(Re)Kindling a Lifelong Love … in Color (Premium)

I’ve been a fan of the Kindle since it was first announced: I owned the very first Kindle (and still have the gorgeous box it came in), and I’ve owned almost every Kindle model that Amazon has produced since, including some of the more expensive experimental devices. A lifelong reader, Kindle was immediately and obviously something I wanted, a tiny, portable device with weeks-long battery life that could hold an entire library of books. It was, in its own way, perfect.

But also not perfect. In more recent years, I drifted away from Kindle for pragmatic reasons. There was no color, and aside from the book covers, a lot of the content I read includes color in the form of photos and illustrations, and some content is literally in color, like graphic novels and comic books. The screen was too small on the mainstream modes. The performance was terrible. And most important, perhaps, books are only one way in which I read each day. I start my mornings reading news in apps, and I read throughout the day, often in web browsers. The Kindle supported periodicals and books, but that was about it. And so I adopted the iPad instead, introducing its own problems but solving the issues I had with Kindle, and also introducing other benefits.

But I never lost track of Kindle, never stopped thinking about these devices and how their distraction-free experience might work as an antidote of sorts for the frazzled brain effect I see as a byproduct of our always-connected, never idle lives. And so back in May, I ordered what was then the latest generation Kindle Paperwhite. And I gave it a whirl. I read a few books on the device, noting that its battery life was still terrific, but that its display was still tiny. and its performance was still terrible. It was curious to me how little had changed over the years.

In the end, I handed it over to my wife, who has likewise been using a Kindle for many years. Her device at the time was a Kindle Oasis that was, at the time, a higher-end model, but it was bogged down with an out-of-date micro-USB charging port and was starting to slow down even beyond the normally slow performance. She was happy to get it, and she uses it every day. And I went back to my iPad, and then I upgraded–maybe not the right word–to an iPad Air M2 with a 13-inch display.

The iPad is OK. I had pragmatic reasons for this upgrade, I guess I always do. But it’s too big and too heavy, and not ideal for reading, and I wish I could have chosen the iPad Mini that Apple only recently introduced, but it wasn’t available at the time, and whatever. It happened. And I sort of regret it. It’s a big, beautiful, premium device, but it’s too much. Not just too expensive. Too much. Too much screen. Too much weight. It’s not that perfect combination of attributes you always look for in a device. It looks like it could be, but it just isn’t.

If I had waited for Apple to upgrade the iPad Mini, we might not be having this conversation … are the words I wrote, but it’s not true. The truth is, I’ve been waiting for Amazon to release a color Kindle for well over a decade, perhaps since the very first device. And no matter which devices I was using to read with at the time, I was always going to buy the first color-enabled Kindle. And so I did: When Amazon announced the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition along with several other new Kindle models a month ago, I pre-ordered it immediately.

Immediately. Like, before I wrote the story about it immediately.

We were in Mexico at the time. In fact, we just flew home from Mexico last night, and I’m a little bleary-eyed from the travel as I write this. But know that we walked in the door, found a few boxes waiting for us on the dining room table–our mail from the previous several weeks will be delivered today or tomorrow, I guess–and that one of them was obviously the Kindle Colorsoft. So I forgot about whatever other tasks I needed to do having just stepped inside my home for the first time since late September, and I set it up. That’s where I went immediately.

But let’s go back to mid-October for a moment. Amazon announced the Kindle Colorsoft, finally. I pre-ordered one, and was told it would arrive by November 1. I knew we wouldn’t fly home until November 19. And that I would be reading reviews ahead of time. And that a bigger color Kindle would be even better. And that the Kindle Colorsoft, like the Kindle Paperwhite I purchased earlier in the year, wouldn’t meet all my needs.

I turned to my wife, who was reading the news on her phone, as she does. We’re all different, I know. But I do find it odd that this is what she chooses to do. I switch between Pixel phones and iPhones, for the most part, but she’s been using a Samsung Galaxy S whatever Ultra–and before that, Samsung Galaxy Note models of whatever vintage–for years. And while I read the news on an iPad in the morning, she just uses her phone. I can’t stand Samsung. And I prefer to read on a bigger device–apparently one that’s not as big as my current iPad Air, but bigger than a phone–and she’s fine with what she has. Fine.

“Amazon is finally releasing a color Kindle,” I told her.

Two things to this.

One, she doesn’t normally care about anything related to personal technology, and knowing this, I try not to distract her with things that are interesting to me but will almost certainly not be interesting to her. This is not one of those things. She reads on a Kindle each night before we go to bed, and as noted, she’s done this for many years. She loves her Kindle, that same Kindle I found too small, slow, and limited. I knew she’d be interested in this. More than that, I knew she’d want one too.

Her face lit up. This never happens when I mention anything tech-related. But again, I knew.

“I pre-ordered one, of course.”

That’s the second bit. Most are familiar with the concept of spousal acceptance when it comes to big ticket purchases, and most have some financial limit, some line they can’t cross without checking in with their partner. Thanks to my job, my line is pretty much infinite, honestly, though I always make sure I can justify whatever I do, and I try to maximize trade-ins and so on to soften the blow. But this year has been particularly challenging from a money perspective: I’ve purchased two very expensive laptops, a 15-inch Apple MacBook Air M3 and a 15-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, and came close to a maxed-out configuration in both cases. There were also several other expensive purchases mid-year, including that iPad Air and four HomePod speakers I’m still a bit iffy on. And yeah. She never really lost her mind over any of this, but she does handle the money, and we have certainly had conversations. And yet.

“Do I want one too?” she asked. Interesting. But not unexpected.

I told her to see what happens first. I knew that the Kindle Colorsoft only solved one of the several problems that I have reading on a Kindle, and that it was highly likely that I would simply be handing this off to her at some point as a result. But if this was so good that I couldn’t bear to part with it, we could simply order her one as well, and trade-in that Kindle Paperwhite. We had likewise purchased a Kindle Paperwhite for our daughter for Christmas the year before, and I suspect this might be an interesting upgrade for her as well. The holidays are coming, after all. (That our daughter loves her Kindle too is quite interesting to me, but she does, and I never saw that coming.)

And that was that. She didn’t even ask how much it cost. She always asks how much it costs. No matter what it is.

The weeks past. Amazon alerted me that the Kindle Colorsoft had shipped on October 31 and that it was still expected to arrive on November 1. It told me that it had been delivered on November 1, and so we texted a neighbor and asked them to please put it inside for us. And Amazon sent me a helpful email about getting started with the Kindle Colorsoft, which I tried to ignore so I could focus on work and whatever was going on in Mexico.

It’s possible that Amazon was getting concerned that I had started using the Kindle Colorsoft. On November 9, it emailed me to ask if I needed help setting up my new Kindle Colorsoft.

“You’re just a few steps away from accessing a world of great reads on your Kindle Colorsoft,” the email explained, not understanding that I was 1,500 miles away in a different country. “Press and hold the power button for 2-3 seconds and follow the on-screen instructions to set up your device.”

That does sound simple, but the email also noted that if this was a gift, it would email the other party instead, once they registered the device. If only someone would register the device. But I had to wait. And I knew that Amazon has such incredible return terms that I probably had until late January if I needed that much time. I didn’t want to wait that long.

I was also concerned about stories claiming that some buyers were experiencing a yellowish color band on the bottom part of the Colorsoft screen, and that while Amazon offered refunds and replacements, this issue had stranded fans without a Kindle, as they had traded in their previous models to get the new one. “It’s a mess,” Wired wrote. But I wasn’t that worried. I would just return it if there were issues. I have been waiting for this device for so many years. But I have other ways to read.

And then we flew home, finally. It’s difficult to express how little this interested me, for the most part, and how depressing it is to even think about how busy we’re going to be over the next two months. But I was looking forward to one thing. And that one thing was sitting on my dining room table, in a little box, waiting for me.

It is glorious. It is also exactly what I expected, and that’s both good and bad. The list of improvements it brings over the now previous-generation Kindle Paperwhite reads like an Apple product announcement. Despite being mostly identical, the Kindle Colorsoft has a slightly bigger display, a faster processor and allegedly better performance, more storage, a superior display, and whatever else. But most importantly, it has color, glorious color. There is no yellow discoloration.

But the reality of this device is that it’s a Kindle. The display is still small. The performance is still middling, and for all the talk about custom formulated coatings, micro-deflectors, improved optical performance, and faster page turns, it’s slow. Kindles are slow. This is a Kindle, and it’s slow. It doesn’t solve my many reading needs, which I knew would be the case. It can’t replace my iPad.

It is beautiful. Because I have been following as other companies introduced color e-ink devices, I knew what to expect from a quality perspective. I knew that the colors would be pastel-liked and a bit faded, and I do not care. I think the color is fantastic. It is exactly what I wanted. And it is also not exactly what I need. Not the color. Just the rest of the Kindle experience.

And so I see color coming to bigger Kindles in the future, of course. Better resolution and contrast, obviously. But what I really want–what I may really need–is a mainstream mini-tablet with an e-color display. One that has an app store so I can download the other reading apps I use each day, but also the Kindle app. And then I can read everything in color. There are devices like this now. They run Android, which is OK but not ideal. Apple will never make such a thing, so this may be my only choice. I’m not sure.

For now, I’m going to read with the Kindle Colorsoft at night. Books, of course, but also graphics novels, including a series I recently purchased and started on the iPad. And then we’ll see. I think my wife will be getting the Kindle Colorsoft she, too, immediately wanted. But we’ll see.

I’m so glad that Amazon finally produced a color Kindle. But predictably, I want more. And now that I think about it, I wonder whether Amazon will, in fact, be the company that delivers that. It already makes Android-powered Fire tablets. It already makes hybrid big Kindles that double as note-taking devices. Surely, there is a “you got my e-reader in your Android device” e-ink Goldilocks device in that mix somewhere.

It’s not fair to get something and want more, I know. But come on Amazon, you can do this. You might be the only company that can do this correctly. You should try. I would buy one immediately, after all. I bet many people would.