won’t have to suffer painfully slow page turns even if it’s a comic or novel.

So many books! 

Every Kindle can access the enormous Kindle Store with its millions of available books, including novels, comics and Audible audiobooks. With a Kindle Unlimited subscription, you have access to much of that content for $12 a month.

Other apps like Libby or Overdrive even let you download digital books from your public library. You can even upload your own e-books to Kindle via the Amazon Send website. Needless to say there’s virtually no shortage of books you can enjoy on the Kindle Colorsoft.

Incredible battery life 

Amazon claims the Kindle Colorsoft has up to 8 weeks’ worth of battery life. I haven’t had the device long enough to put that claim to the test. However, after a full week of reading for roughly an hour a day with the brightness off and the device connected to my Wi-Fi network, the Colorsoft’s battery went from 100% to 89%.

I don’t know if the Colorsoft will last exactly 8 weeks based on my personal usage, but I can confidently say that I won’t have to worry about charging it for several weeks.

Kindle Colorsoft review: The downs

The Kindle Colorsoft is an almost perfect device for reading digital books. However, there's something about it that could be a deal-breaker for some.

Steep price 

The Kindle Colorsoft is an incredible device. However, it doesn’t come cheap.

At $279, the Colorsoft is $120 more than the entry-level Paperwhite and $80 more than the Paperwhite Signature Edition. If you're like me, then paying extra for a color Kindle is worth it. However, even a color display might not be enough justification for some—which is perfectly reasonable.

While the Colorsoft’s price stings, Amazon almost always sells Kindles at a discount. And with Black Friday fast approaching, it would be smart to wait to see if you can get a Colorsoft at a reduced price.

Kindle Colorsoft review: Verdict

Despite its price, the Kindle Colorsoft is the perfect device for folks who want a color e-reader but don’t want to step out of the Amazon ecosystem. As I've made clear in this review, this is the Kindle I've been waiting for, and I'm sure many others will also feel the same. It really is a terrific device.

Thanks to its colorful display, svelte design and quality-of-life features, I expect the Kindle Colorsoft will be a winner this holiday season—and beyond.

Amazon has just unveiled four new Kindle models. These include refreshes of the existing Kindle 2022 and Kindle Paperwhite (2021), an updated Kindle Scribe that utilizes generative AI, and the brand-new Kindle Colorsoft, the company’s first color Kindle.

This announcement is significant considering Amazon hasn’t released any new Kindles since 2022. The Kindle Scribe seems to be the next best thing to using actual paper, while the Kindle Colorsoft will no doubt give competitors like Kobo’s color e-readers a run for their money.

Here’s everything you need to know about the new Kindles. Also, be sure to read our hands-on previews of the Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe (2024).

All-new Kindle specs

Kindle Colorsoft

People have wanted a color Kindle for years and the company has finally answered that request with the new Kindle Colorsoft. This e-reader is effectively Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, only with a display that supports color.

Like that device, the Colorsoft has a 7-inch display and packs 32GB of storage. The Colorsoft also has the same high-contrast, fast page turns, auto-adjusting front light and weeks of battery life. The e-reader has high contrast on both color and black-and-white content and features technology that enhances color and brightness without washing out details. It also supports wireless charging, is waterproof, and has eight weeks of battery life, according to Amazon.

Kindle Scribe

The new Kindle Scribe is the largest Kindle in the lineup. While it will be great to read books on, this device really exists for all you notetakers. And in case you were wondering, the Kindle Scribe supports generative AI.

The Scribe has new white borders and an updated display featuring a smooth, paper-like texture that makes it feel like you’re writing on a real sheet of paper. This is not only thanks to the sharp 300 ppi resolution, but the new Premium Pen has been designed to generate friction which approximates the sensation of putting pen to paper.

The new Active Canvas feature lets you write directly on whatever book you’re reading. What’s interesting about this feature is that your notes become part of the page, with the text dynamically flowing around your text. If you resize the text’s font size or style, the book layout changes practically in real time.

Sometime in 2025, an update will allow you to write notes in the side panel and easily hide them. With the new AI-powered notebook feature, the Scribe can also quickly summarize pages of notes into bullet points. And in case you’re wondering, yes, the Scribe’s AI can fix your (crappy) handwriting. Both of these features are very similar to Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools.

Kindle Paperwhite (2024)

Though the new Kindle Paperwhite isn't a radical departure from the existing model, its subtle changes arguably make it a better e-reader.

Amazon says the new Kindle Paperwhite has 25% faster page turns when you’re scrolling through your Kindle Library or the Kindle Store. Thanks to the display’s oxide thin-film transistor, the e-reader has a higher contrast ratio, which in turn helps text and images appear sharper and clearer. The 7-inch display (up from 6.8 inches on the previous model) should also make for a better reading experience.

The Kindle Paperwhite is waterproof and packs 16GB of storage. It comes in three colors: Raspberry, Jade and Black. The Signature Edition comes with 32GB of storage, optional wireless charging, auto-adjusting front light and comes in Metallic Raspberry, Metallic Jade and Metallic Black.

Kindle (2024)

Last but not least is the new entry-level (or basic) Kindle. Like its bigger siblings, Amazon’s smallest e-reader has a 300 ppi, glare-free display. It also has faster page turns, a higher contrast ratio and a front light that’s 25% brighter at max setting—matching the Kindle Paperweight in that regard.

The basic Kindle comes in a new Matcha color, packs 16GB of storage, and promises “weeks” of battery life.

Outlook

Things have been quiet on the Kindle front for nearly two years, so it’s good to see Amazon finally announcing new Kindle models. The Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe are the most exciting of the bunch, but the updated basic and Paperwhite Kindles are fine (if subtle) updates to the existing models.

The Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite are available now on Amazon, with starting prices at $109 and $159 (respectively). The Kindle Colorsoft drops on October 30 starting at $279, while the Kindle Scribe arrives on December 4 with a starting price of $399.

More from Tom's Guide

• iPad mini 7 unveiled with A17 Pro chip
• I read manga on a Kindle Paperwhite vs. iPad mini 6 for a week
• Real books are good, but Kindles are better

The Kindle Scribe 2024 ($399 to start) has arrived, and it sports new features and a new design as well as a price tag $60 higher than its predecessor.

This is potentially a big deal for students and writers because it's the second coming of Amazon's best Kindle for folks who like jotting down notes on their e-reader. The original Scribe was the first Kindle ever to ship with a stylus, and as you can read in our Amazon Kindle Scribe review, there's a lot to like about that inaugural Scribe—but also some glaring flaws.

After spending a week putting the 2024 model through its paces, I'm pleased to report Amazon seems to have shored up some of the original Scribe's weaknesses, making it a worthy upgrade. 

But the price has also gone up $60 alongside those improvements, so while I think this remains a great Kindle for writers, I'm not sure it's worth splurging on unless you really love the idea of scribbling on e-paper. I'll walk you through what I mean in this Kindle Scribe (2024) review.

Kindle Scribe (2024) review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Kindle Scribe (2024) is the second iteration of the Scribe, a Kindle you can write on using the included stylus.
• Who is it for? This is the latest version of the Kindle designed for writers and note-takers. If you want to annotate your e-books or jot down notes during readings, this is the Kindle for you.
• What does it cost? The Kindle Scribe (2024) is available for purchase from Amazon at a starting price of $399 for the 16GB model. 32GB ($419) and 64GB ($449) models are also available. It comes in two colors, Jade and Tungsten.
• What do we like? The big, easy-to-read screen and comfy design make this the most luxurious black-and-white Kindle you can read on.
• What don’t we like? The bump up to $399 makes this tablet feel a bit too expensive for what you get, especially when it lacks premium features like waterproofing.

Kindle Scribe (2024) review: Specs

Kindle Scribe (2024) review: The ups

After a week of using the Kindle Scribe at home and on the go, there are a few things I really like about this premium e-reader. Let's hit the highlights, shall we?

Big, comfy design makes reading easy

The Kindle Scribe (2024) sports a 10.2-inch e-paper display with a 300 PPI (pixels per inch) resolution, making it the biggest Kindle screen you can get. 

That's the same resolution as on the smaller Kindle Paperwhite (2024), but the extra inches of screen real estate make a big difference in terms of comfort. I never had a problem reading books on the little 6-inch (300 PPI) screen of my basic Kindle, but after a week of reading on the Scribe, I'm not stoked about going back.

I also love the thickened side bezel on the long side of the Scribe where the power button and charging port reside. It gives you a place to grip the slate without touching the screen, plus I found it makes it easier to hold the Scribe upright during marathon reading sessions.

Great backlighting options

Another reason I found reading on the Kindle Scribe (2024) so comfy is the robust backlight, which offers adjustable brightness and warmth as well as scheduling functions and an auto-adjust feature for when you don't want to worry about it.

This is the most robust backlight of any Kindle I've ever used, and it makes the Scribe easy to use basically anywhere you go. I like keeping the backlight off when possible because I'm most comfortable reading e-paper in natural light, but outdoors the backlight is clutch.

The auto-brightness feature works well enough that you probably won't need to futz with brightness too much when traveling and moving between dark and light, and the scheduling feature lets you change the warmth of the light during a specific time period.

Plus, you get a dark mode, which is less valuable to me on an e-paper display than my eye-searingly bright OLED monitor but welcome nonetheless.

Redesigned stylus is easier to use

If you go back and read our review of the original Kindle Scribe, you'll note some complaints about the experience of writing on it with the included Premium Pen stylus, which cost $30 more than the Scribe's Basic Pen.

Amazon took another pass on the stylus and redesigned it for this year's Kindle Scribe, and the result feels pretty good in my big mitts. The company also dropped the Basic Pen entirely, and now ships every Kindle Scribe (2024) with a color-matched Premium Pen stylus.

That may help explain the $60 year-over-year price increase, and after using the Premium Pen with the 2024 Scribe for a week I'm generally fond of it. "Writing" on the Kindle Scribe (2024) with the Pen doesn't feel like writing on paper (the ReMarkable Paper Pro does a better job simulating that sensation) but it does feel pretty good, and the "eraser" on the opposite end from the nib feels intuitive to use.

I will say that I noticed some residue of the lines I erased showing up on the Scribe's screen even after I was finished erasing them. At first, I thought this was a feature or a result of me not pressing hard enough, but I noticed that these faint after-images disappeared after flipping the page a few times.

It's not a problem that they appear, and in fact, they make the tablet feel a bit more like real paper since they look a bit like the actual residue of erased pencil. 

Working notes into e-books and other texts is also easier than it was on the original Kindle Scribe. You still can't draw directly on a page, of course; when you doodle something on an e-book it waits for you to confirm you're finished, then automagically moves and reorganizes text on the page around your illustrations.  

But it feels lightning-quick to start doodling, and the bar of tools at your disposal (draw, highlight, select, etc) are easy to access on the page. There's even less lag when you just want to underline or highlight a passage, and with its redesigned soft tip you no longer have to press obscenely hard on the stylus to get the eraser function to work well.

In short, ReMarkable tablets do a better job of replicating the feel of putting pen to paper, but the Kindle Scribe (2024)'s redesigned Premium Pen is more than good enough.

AI features are nice to have

The Kindle Scribe (2024) ships with some onboard "AI" features that let you dial out to Amazon's servers for help summarizing your notes or making them more readable. It’s built on Amazon Bedrock, a managed service which uses multiple models depending on the application.

Those are the two main AI features of the Kindle Scribe at launch, and I have to admit that having the Kindle reformat my chicken scratch into something readable by other people is a nice trick. It works about 90% of the time, too, and while it definitely makes mistakes, I rarely noticed more than a handful of wrong words when I ask it to "refine" my scrawl.

The trouble is, I can reliably read my handwriting, while the Kindle cannot. Sure it reads the majority of what I write just fine, but unless I'm planning to share my handwriting with others (which is easy enough to do, as you can transmit files back and forth from the Kindle) the AI actually confuses me more than my handwriting.

The summarization feature is also nice to have, especially if you plan on using the Scribe to take many pages of notes during a lecture or event. I found its ability to condense pages of notes into short, brief summaries useful, but not so convenient or easy that I would buy a Scribe to do it instead of just sending whatever notes I took on my phone or laptop to another LLM-backed service (like Google Gemini) and asking it for a summary. Heck, if I have a MacBook with macOS Sequoia and Apple Intelligence it can do the summary now, just as well as the Scribe can.

So while I think the AI features built into the Kindle Scribe (2024) at launch are nice to have (and require Internet access to use), they aren't game-changers and may not be terribly useful unless you plan to take a lot of handwritten notes.

Kindle Scribe (2024) review: The downs

I'm quite fond of the new Kindle Scribe, but there are a few concerns I have that you ought to know about before buying one yourself.

Costs as much as an iPad, does less

The original Kindle Scribe already felt a bit expensive at $339, so it's painful to see Amazon jack the price up to $399 for the 2024 model.

I do think it's reasonable to feel the Scribe is worth the money because you're getting the biggest Kindle you can buy with a pretty capable suite of note-taking features (albeit no water resistance) built in. So if you're just looking at the Kindle family, it makes sense this one is the most expensive model.

But by crossing the $350 mark Amazon has made the new Kindle Scribe more expensive than a new iPad. That means you really need to like the ability to jot down notes on an e-reader because otherwise, you could get one of the best tablets on the market for less.

Admittedly, it's not a one-to-one comparison. The basic iPad costs $349 to start but doesn't come with a stylus, so realistically you're looking at spending another $50 or more (the USB-C Apple Pencil costs $79) to duplicate the note-taking functionality of the Scribe. And even if you had the best stylus for your iPad, I still don't know of an iPadOS app that will let you annotate Kindle books and other e-books the way you can on the Scribe.

But when you consider the iPad has a gorgeous color touchscreen and is far better for browsing the web, watching videos, playing games and keeping in touch with your friends, the $399 price tag on the Kindle Scribe starts to feel a little painful.

Annotating texts feels a bit awkward

I like the feeling of writing on the Kindle Scribe using the packed-in Premium Stylus. It doesn't feel as much like paper as a ReMarkable tablet, but it does feel comfy and the stylus tip glides easily across the slate.

But while the physical act of writing on the Scribe feels nice, the way in which it automatically reorganizes and reorients text around your notes feels a bit awkward. While it's better than the old model, which actually didn't let you even take notes on the page but instead popped up a new "sticky note" every time you tried to take a note, it could use a bit more work to feel natural.

While writing on the page of an e-book feels natural, as soon as you stop doodling, you get a little icon that lets you choose to save what you've written or delete it. Save it and the Kindle sort of draws a blank rectangle around it and shuffles text around that rectangle so that it reads well without obscuring your note, and it stays there even if you scroll the page or change text size.

This is fine for basic use, but in my experience, it feels unnaturally stiff and limits your ability to easily draw and annotate text. A competing e-paper slate like the ReMarkable Paper Pro ($579) lets you basically draw a line or letter anywhere on the page and manages to make it appear as though it just stays right there where you drew it, even if you scroll around..

So while it's great to be able to finally draw and write right on the page of a Kindle e-book without having to deal with any intermediary layers, the implementation could use some work—and I'm hopeful Amazon will improve it on the next iteration.

Kindle Scribe (2024) review: Verdict

I like the Kindle Scribe (2024) quite a bit, but I have a hard time recommending it to anyone except those who want a Kindle they can write on.

If that sounds like you, this year's model of the Kindle Scribe is the best yet. Though pricey, you get a well-made e-paper slate that feels premium, with a nice big screen that's easy to read and well-equipped with lighting features. 

And if you like to doodle, take notes or read a lot of e-books, this is a great choice for you. You can send annotated documents or notebooks to yourself as PDFs or send PDFs to the Kindle to work on, and the long battery life (Amazon advertises up to 12 weeks, and in one week of use I barely saw the battery dip below 70%) helps ensure it won't leave you in the lurch on long trips or work days.

Yet at $400, this feels like a luxury item for people who are really passionate about the experience of writing longhand on an e-paper slate. And if that's you, I have a hard time not recommending you save your money and splurge on the ReMarkable 2 or ReMarkable Paper Pro. They already do the sort of handwriting cleanup that the Scribe does. And while the Paper Pro is slower and more expensive than the Scribe, it feels nicer, supports limited colors and offers a more diverse array of digital pen and ink tools.

But the Scribe is cheaper and faster than the ReMarkable Paper Pro, so if those are your priorities this is a great slate for your needs. 

The ReMarkable Paper Pro ($579 to start) is a new premium tablet that aims to replicate the feeling of writing, drawing and painting on paper.

In this way it's much akin to ReMarkable's previous release, the ReMarkable 2, which we called the iPad alternative for writers who like the feel of physically writing on paper. But the Paper Pro can do something totally new for the ReMarkable line: colors.

That's right, the ReMarkable Paper Pro let's you take notes, doodle and annotate documents with a variety of digital brushes in 9 main colors, though you can layer and shade the colors to create different varieties.

It's made possible by the Paper Pro's new Canvas Color e-paper display, which ReMarkable claims is its most responsive and comfy to write on yet. The device was unveiled at IFA 2024 in Berlin, and after getting my hands on a review unit I'm excited and intrigued by the potential of this e-paper slate.

But as fun as it is to put ReMarkable's Marker to the Paper Pro and feel the simulated scratch of pencil on paper, I have to be honest about the limitations of this tablet: it's a premium toy for writers, readers and note-taking types who want a $500+ device specialized for writing, taking notes and marking up documents. It excels in those areas, but for anything else you would be better off investing the same money in an iPad Air.

In this ReMarkable Paper Pro review I'll walk you through what I've learned about this device after a few weeks of use. I think it's probably the best tablet for writers and artists who hate writing on iPads, but even so you should know about the trade-offs you make when getting to grips with this e-paper slate.

ReMarkable Paper Pro: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? The first ReMarkable e-paper tablet capable of displaying colors.
• Who is it for? Folks who want a tablet that aims to mimic the feeling of reading and writing on paper, now with 8+ colors.
• What does it cost? The tablet itself is technically $499, but you can't order it without a stylus bundled in: $579 for one with a Remarkable Marker, $629 with a Marker Plus.
• What do we like? This slate looks and feels premium, and no other tablet I've used makes it this easy to write, draw and annotate documents in (limited) colors on a screen that looks like an e-reader.
• What don’t we like? There's often a noticeable delay when loading documents, moving between pages or waiting for a line you've just drawn to "fill in" on the page.

ReMarkable Paper Pro: Specs

ReMarkable Paper Pro: What we like

Despite being a writer by trade I don't actually love writing on paper anymore, because I've been typing for so long that my hands are damaged and can't comfortably hold a pen for very long.

Even so, I've always been fond of the ReMarkable e-paper tablets because I like reading digital documents on e-paper rather than a traditional LCD or OLED display. And while I don't love to write longhand, even on e-paper, it's still fun and satisfying to jot down notes, annotate text and doodle the occasional marginalia.

With that in mind, here's a few of the standout strengths of the ReMarkable Paper Pro that I've come to appreciate after a few weeks of use.

Colors are fun and help documents pop

Put simply, the new colors are fun to use on the ReMarkable Paper Pro, even though they are a bit limited.

I don't know about you, but I've always loved doodling in the margins and drawing silly figures in my notes. It was true back in grade school, and it's even more true today.

I'm pleased to report the ReMarkable Paper Pro does a good job of replicating that feeling on an e-paper display, and I found it was just as fun to doodle on my digital to-do list as it was to draw stick figures in my notebooks during study hall.

There are some cool ways you can use the Paper Pro's new colors and art tools in documents, too: you can color in diagrams in textbooks, draw silly moustaches on book illustrations and jot down notes in the margins of reference books.

And while the colors can often look a little off or washed-out on the Paper Pro display, you can do a lot with the nine art tools (plus a highlighter and eraser tool) to tweak or enhance their hues. You can draw a little tree with the colored marker tool, for example, then darken the trunk and make the foliage more vibrant by layering different colors on top using the shader tool.

Sometimes things get a little weird when you're drawing, writing and typing (via the optional Type Cover) in the same document because it's not always clear how or when you can move images like text. When you draw a cute tree in your notes and then start typing and hitting Return, for example, you may start moving the figure around inadvertently because it gets treated like text. But generally it's all pretty intuitive, easy and—most importantly—fun to learn.

Added backlight makes this slate more usable

You may be surprised to hear this is the first ReMarkable tablet with built-in lighting, but it's true. The lack of a built-in backlight is sort of a pain when you're using the old ReMarkable 2 to read books or write notes in a dim room, so it's lovely to finally have the option of lighting up when you're working in the dark.

The Paper Pro's backlight is nice and gentle, too, so it shouldn't give you too much eyestrain even at max brightness. In fact, it's so subtle you may not even believe it's working half the time — I had to keep checking to see if it was on while photographing this tablet in natural light.

Writing on the e-paper display feels great

The ReMarkable Paper Pro feels lovely to write on, and nice to draw or paint on.

Much of this has to do with the design of the Color Canvas display and the ReMarkable Marker, which support 4,000-plus levels of pressure sensitivity and are intended to feel as much like paper and pen as possible.

To that end, ReMarkable has worked to cut down the distance between the tip of the ReMarkable Marker and the e-paper in the slate to sub-1mm when the two are in contact. According to ReMarkable reps this helps make it feel even faster and snappier to write on because there's less distance between ink and tip, so digital ink appears faster and responds quicker to small variations in the Marker's movement.

And indeed, I noticed that writing feels faster and snappier on the Paper Pro than it does on the ReMarkable 2. There is still some noticeable lag and the different tools take some getting used to, but once you get a feel for how to twist and push on the Marker Pro to get the lines you want you almost forget you're writing on a screen.

ReMarkable Paper Pro: What we don't like

I'm impressed by the ReMarkable Paper Pro at first blush, but even after just a few weeks of use I've encountered some frustrations you should know about.

Still too slow

One of the big knocks against the ReMarkable slates is that they often feel slow and laggy because the e-paper display typically takes a full second or so to change or refresh a page.

This is a consequence of using e-paper, and it was one of our big gripes with the otherwise lovely ReMarkable 2. When I met with ReMarkable reps to see the Paper Pro they went to great effort to show me how much work was put in to improving the response time of the Color Canvas display, and they claim the display latency can get as low as 12 milliseconds, which is a significant improvement over the input lag of the ReMarkable and ReMarkable 2 (roughly 55ms and 21 ms, respectively).

After using one for a few days, I can confirm that the Paper Pro feels more responsive than the ReMarkable 2, and I felt like turning the page or drawing a line was snappier on the new Paper Pro.

But it's still not fast enough to feel like writing on paper, nor is it fast enough to make flipping through a document feel smooth or snappy.

Sometimes, it's fast enough that I almost don't notice: when drawing slowly with the pencil tool, for example, the line appears on the screen basically as fast as it would if I were using a real pencil. And when flipping through a short PDF that doesn't have a lot of images or annotations, it feels almost as fast as a modern Kindle.

But there's never a time when I forget I'm using e-paper, and honestly I often miss the speed of a modern iPad. Sure, the screen of the iPad Air hurts my eyes more than the e-paper display on the Paper Pro, and the Apple Pencil doesn't feel as good against the glass of an iPad as the ReMarkable Marker does on the Paper Pro. But those are small sacrifices to make for the speed and versatility of Apple's tablets.

Expensive for what you get

I think the ReMarkable Paper Pro probably delivers enough value to justify its $500-plus price, but that's still a significant chunk of change to lay out for a slate that can only handle documents.

While I was quoted a price of $499 for the tablet at launch, it's really closer to $600 because you can't order a Paper Pro from ReMarkable without a packed-in stylus. You can get one with the ReMarkable Marker for $579, or $629 for the Marker Plus, which has a second digital input module on the back of the stylus that basically functions like a digital eraser.

Now that's still a better value (in some ways) than a new iPad Air, which costs $599 to start and more if you want a stylus or keyboard cover. But a modern iPad or Android slate is faster, more capable and more colorful than ReMarkable's Paper Pro. So when you start to price ReMarkable's new slate against the competition, you see that you're paying nearly as much for a more limited device.

But really, what you're paying for is the Paper Pro's Color Canvas display, which offers a level of responsiveness and attention to the feel of writing on it that no other tablet I've tried can match.

To lay all the costs out, ReMarkable gave us a Paper Pro with Marker Plus ($629) for review, as well as a Book Folio ($89 - $179) and a Type Folio ($229) with built-in keyboard. So if you wanted the kind of productivity setup we're rocking in the photos here, you'd need to drop north of $860 (before taxes and discounts) for the Paper Pro, Marker Plus and Type Folio combo.

ReMarkable Paper Pro: Verdict

I really like the ReMarkable Paper Pro, and while I don't think it's the best tablet for me (my handwriting's atrocious, if you can't tell from the photos) I can see why it would appeal to writers and doodlers of all stripes.

So far I wouldn't turn to the Paper Pro if I wanted to read on a digital screen, because I'd rather use the cheaper, lighter Kindle I already own. And I wouldn't use it if I wanted to create digital art, because the iPad Air offers more robust and varied art tools via all the apps you can get out of the Apple App Store.

But if I wanted to edit a draft or mark up a text to prepare for a class, the ReMarkable Paper Pro seems awfully enticing because I can just load the document onboard (via ReMarkable's easy-to-use desktop and smartphone apps), pick up the Marker and start intuitively annotating the text like I would a real document. It feels good, it's neat and most importantly, it works without a lot of thought or effort on my part.

I don't know how much demand there will be for a specialized premium tablet like this, but I can tell you that the Paper Pro is a clear improvement over the ReMarkable 2. It's lovely for writing and working with text in natural light, and if you're willing to spend the cost of a new iPad on an e-paper slate optimized for writing, this is the best tablet for you yet.

Amazon could be readying the next device in its long line of Kindle e-readers for a surprise launch. According to a new report, the company could be so close to launching the next Kindle that we'll see an announcement as soon as next week (the week of September 30). 

While there hasn't been much in the way of leaks leading up to this news, this latest tip from GoodEReader (via The Verge) reveals some vital information about the next device from Amazon, including some specs. A listing appeared on the Spanish retailer MediaMarkt's website but has since been deleted.

Officially, we don't know the release date for Amazon's next Kindle, but the listing said the device would launch on October 1, which is right around the corner. The predecessor was shown off for the first time in October, so it would make sense for Amazon to put out the new one around that time.

Regarding specs, the listing mentioned that the 12th-gen Kindle offers a front-lit 300ppi display that is 25% brighter than the 11th-gen model. That puts it closer to the brightness provided by the more expensive Kindle Paperwhite, though with enough difference to make that model an upgrade worth considering. 

The listing claims the new device will offer smoother page turns and a dark mode that spans the entire OS for those who prefer that look. 

Before the listing was pulled (which adds some credence to its accuracy in a way), The Verge managed to snag a few screenshots with crucial information. You can see a more recessed screen with rising bezels in a "matcha green" color in one photo. 

Some other notable tidbits from the leak include 16GB of RAM, Bluetooth 5.1, USB-C charging and up to eight weeks of battery life on a single charge (up from six on the 11th-gen). 

Finally, the price listed was €119 (about $133), a big jump from the previous model, which retails for $99. Also adding credence to this leak is that Amazon shows the current model as out of stock with no date for when the devices will return.

More from Tom's Guide

• Real books are good, but Kindles are better
• How to set and manage bookmarks on Kindle
• Is the iPad mini 6 worth it?

The Kindle Paperwhite is my favorite e-reader and the main reason I got back into reading. As expected, this popular reader is on sale for Amazon Prime Day for a nice discount. If you want to rekindle your love of reading, this is a deal I wholeheartedly recommend.

Right now, the Kindle Paperwhite (2021) is on sale for $134 at Amazon. This 16GB configuration normally costs $149, which means you’re saving $15. Though this isn’t the lowest price we’ve seen the Kindle Paperwhite sell for, it’s a nice discount for such a fantastic device.

The latest Kindle Paperwhite model might be three years old (Amazon hasn’t refreshed it since 2021) but it still gets the job done for your reading purposes. The 6.8-inch display is flush with the device and gives the e-reader a sleek uniform look. Thanks to the sharp 300ppi resolution, everything from text and graphics comes through crystal clear. The glare-free screen almost looks like paper, hence the “paperwhite” moniker. If you’re reading in a darker environment, the 5 LED front lights do a great job of illuminating the screen.

This configuration has 16GB of storage, which is way more than you’d probably ever need if you’re just reading novels. However, if you download manga or audiobooks, the extra storage will give you plenty of breathing room. This Kindle Paperwhite comes with 3 free months of Kindle Unlimited, which gives you access to thousands of books from big and small publishers.

Seeing Kindles on sale during Prime Day might not be exciting since it’s so expected. However, there are still millions of people who’ve yet to experience reading digital books. And, in my opinion, there’s no better e-reader than the Kindle Paperwhite. Definitely take advantage of this deal while it lasts.

Rakuten Kobo will launch two new color e-readers, the Kobo Libra Colour and the Kobo Clara Colour, at the end of April. The latest devices utilize the E Ink Kaledio 3 module screen. 

The Libra Colour and Clara Colour appear to be incremental upgrades to the existing Kobo lineup, with the most significant update being the color screens. 

The Kaledio 3 screens have a resolution of 300ppi when viewed in grayscale, but it's cut in half to 150ppi when switched to color. However, it's still an upgrade from the previous Kaledio screen, which managed 100ppi. 

We’re very curious about how the new screen handles graphics novels and manga. We recently compared the Kindle Paperwhite and the iPad Mini for reading comics. With the depth of color and sharp screen resolution, the Mini was the winner. Still, the Kobo Libra Colour might be a nice, less expensive alternative. 

Compared to the Kindle Paperwhite, the Kobo model offers extra features like physical page-turning buttons, double the storage space and no ads. However, the $219.99 / £219.99 / AU$359.95 Libra Colour is comparable to the Kindle Paperwhite Signature edition, which has the same 32 GB of storage.

One way that the Libra Colour upgrades storage over the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kobo Libra 2 is by integrating cloud storage with Google Drive and Dropbox.

The Clara Colour is comparable to the standard Paperwhite with 16 GB of storage and a price point of $149.99 / £139.99 / AU$259.95.

Within the Kobo family, the Libra is similar to the Libra 2 and features the same IPX8 waterproof design as the Paperwhite. One new feature of the Libra Colour is that it is compatible with the Kobo Stylus 2, which must be purchased separately for $69.99.

The Clara Colour is similar to the Clara 2E but with color and an improved processor, which should improve performance.

Kobo is releasing an upgraded Kobo Clara BW with the processor upgrades offered by the Libra Colour and Clara Colour devices for $129.99 / £119.99 / AU$239.95.

The newest trio of Rakuten Kobo e-readers are available to preorder now and are expected to begin shipping on April 30th.

More from Tom's Guide

• Kobo Nia Review
• Mother's Day Gift Guide: Kobo Libra 2
• Kindle Paperwhite v iPad Mini for comics reading

There are several benefits to using an e-reader like the Kindle Paperwhite (11th Gen). The most popular Kindles are small and lightweight, and therefore much easier to tote around than a physical book. They also can hold dozens of books, and even let you check out the hottest reads from the library.

But what are the best Kindle accessories for making your e-reader experience even better? Interested in upgrading how I use my own Kindle, I searched the internet and social media for the top accessories for reading. As a pleasant surprise, they all cost under $35.

In a video on our YouTube channel, you can watch me unbox and and try out the best Kindle accessories I ordered online for myself. With the help of these products, I was able to squeeze in a few pages of my latest read whether I was sat at a couch, moving between between meetings, or getting cozy in bed.

For example, a neat Bluetooth page-turning ring let me leaf through a novel without needing to tap the Kindle screen. When paired with a gooseneck tablet holder, I could enjoy the book from a comfortable position.

Kindle accessories aren't just about convenience, though — I think the best Kindle accessories can also inject some personality into my e-reader. The same way that I appreciate a custom case for my iPhone, I wanted a way to make my Kindle feel like "mine." So, I ordered a one-of-a-kind PopSocket that I designed with the brand's AI Customizer. 

You'll need to watch the entire video to see how all the products turned out. But if something caught your eye, or you're looking for a quick round-up of the best Kindle accessories, see my picks below. 

The best Kindle accessories

The best Kindles give bookworms access to countless books, all on one small device.

Reading books on Amazon’s e-reader is convenient, provided you know how to buy them. If you’re new to the world of Kindles you might not know how to fill your tablet with your favorite books. That’s where we come in.

Below, we’ll show you a step-by-step guide on how to buy your books on Kindle. It might not seem straightforward at first, but we promise you’ll have the process down in no time. 

Now, let’s get some books on your Kindle!

How to buy books on Kindle 

There are three main ways to buy book on Kindle. In this guide, we’re focusing on how to buy books on your actual Kindle device. 

However, you can also purchase books for Kindle on Amazon’s online store or via the Kindle app on your mobile device. The steps below can also apply for the latter, should you go that route.

And that's all there is to it! Remember that any book you purchase on Amazon's website or the Kindle app on a mobile device will automatically get added to your Kindle device. And so long as you sync your devices (by selecting sync in options), you can continue reading wherever you left off across all your devices.

If you’ve just got a Kindle then check out our guide on how to set up a Kindle. Alternatively, here’s our Kindle Scribe review if you’re planning to upgrade. For more advanced Kindle features, be sure to read our guides on how to set and manage bookmarks on Kindle and how to highlight text and make notes on your Kindle.

• Real books are good, but Kindles are better
• Amazon Kindle (2022) review
• How to update your Kindle

Reading on an Amazon Kindle has completely ruined reading physical books for me. Before you close this page, hear me out!

Purchasing the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2018) back in 2019 changed my life. Prior to that, I probably read one book every couple of years. Now, I read at least one book a month. And because I can disable the Kindle’s display light, I get much better sleep because I’m not staring at (another) bright display before bed. I’ve since switched to the Amazon Kindle (2022) and love it as much as the previous-gen Paperwhite, which makes sense since they're among the best Kindles on the market.

Due to the Kindle's general ease of use, reading physical books has now become awkward at best and uncomfortable at most. Don’t get me wrong, physical books look awesome on shelves and feel good to hold. But, for me, the advantages physical books have over a Kindle are minuscule. Below, I’ll go into detail about why I prefer reading books on a Kindle over real books.

Better reading experience 

I’m going to start with what is probably the most contentious point of this op-ed: I have a better overall reading experience on a Kindle than I do with a physical book.

I don't recall the specific circumstances, but after about a year of reading exclusively on a Kindle, I picked up a physical book. It was great, initially. As I said up top, physical books feel great to hold. The smell of actual paper is also pleasing, as is the sensation of paper on one's fingers. But after reading for a few minutes, reading a real book became frustrating — which is something I wasn’t expecting!

Reading the middle of a book isn’t usually a problem since the pages on both sides remain relatively flat. The book’s weight is also evenly distributed between your hands. However, reading the first and last pages can be burdensome since one side of the book is thicker. It can be hard reading words closer to the margins when you can’t open the pages further. Trying to find the perfect angle so there are no shadows on a page is also tricky.

These issues don’t happen on a Kindle. The first and last pages are just as easy to read as anything in the middle of a book since you’re reading on a single screen. And because that screen is flat, it’s simpler to find a position where shadows aren’t created on the display. And of course, with the display brightness turned on, shadows aren’t a factor.

Regarding the screen’s light, I generally try to avoid turning it on. I like reading near a lamp or other light source. But if it’s bedtime and I’m eager to finish a particular chapter, I turn the Kindle’s brightness up while laying in bed. This would be harder with a physical book since I’d have to reposition myself so my lamp’s light would provide sufficient illumination. But even then, I’d have to contend with shadows on the pages.

At the end of the day, I want to get lost in whatever book I’m reading. The Kindle removes all the issues I have with reading a physical book and provides me with a richer reading experience.

Suits my digital lifestyle 

Books aren’t the only physical items I’ve abandoned. Since around 2015, I’ve gone all digital with video games and comic books. I also watch movies on streaming services instead of buying them on DVD… er… 4K Blu-Ray. There’s no reason physical books should be an exception — and not only for the reasons I outlined above.

As I said in my piece about why I’m excited about the return of Big-ass laptops, I live in a studio apartment and am always seeking ways to make the most out of my limited living space. While having long shelves stuffed with books would be nice to look at, I simply don’t have room for books or physical media in general. Having a small device like a Kindle which can store thousands of books is simply easier for me.

Traveling with a Kindle is also much simpler. I tend to carry a lot of electronic devices with me, with the heaviest being whatever laptop I’m reviewing at the moment. Stuffing a book into an already jam-packed backpack would only make matters worse. And as cumbersome as reading a physical book is at home, it’s even worse on the road — especially on a packed New York City train. While it's great to see people reading big novels on the R train in the morning, I can’t bring myself to do that.

I also like the option of reading books on the Kindle app. If I can’t use a Kindle while traveling, I can instead read on my iPhone 13 Pro. Being able to sync to the last page read on all devices is also handy when I have to switch between reading on a Kindle and iPhone.

Since Amazon makes the Kindle, it’s easy to purchase books or add them to my wishlist right from the device. I know I can perform the same function on competitors like the Kobo e-reader, but I’m married to Amazon at this point and prefer making my purchases from that website instead of jumping around to different places.

Goodreads integration 

I learned about Goodreads about a year after I got the Kindle Paperwhite. For those who don’t know, this is an Amazon-owned website that lets you keep track of the books you’re reading and allows you to write book reviews. You can also share your progress on what you’re reading and also socialize with friends and see what books they’re reading. My favorite part is setting reading goals for a year and seeing if I can accomplish them. Goodreads is a blast.

Whether you read books digitally or physically, anyone can sign up for Goodreads and use its features. But things are easier with a Kindle linked to an Amazon account. Instead of logging into Goodreads on my computer, I can simply update my status or leave a quick review right from the Kindle. It’s super convenient.

With that said, updating my book progress and posting a review on Goodreads is all I can effectively do on a Kindle. While I love the device, navigating through it is a slog due to how slow the e-reader loads in comparison to the best phones and the best tablets these days. If I want to write a full review or leave messages for my friends, I use Goodreads on my computer or phone. But aside from that, I like how well Goodreads pairs with a Kindle.

Kindles are my prefered way to read

I want to be clear that I don’t think reading physical books is bad. After all, printed books have been around for hundreds of years; it would be wrong of me to look down on something with such longevity. Real books are and always will be fantastic.

But while millions of folks will continue enjoying actual books, I’m going to stick with Kindles. As I outlined above, Amazon’s e-readers not only suit my lifestyle perfectly, but they allow me to read many more books than I would otherwise. And in the end, reading more books is what really matters — whether you do so with an e-reader or a real book.

Amazon didn’t need to reinvent the wheel with the Kindle 2022 ($99). E-readers can have all the bells and whistles they want, but in the end they have one job: to allow you to read. Well, more accurately, allow you to read a collection of books comfortably, all on one device. 

So it was a pleasant surprise when Amazon decided to refresh the Kindle in a noticeable way. This latest version’s e-ink display got upgraded to a 300 pixels per inch (PPI) resolution and Amazon swapped the old micro-USB charging input for USB-C. 

There are still enough differences to make the Kindle Paperwhite the superior choice. The new Kindle 2022 is still not waterproof and it lacks the softer display lighting options of its more expensive counterpart. It’s also smaller, but whether or not that is better or worse is subjective. If you want a Kindle and don’t care about it being waterproof, the $40 cheaper price point makes the Kindle 2022 the better value for most readers. 

Amazon Kindle (2022): Price and configurations 

If you’re someone who gets overwhelmed by choices, then I have good news. The Amazon Kindle 2022 comes in just a single 16GB model for $99. There are two color options though: Black or Denim. So if you want a little choice you’re covered there too. I tested the Black model and it was nice, though fingerprints did show up on the Kindle where I handled it.

Some may complain that the price went up $10 versus the $89 price point of the Amazon Kindle (2019), but at least you get something for that price increase. Between the upgraded resolution and the switch to USB-C, Amazon did at least make some improvements that could justify a price hike. 

Amazon Kindle (2022): Design 

The Amazon Kindle has always had a relatively simple design, and that has not changed with this latest iteration. The 6.2 x 4.3 x 0.32-inch Kindle (2022) is slightly smaller than the Kindle (2019), but you probably wouldn't notice. It remains comfortable to hold, and at 5.56 ounces it’s even easier to bring with you anywhere.

It also remains a no-frills device in terms of extra physical features. Aside from a power button and the USB-C charging port, there’s nothing else. To be fair, there isn’t really a need for anything else. Some people like to have physical page-turn buttons, but personally, I don’t view the lack of those as a negative. 

The only design change I would advocate for is upgrading the chassis for the Kindle to be IPX8 waterproof resistance rated. I think that Amazon could accomplish this without undercutting the more expensive Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, which still offers improved lighting options and a larger size than the base 2022 Kindle.

Amazon Kindle (2022): Display 

One of the biggest complaints about the previous iteration of the Kindle in our review was the mediocre display resolution. While the Amazon Kindle 2019 upgraded the display by adding four front lights, which allow for a better and more energy-efficient reading experience, it still featured a relatively low resolution at just 167 ppi. That's fine for reading, but noticeably below the resolution of the rest of the Kindle lineup.

Now, Amazon is fixing that with the Kindle (2022). This Kindle has an upgraded 300 ppi 6-inch display that felt incredibly comfortable for this former Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (3rd generation) user. The e-ink grayscale display looked fantastic and was easy to read. 

The biggest complaint I had was that I found the light to be a bit harsher than the warmer tones you can get on the Paperwhite. However, I found with a little tinkering — and turning on the Kindle 2022’s dark mode — I was able to land on an enjoyable display experience. 

Amazon Kindle (2022): User experience and features 

The Kindle user experience is pretty simple, and I found it easy to use and intuitive. When the Kindle boots up, you’re presented with a home page that displays some selections from your library and recommendations from Amazon. There’s also a search bar to allow you to just search for content directly from the home page.

At the bottom there’s also a “Library” tab that shows everything you have in your Kindle library. You can filter this library by using the filters icon located directly under the search bar, which is great if you’re in the mood for something you haven’t read yet or searching for an Audible audiobook.

Speaking of Audible, you can listen to your Audible audiobooks on the Kindle using Bluetooth. I found it easy to connect my headphones to the Kindle, but be warned — it may be loud at first. Make sure to set your volume using the Settings pull-down menu (drag your finger down from the top of the screen to access) once you’re connected. The volume slider only appears with Bluetooth connected.

Finally, our past reviews have spoken at length about the awfulness that is Goodreads, Amazon’s widely-disliked social network for recommending books. Unfortunately, it hasn’t entirely gone away. While I’ve had a largely Goodreads-free experience, when you open a new book there is an annoying “About this book” pop-up that appears. While technically not a Goodreads feature, it’s still an annoying distraction that the Kindle could do without. Still, overall Amazon largely didn’t overwhelm me with distractions, so it's a vast improvement over some of the previous Kindles in that regard.

Amazon Kindle (2022): Battery life 

While the 6-week battery life of the Amazon Kindle 2022 is less than the Kindle Paperwhite’s 10-week, it’s more than enough. Amazon claims that the Kindle can hit six weeks on a single charge based on 30 minutes of reading a day with Wi-Fi off and the brightness set at 13. Using the Audible audiobook streaming feature over Bluetooth will reduce battery life below this figure.

While I have not tested the battery life of the Kindle as rigorously as Amazon has (I haven’t even had 6 weeks to try and drain the battery) I can tell you so far I’ve been impressed. I’ve been using it for a while now and still have not had to charge it. While it may fall short of the six weeks Amazon promises, it won’t be by much.

Amazon Kindle (2022): Content

Content is both a major advantage and disadvantage of the Kindle ecosystem. Amazon Kindles, of course, have access to the massive Kindle Store and its millions of books. You also get access to Audible audiobooks, which as mentioned you can listen to using Bluetooth. If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can even download a free eBook a month from a selection of new books curated by Amazon. You even get free cloud storage for all Amazon content.

Unfortunately, alongside offering this wealth of content Amazon does everything it can to lock you out of other ecosystems. The Kindle can download eBooks from your public library through the Overdrive service, but other services (like Hoopla, which works on Kindle Fire tablets) don’t work on the Kindle 2022. And if you have Google Books eBooks, those won’t work either.

Amazon Kindle (2022): Verdict 

The Amazon Kindle (2022) is nearly a perfect device for what it is, and some of its flaws are more down to Amazon than the device itself. Being locked into Amazon’s ecosystem is a drag, but you can’t really knock the Kindle for that.

That’s not to say there aren’t improvements that could be made. The fact that the Kindle 2022 isn’t waterproof is probably the biggest reason that I couldn’t rate it above four stars, and the ability to adjust the warmth of the display light is something I sorely miss from the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2021) — though if you’re fine with using dark mode it’s easy to move past that shortcoming. Admittedly, if Amazon fixed those things there would be no reason to get the Paperwhite, so while I’m disappointed, I’m not shocked.

Ultimately though, the Kindle 2022 is probably the best Kindle for most people, dethroning the Paperwhite when both are at full price. It’s lightweight and comfortable to hold, the display is bright and crisp — a massive improvement — and the battery lasts for ages. Unless you really need a waterproof Kindle, it’s tough to advocate spending more than the $99.99 for the Amazon Kindle 2022.

Amazon recently announced its newest e-reader: the Kindle Scribe. This 10.2-inch tablet has all the same features the best Kindles are known for, including easy access to one’s Kindle library — and Amazon's giant online store of books and magazines and audio books. But the new tablet takes things further by including a writable screen. Yes, you’ll be able to write directly on the Kindle Scribe using an included digital pen.

My initial reaction to the Kindle Scribe was: “Why would anyone want a writable e-reader?” I know writable e-readers like the reMarkable 2 and Kobo Nia exist, but I always saw these as a novelty. At least for myself. I own the 2018 Kindle Paperwhite, and only need it for reading books. I’ve never once had a desire to write on it. I don’t jot down notes on physical books, so why would I want to do that on a reading device?

However, the more I think about it, the more open I’m becoming to the idea of getting a Kindle Scribe. So, allow me to explain why this device may be the latest gadget I didn't know I needed in my life.

Taking notes in a book could be useful

As I said, I’ve never been one of those folks who jot down notes in the novels they read. I want to keep my books as pristine as possible. That means I don’t fold pages or bend the spine too much. Heck, I even make sure to place bookmarks in the center of the page rather than near the spine. I'm kind of obsessive, you could say.

This is where the Kindle Scribe comes in. With the device, I’ll be able to write notes "in" a book without fear of damaging it... because it's digital. Check out this product preview trailer from Amazon to see it in action, where you'll see that you don't write in the margins, but in sticky-note like fields 'attached' to the book.

This could get me into the habit of leaving notes about specific passages I find interesting in a book. Millions of book readers already do this with their physical books, but it would be a first for me.

The other reason taking notes on the Scribe seems appealing is because of the large 10.2-inch screen. Though I have no issue with my Kindle’s 6-inch display, that's too small of a surface for writing. At 10.2-inches, the Kindle Scribe has the same display size as my iPad 2020 — and a large enough digital canvas for me to warm up to the idea of writing on an e-reader.

A more “book-like” experience 

Beyond the possibilities offered by a writable tablet, the aforementioned large display is a (pun intended) big selling point for me.

Though I’m content with reading on a 6-inch screen, I’d prefer reading on a large display. I used to read books from the Kindle app on my iPad before switching to a Kindle proper. Staring at backlit displays is already an occupational hazard of sorts in my field of work, so I didn't need to volunteer my eyes for more of that sort of screen time. The Scribe borrow the Paperwhite's glare-free display with the added benefit of a super-sized surface for fitting more on a single 'page.'

The 10.2-inch screen would also be closer to the page size of a standard hardcover novel (only far more slimmer and portable). This would allow me to reach the size similarity I've enjoyed on iPad, but in the made-for-reading Kindle Scribe.

Outlook 

I’m always open to new experiences and having an e-reader that I can write on will certainly provide that. In fact, it could be something I didn’t realize I needed! And while its asking price of $339 is a little steep, the benefits it provides (note taking and large screen) should justify the cost.

Though I was initially skeptical about the Kindle Scribe, the moments since have found me more than likely going to end up getting one. I’m in the market for a new Kindle anyway, so it might be better to get the Scribe instead of waiting for a new Paperwhite model to get released. Tom's Guide will be testing it out soon, so I'm looking forward to seeing our verdict or, possibly, writing it myself.

Amazon has just announced its latest e-ink tablet – the Kindle Scribe. Instead of simply being a dedicated e-reader like the best Kindles, this device comes with a digital pen for taking notes, journaling and drawing. These tasks should be facilitated by the large 10.2-inch 300 ppi front-lit display. It will be available this holiday season for a starting price of $339 (AU$549).

The Kindle Scribe has a glare-free display that Amazon claims feels like reading or writing on paper. The new digital sticky notes feature on the device allows you to add handwritten notes to whatever books you're reading. These notes and highlights are automatically in one place to keep pages "clutter-free," says Amazon.

You'll be able to journal or take notes using various templates, including to-do lists for tracking tasks and lined paper for meeting notes. Your notes are automatically saved and backed up to the cloud — which should give you some piece of mind. Amazon says that these notes will be accessible via the Kindle app in early 2023.

Another handy feature is called Send-to-Kindle. This will let you import documents from your computer or phone to the Kindle Scribe and write directly on PDF documents. In addition, you'll be able to import and create handwritten sticky notes in Microsoft Word documents, websites and other document formats with adjustable font sizes and layouts. You can send documents to Kindle Scribe from Microsoft Word in early 2023.

As we said up top, the Kindle Scribe will be available starting at $339 this holiday season. It will come in Tungsten with options for 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of storage. The device is bundled with a battery-free Basic Pen or Premium Pen, which includes an eraser and a customizable shortcut button.

Amazon says new leather, premium leather, and fabric covers, which can be folded to support Kindle Scribe at different reading angles, will be available in a variety of colors. No word on when these covers will release, but it could be when the device launches.

Outlook

The Kindle Scribe should be a solid device for those who want to do more with their Kindle than simply read books. This tablet bears some similarities to the reMarkable — though the latter isn't an e-reader like the Kindle. Based on what we've seen today, the Kindle Scribe could be an e-reader to keep on your radar.

If you've got a new Kindle for the holidays, or are giving one to someone, we've got a helpful set of things to know about how to make the most of your new device. And while the Kindle can be simple and easy to use, it's a little subtle about some things.

Whether it's the entry-level Amazon Kindle or the best kindle there is (the Kindle Paperwhite 2021), there are many things that could make your e-reading experience smoother and easier. And thankfully they're easy to explain.

Whether it's learning some new tricks about the modern Kindle screens, making your reading experience more focused or removing ads from your device, we've got all the tips you need. Happy e-reading!

The Kindle app on your phone can be a huge help

If the Kindle hardware has any real big flaw, it's that typing on its keyboard is bad. Digital paper screens are okay for tapping single buttons, but spelling out a whole email address and password on a slightly laggy screen is not a great experience.

So, before you even open your Kindle, download the Kindle app onto your mobile phone — it can make the setup process an utter breeze. 

You just sign into (or create) your Amazon account on your phone in the Kindle app (iOS / Android), and then via Bluetooth your phone can easily transmit your account data to your Kindle. As someone who reviews Kindles and other tech, and sets devices up all the time, I wish this were the standard. It doesn't even require you pointing your phone's camera at a QR code

Enable or Disable Goodreads

A lot of digital ink has been spilled over whether or not Goodreads is actually good. It's one of Amazon's many ways to make reading more social and online. And to us, it's unnecessary. As Angela Lashbrook explained for OneZero (and others have explained elsewhere), Amazon's Goodreads is practically broken. Sure it has an end-of-year "Your Year In Books" wrap-up, but it's no Spotify Wrapped.

If you want a list-making app to keep track of the books you want to read, and the ones you've read, you can just use your phone's notes app. 

So, when you're setting up your Kindle for the first time, think twice about if you want a social network, with weird and rote recommendations lists, on your Kindle. The initial Kindle setup lets you opt-in or opt-out, but (of course) you can always change your mind.

To enable or disable Goodreads:

1. Tap the three dots button in the top corner
2. Tap "Your Account"
3. Tap "Social Networks"
4. Tap "Goodreads"
5. And follow the on-screen instructions

Disable ads

This one's optional, but it's going to help with our next tip and we personally recommend it. Your Kindle may have come with ads on its lock screen, and it's never been a better time to remove it (again more on why below). Amazon charges $20 to remove these ads, and we think you'll be happy you did this if you use your Kindle a lot.

Sign into Amazon and open your My Devices page. Then tap Kindles, and select your Kindle. Look for the Special Offers (Amazon's other way of saying Ads) section, and tap Remove Offers.

Turn on Cover on Lock Screen

Once you've removed ads (or if you bought the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, which has none), you're ready to unlock the low-key best Kindle feature. This setting, which lets you change the lock screen to the the cover of the book you most recently read, is kind of a no-brainer. 

The only excuse for it, we imagine, is if you've been reading something so saucy or vulgar that you don't want others to know about it. And no judgement for those raunchy readers. We salute your boldness, and understand your want for privacy.

But for everyone else? There's no reason to not do this, unless you love Amazon's default images of typography. It's a good way to show off the book you're actually reading, and remember what it was like to have books with actual covers.

Here's how to do it (after disabling ads):

1. Tap the three dots button in the top corner
2. Tap Device Options
3. Turn "Display Cover" on 

Try out Kindle display warmth 

Just like the books you choose to read, this feature is all about your personal preference. Recent Kindles, currently the Paperwhite (2021), Paperwhite Signature Edition and Kindle Oasis, have a display warmth setting. It's the kind of thing you might love or simply forget about after trying — but it's too easy to try to sleep on it.

And speaking of sleep, don't think this feature is about helping you sleep. It's not to be confused with blue-light filter technology that helps your eyes relax and fall asleep faster. It's just a way to change the color of the lighting and therefore your Kindle screen.

To change Kindle display warmth, first tap the drawer button at the very top of the screen (think of it as a wide 'v'). Then, if your Kindle supports warmth, you'll see a scale for Warmth, with a dot you can drag to the right to increase warmth.

If you want to have display warmth turn on and off during specific times of day, tap the Schedule button, tap the Off switch to turn it on and pick the times of day when you want warmth enabled.

Borrow local library books

Amazon may not promote this feature, but the Kindle can borrow ebooks from your local library. But you can't do it from the Kindle. Start by going to overdrive.com and finding your local library, and then find a book you want. 

Then, you can check out the book by clicking Borrow. You may need to sign in or create an account. Then, look for a button called Read Now with Kindle. You'll then be sent to Amazon's website to finish the process.

Test out Dark Mode and Bluetooth for audiobooks

Now that you know about the drawer menu at the top of the screen, it's a good time to try out two features you may not know are there. Dark Mode, as its name suggests, enables a dark mode with white text and black background. A Dark mode is less necessary for an e-ink screen, but some will prefer it. 

Then there's also the Bluetooth toggle in the drawer menu, which you'd turn on if you want to listen to Audible audio books. To pair headphones or a speaker with your Kindle go to Settings (under the three dots button), tap Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and tap Bluetooth devices. 

Trying to figure out if your Kindle will lose internet access? We're guessing you heard about Amazon's upcoming changes that will stop some older Kindles from accessing the internet entirely, once the change happens in the U.S. this December.

Fortunately not all Kindles will be affected in the same way. It all depends on which model you have, as Amazon's move to walk away from older 2G and 3G networks (moving to 4G and 5G) is a bigger deal for Kindles that don't have Wi-Fi access. The slightly newer Kindles will still have Wi-Fi, but lose cellular connections That said, the convenience of downloading a book on the go via cellular is a huge thing to lose. And interestingly enough, the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2021) doesn't even have a cellular option.

But in order to figure out which Kindle you have, it's time to dive in to your settings. Here, you'll find your serial number, which can be used to deduce the Kindle you have. You'll also (possibly) find the year of your Kindle, which can also be used for deducing if you'll be affected or not. All of our current picks for the best Kindles, you'll note, won't be losing connectivity.

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Your Kindle's name may help identify it

Personally, I was able to figure out which Kindle I have by turning it on and seeing the name "Henry's 2017 Kindle Oasis" at the top of the screen. Then, I would just scroll below to the lists of affected Kindles, to find that mine will not be affected. 

Unfortunately, not everyone's Kindle has such a convenient name. Yours may just be named "Brian's 1st Kindle," (which is probably eerie to read if your name is Brian, so hi to all the Brians out there). In that case, you need to do some more work. 

We also advise using the serial numbers to confirm the model you have. No other way is as fool-proof. This is because you may have purchased a model in the year after it was released, so take the below list as just help for figuring out what situation your Kindle is in. 

Identify your Kindle model and serial number online

There are two ways to figure out your Kindle's model and serial number, the first starts with going online.

1. Sign into Amazon.com and hover over Account & Lists.

2. Under Your Account, select Content & Devices.

3. Select Devices from the row of options.

4. Select Kindle.

5. Select your Kindle. You may see the name and year of your Kindle, or like us, you may just see a Kindle named "Your #th Kindle" using your name and which number Kindle purchase this was for you.

6. Here you'll find your serial number! The prefix of you serial number will be useful for finding your specific model. 

Identify your Kindle model and serial number on your Kindle

You can also find this info out on your Kindle!

1. Tap Settings. As you'll see above, my 2017 Kindle Oasis was easy to figure out based on how its name appeared at the top of the screen.

2. Tap All Settings.

3. Tap Device Options.

4. Tap Device Info.

5. Take note of your serial number!

The Kindles losing all internet connectivity

OK, now that you know your Kindle's serial number, we've got a list of all the Kindles along with the year they were released and their model name. You'll probably need your serial number, though, as the prefix is used to figure out which model is yours.

We've got the Kindle serial number prefixes for the four oldest Kindles listed below. If yours is not one of those, check out this guide to figure out which is yours.

• Kindle (first generation, 2007) [serial number prefix B001]
• Kindle (second generation, 2009) [serial number prefix B002 or B003]
• Kindle DX (2009) [serial number prefixes B004, B005]
• Kindle DX Graphite (aka Kindle DX second generation, 2010) [serial number prefix B009]

Kindles losing 2G/3G internet that still have Wi-Fi

• Amazon Kindle (third generation, aka Kindle Keyboard, 2010) 
• Amazon Kindle 4 (fourth generation, 2011)
• Amazon Kindle Touch (2011)
• Amazon Kindle (fifth generation, 2012)
• Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (first generation, 2012)
• Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2 (second generation, 2013)
• Amazon Kindle 7 (seventh generation, 2014)
• Amazon Kindle Voyage (first generation, 2014)
• Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (third generation, 2015)
• Amazon Kindle Oasis (first generation, 2016)
• Amazon Kindle 8 (eighth generation, 2016)

Note that Amazon refers to the 2012 - 2015 Kindle Paperwhite, 2014 Kindle Voyage and 2016 Kindle Oasis using the "generation" numbers for its overall Kindle line. Knowing the year your Kindle came out will help a lot here. 

Kindles not losing any connectivity

• Amazon Kindle Oasis (2017) (second generation)
• Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2018) (fourth generation)
• Amazon Kindle (2019) (10th generation)
• Amazon Kindle Kids Edition (first generation, 2019)
• Amazon Kindle Oasis (2019) (third generation, aka Oasis 3)

Should you buy a new Kindle?

This is probably the right time for many to upgrade their Kindle, especially if they're looking for features such as Bluetooth connections for audio books (in all Kindles) or waterproofing (Kindle Paperwhite 2018) for when you're at the beach.

That said, if your Kindle isn't one of the models losing all internet access, we could understand holding onto it. You just need to make sure you load up on books before you go out, so you're not caught without cellular connectivity.

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Figuring out how to update your Kindle, to get the latest version of the Kindle operating system, is supposed to be easy. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. We learned this with Amazon's latest update, version 5.13.7, which the company announced would be going out to the 8th Gen Kindle and above, 7th Gen Kindle Paperwhite and above and Kindle Oasis e-readers.

So no matter which of the best Kindles you've bought, you may run into the same problem we did: our Kindle Oasis just never got the update (it's running by default on the new Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2021 and the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition). We don't know why, and we found it odd. Days later, we found the way to manually update it, to get the new-look home screen, which primarily does two key things to your home screen. It adds a (much needed) Library button on the bottom of the screen, and makes the search field larger.

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How to update your Kindle the easy way

Your Kindle should just get the new update as long as it's connected to the internet. But if that doesn't work, there's an easy way to find the system update setting on your Kindle. 

1. Tap the Settings button in the top row.

2. Tap All Settings.

3. Tap Device Options.

4. Tap Advanced Options.

5. If you can, tap Update Your Kindle. As you can see here, it's grayed out, and we can't. Time to move to the hard way.

How to update your Kindle the manual way

This is how I updated my Kindle Oasis, as the normal update protocols did not work. So if you are waiting and waiting for the update to just happen, you can force it to happen with this process.

1. You need to identify your Kindle model (we explain more about this here).

2. Visit this page for the Kindle E-Reader Software Updates.

3. Find your model and click the "Download Software Update" link next to it to download the update.

4. Connect your Kindle to your computer via USB cable.

5. In your file manager, drag and drop the update to the Kindle's drive. Wait for the transfer to complete.

6. After the transfer has completed, eject the Kindle drive from your computer.

7. Disconnect your Kindle from your computer. Now, we're going to repeat some of the first steps to open the Advanced Settings menu.

8. Tap the Settings button in the top row.

9. Tap All Settings.

10. Tap Device Options.

11. Tap Advanced Options.

12. Tap Update Your Kindle. It should no longer be grayed out. 

13. Tap OK, and wait for your Kindle to restart and process the update. 

After a while, your Kindle should be updated! Congrats!

How to update your Kindle on version 5.13.7 or later

So, if your Kindle is on version 5.13.7, and you still want to update it (or see if an update is available), the steps have changed ever so slightly.

1. Tap the three dots button in the top-right corner.

2. Tap Settings.

3. Tap Device Options. This should look familiar, and I bet you can guess the next steps. 

4. Tap Advanced Options.

5. See if you can tap Update Your Kindle. Repeat the steps under "How to update your Kindle the manual way" if the option is grayed out, but you know an update is out there.

Now you know how to update your Kindle in two ways, and we hope you only need the easy one. That said, the manual method didn't take a whole lot of effort, we just needed to find a microUSB cable.

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Amazon Kindle e-readers are getting a long-awaited feature that will allow them to display a book's cover art on the device's lock screen.

The firmware update, which is rolling out right now, adds the option to set your Kindle’s lock screen as the cover of whatever book you’re reading. Previously, Kindle e-readers would cycle through a selection of preinstalled backgrounds when not in use.

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• Amazon Kindle Oasis review
• Plus: How to check if your Kindle will lose internet access

The Display Cover option isn't just limited to books, either: it will also support the covers of most magazines, comics, and Manga. 

Amazon claims the feature is "a great way to remind you to set aside more time to read" — and it'll certainly be welcomed by many Kindle owners. Users have been asking for it pretty much since the first Kindle launched, so we’re glad to see Amazon is finally implementing it, even if it has taken them nearly a decade and a half to do so. 

All three current Kindle models will receive this feature: the 5.13.5 firmware update is coming to selected versions of the Amazon Kindle, the Kindle Paperwhite, and the Kindle Oasis, plus one version of the older Kindle Voyage. Here's the full list:

• Amazon Kindle (8th and 10th generation)
• Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (7th and 10th generation)
• Amazon Kindle Oasis (8th, 9th and 10th generation)
• Amazon Kindle Voyage (7th generation)

Enabling the feature on these devices is super simple: once your e-reader has been updated, a toggle option will appear in the system settings. And the ability to switch the feature on and off may come in handy, given that you might not want everyone around you knowing that you’re enjoying some trashy romantic fiction. 

What's more, Good Ereader has discovered that the feature is also compatible with ebooks that have been sideloaded, which means those that have been purchased somewhere other than the Kindle Store will also work. 

Disappointingly, the editions of Kindle marked as Special Offer models, which are significantly cheaper due to the inclusion of in-device advertisements, won’t be receiving this feature — though you can remove ads for a $20 fee. 

The firmware update is being rolled out globally right now, so it should arrive on your Kindle soon. 

• More: Forget the Kindle: World’s first color e-reader with 7.8-inch display is here

We haven't seen a new Barnes & Noble Nook tablet or e-reader since 2018 — but Lenovo's changing that. We just learned that the Nook brand will return next week in a tablet — and possibly not an e-reader. 

This comes from The Verge, which quotes Susan McCulloch, Barnes & Noble’s senior director for Nook operations, that a new NOOK tablet "designed with Lenovo" will launch next week. 

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Will this be a branded version of the Lenovo Tab P11 that was announced at CES? We'll have to wait and see. Unfortunately, Lenovo's last stab at a monochrome e-ink Nook was not a success: the Nook GlowLight 3 suffered from poor interface design and sluggish performance, which just gets in the way of your reading. 

Interestingly enough, the Nook's history includes full-color tablets that are forked versions of Android, and were set to compete with Amazon's Fire tablet. The first Nook arrived in 2009, and paired an e-ink screen with a smaller color touchscreen. Then, 2010's Barnes & Noble Nook Color tablet switched over to a full-color panel. 

Most recently, Barnes & Noble released the $129 10.1-inch Nook, its largest Android-based tablet ever. On March 17, Good e-Reader reported that all of the Barnes and Noble Nook e-readers were sold out, as the retailer caught changing out its supply before the new announcement.

The big question about a new Nook is how it will continue to fight the war against the Amazon Kindle — the current king of the field. The TCL Nxtpaper that debuted at CES 2021 showed one possible path: a full-color E Ink display.

Either way, the tablet as a product has evolved notably since Barnes & Noble last fielded a competitive model. Two of Amazon's main Kindles are water-proof, the iPad has gone for productivity and Samsung's attacking Apple with models that are competitively priced.

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Meet the InkPad Color, the latest e-reader from Pocketbook that aims to take on the Amazon Kindle with a color-rich display. 

The successor to last year’s PocketBooker Color, the InkPad Color is a 7.8-inch e-reader that uses the latest version of the Kaleido tech seen in previous PocketBook devices, reported The Verge.  

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The Kaleido panel on the InkPad Color helps to enhance the onscreen contrast and saturation, as well as boosting the screen’s refresh rate for smoother page-turning. This promises to make the InkPad an excellent device for reading magazines, children’s books, and graphic novels, something that other e-readers don’t always excel at. 

The InkPad Color is far from the first color e-reader on the market, but its 7.8-inch screen is certainly a unique selling point. The display beats Amazon’s largest e-reader, the Kindle Oasis, by a reasonable margin in both size and contrast. 

Thanks to the upgraded Kaledio technology, the device is able to display around 4,100 colors, but it does have its drawbacks. The color output is limited to 100ppi, whereas its greyscale resolution is a significantly higher 300ppi. 

The rest of the specs make solid reading as well. The InkPad Color runs a custom version of Linux, is 8mm thick, and weighs 225g, making it slightly on the heavier side but overall still very portable. 

It offers 16GB of internal storage, which can be expanded thanks to an SD card slot, and a 2,900 mAh battery, plus it offers Bluetooth connectivity for pairing wireless headphones which allows you to listen to audiobooks. 

The InkPad Color is available to buy right now from Amazon and retails for $329 / £366.

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February 14 is just a few days out and if you're still looking for the right Valentine's Day deals, we've got the perfect solution. 

Right now, Amazon has its Kindle Paperwhite on sale for just $94.99. That's $35 off and just $10 shy of its all-time price low. It's one of the best Amazon deals you can get right now.  

Per our Kindle Paperwhite review, this is the best Kindle for most people because it has two features every e-reader should have — a crisp 300 ppi screen and strong backlighting. Meanwhile, the water resistance is an added perk that keeps it safe from accidental splashes. 

It also packs Bluetooth, so it can connect to headphones and speakers. Why would it need that? Well, now that it's got Audible audiobook support, you'll need a separate device to listen to books on. 

Meanwhile, if you're strapped for cash, the the basic Kindle is still a solid option and one of the best Kindles you can buy. At 167 ppi, its resolution isn't as crisp as the Paperwhite's and you also lose the latter's free cellular connectivity. But you still get a built-in LED front light for nighttime reading and a reliable device overall. 

Unlike the iPad and other tablets, the The reMarkable 2 ($279 to start) is a slate where writing comes first. Made for writers and those who prefer a digital paper screen, like you get with the best kindles, the reMarkable 2 is made for people (like myself) who love to actually write, and want to bring handwriting into the digital era.

The reMarkable 2 is so (pardon the pun) remarkable because of its amazing redesign, which slims down and moves from plastic to metal. On top of that, a really neat handwriting-to-text conversion trick (added to the reMarkable line after the original reMarkable was released) make it a lot more capable.

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And just recently, reMarkable added a new way to read on the tablet with Read on reMarkable, a Chrome extension that turns posts into Ebooks you can read later. This reMarkable 2 review will show that while the tablet doesn't have the broad overall appeal of an iPad or Amazon Fire tablet, it's still one of the best tablets, especially for the person in your life who has stacks and stacks of notebooks.

In the months that passed since this review was originally published I've come to find the reMarkable 2 as an essential gadget of my day to day.

reMarkable 2 review: Cheat sheet

• The reMarkable 2 offers a natural-feeling writing experience
• It's much thinner and lighter than before
• This tablet doesn't run Android, so don't expect any apps

reMarkable 2 review: Release date and price

At launch the reMarkable 2 was sold exclusively through remarkable.com in a $399 bundle that knocked $137 off by throwing in the regular Marker stylus, polymer weave Folio case and $19 express shipping for free.

Nowadays, the reMarkable 2 is available for purchase from the company's website at a price starting at $279. The Marker is $49 and the Folio is $69. The Marker Plus with its eraser end is $50 (normally $99) and Book Folio cases are $69 off, discounted to $80 for the leather cases and $30 for the polymer weave folio.

reMarkable 2 review: Design

When I took the reMarkable 2 out of the box, I was hit by a wave of shock. "How could this thing be this slim and gorgeous?" my brain asked. First, and most notably, the white plastic bezel has been ditched for a machined aluminum body that has to be held in your hands to be believed. The reMarkable 2 is so thin, in fact, that it's thinner than my pencils and the reMarkable 2's Marker stylus.

The original reMarkable was already slim and unique, at 10.1 x 6.9 x 0.3 inches, but the reMarkable 2 is thinner, at 9.7 x 7.4 x 0.2 inches. And while the 0.89-pound reMarkable 2 is slightly heavier than the 0.77 pound reMarkable 1, I would never refer to it as anything but "lightweight." The reMarkable 2 is also thinner and lighter than the 10.2-inch iPad (9.8 x 6.8 x 0.3 inches, 1.1 pounds).

On a video call with friends, I held the reMarkable 2 up towards my webcam, with its spine pointing at the screen, and I heard at least three different sets of oohs and ahhs.

Making things even better, the reMarkable 2 ditches the stiff power/wake button from the first reMarkable for a very clicky little power button on the top of the spine. You'll find the USB-C port used for charging the reMarkable 2 on the opposite side of the tablet. Yes, while the iPad is still stuck on the Lightning connector, the reMarkable 2 managed to ditch the terrible microUSB for the reversible port of the present.

reMarkable 2 review: Display

The reMarkable 2's monochrome 10.3-inch (1,872 x 1,404) proprietary CANVAS display has a 226 DPI density that won't win a fight with the 264-ppi iPad, but that's OK. The iPad needs a sharper resolution for watching video, which you can't do on the reMarkable 2. This tablet only supports ePUB and PDF files.

While the duo-tone Dungeons and Dragons character sheet I imported to the reMarkable 2 looks super crisp, images I moved over from PDFs don't look as clear. Again, that's not a huge burden. I've tested Kindles and other e-readers with digital paper for years, and I've never expected them to be great for image quality.

Reading PDFs on the reMarkable 2's display, I've seen crisp-enough letters, though I can see pixelation when I look at anything I write on the panel. That's less of a problem, though, and more something I consider "room for improvement."

When I used the Chrome extension "read on reMarkable" to send a blog post to my reMarkable 2, I did realize that I wished the slate offered some kind of lighting, for when you want to read in the dark. But when the reMarkable is this thin and light, I can excuse the lack thereof, which would have probably made it bulkier.

reMarkable 2 review: Writing experience

There is nothing like the reMarkable 2 (and the reMarkable 1) when it comes to writing. The reMarkable tablets offer a natural writing feel that's much closer to the feeling of using a pencil or pen on paper than any gadget I've used before.

It's so natural and fun to write with the reMarkable 2 that I switched to it for a series of professional (product briefings) and personal (Dungeons and Dragons) meetings. And found myself more able to focus on what I was doing while I wrote on the reMarkable 2, rather than if I had used an app for taking notes.

This is so much better than what the iPad offers, because pressing the Apple Pencil against the iPad's glass screen doesn't actually feel anything close to writing on paper with a pen or pencil. Samsung looks to offer a similar feeling with the Galaxy Tab S7, and we're looking forward to comparing how the writing experiences feel.

The reMarkable 2 also packs a ton of templates, and the ability to write in layers (ala Photoshop). This way you can craft a map on graph paper, organize your work week in the Dayplanner template or even build a movie in the three blank storyboard templates. I just wished that the date section in the dayplanner was a little larger for my handwriting.

And you just keep writing and writing, turning the virtual page to the left to unlock another blank sheet. As someone who's had more notebooks than he'll ever know, and seen pages fade, tear or get lost, one notebook to hold them all sounds like a much better place to "collect" my thoughts.

And once you're done, your notes don't just live in the tablet. They sync to the reMarkable apps on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows 7 and later. There's also an option to convert your handwriting to text, which I've seen work in varying degrees of accuracy.

When I used the reMarkable for taking notes during a remote briefing, I wasn't really looking while I wrote, and my notes were practically illegible at times. Still, I prefer the ability to edit the text later — as you can email your transcribed texts to yourself — which helped me share my notes with all my team.

When it's time to write, you have 6 virtual inking tools to choose from: a ballpoint pen (my standard) the Fineliner (which has a thinner tip that looks like the Pilot Precise pens), a marker, a pencil, a mechanical pencil, a highlighter and a paintbrush. If you're wondering how the pencils differ, the regular pencil lets you create shading by writing with the side of the Marker tip on the page.

Some tools, like the pen and marker let you draw in black, gray or white, while the pencils only let you write in black. All instruments, minus the highlighter, allow you to choose between small, medium and large for the size of your writing.

reMarkable 2 review: Performance

The 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM processor in the reMarkable 2 allows for prompt and snappy speeds when you're moving between apps. I don't think that's the key difference maker, though, as the reMarkable 2 moved at speeds that felt more confined by the refresh rates of digital paper.

The reMarkable 2 offers a 21 millisecond latency, improving on the tap-to-screen inking time of the original reMarkable (55ms). Both the iPad Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 offer 9ms latency for their pen input, which will be a goal for the reMarkable to chase. But with its digital paper screen, I'm not sure how close they can get.

Oh, and the reMarkable 2's handwriting to text conversion took about 8 seconds per page with my chicken-scratch, which felt a little longer than I'd like.

reMarkable 2 review: Battery life

After a week of use, for an hour or less a day, the reMarkable 2's battery is currently at 53%. This matches up with the company's claim of getting 2 weeks of usage on a single charge. This is a huge leap forward from the reMarkable 1, which only lasted 3 to 4 days on a single charge.

reMarkable 2 review: Markers and Folio cases

You can either get the reMarkable 2 with the regular Marker stylus (currently free, discounted from $49) or the $50 Marker Plus (currently discounted from $99), which is the one I've become accustomed to during my testing.

What do you get for $50? Well, it's black and not white, it's 27% heavier at 19 grams (vs 15 grams) and its flat half works as an eraser, though you have to lift the butt of the Marker Plus off the screen for the content to be erased. Otherwise, you'll need to tap twice (once to open the tools menu and a second to select the eraser) to erase any mistakes.

If you get the reMarkable 2 with the regular Folio, the polymer-weave sleeve that it slides into, don't make the same mistake I did with the little space for the Marker at the top. When I removed the Marker, its replaceable tip didn't come back out with it, and now I can't find it.

And, having used both, I'd rather spend the extra $30 to $80 for the Book Folio case, which is basically a protective dust jacket that the reMarkable 2 magnetically attaches into.

reMarkable 2 review: Verdict

The reMarkable 2 is one of those gadgets you never knew you needed until you use it. An infinite digital notebook that offers the feeling of writing on paper, but stores your notes in the cloud and even converts your handwriting into editable text, anything other than reMarkable would have been a misnomer.

And this reMarkable 2 review shows how it earns that name even more than the original model, packing its big screen into a thinner, sleeker design. Yes, you could save $70 with the iPad and gain a color screen, many more apps and the ability to watch Netflix. But the reMarkable 2 serves a completely different purpose, and does it better than any other tablet we've ever seen.