Kindle Colorsoft 16 GB Review for Readers Who Want Color on E Ink

Amazon describes the screen as its 7-inch Colorsoft display with a built-in light, 300 ppi in black and white, 150 ppi in color and 16 levels of gray. The same product page also carries this caveat: "Due to the addition of a color filter layer that creates the easy on the eyes color reading experience, you may notice that the texture or brightness of the Kindle Colorsoft display looks different than the Kindle Paperwhite display."

Color E Ink works through that layer: a grid of color filters sits over a black-and-white panel, so color images resolve at half the linear resolution of text. Amazon's page does not name the panel.

That means covers, maps, charts, comic panels and highlights gain color. The color is muted, closer to newsprint than to a phone. Novel text keeps the Paperwhite's 300 ppi but sits behind the extra filter, which is the change Amazon's caveat describes.

The light is the Colorsoft's least controversial part. Amazon says the screen adjusts from white to amber for reading in sun or in the dark, and warmth can run on a schedule. This model has no ambient light sensor. Amazon keeps the auto-adjusting front light for the Signature Edition, so you set brightness by hand.

Amazon's July 2025 announcement offered Page Color, which turns the page black and the text white inside books. The product page now advertises Dark Mode in a bullet, and Amazon's model-identification page lists it for this Colorsoft. Further down the product page, though, the FAQ still says it "is currently not available on this device". Check Settings on your own reader before counting on it.

Amazon gives the size as 127.6 by 176.7 by 7.8 mm and the weight as 215 g. Those are the 12th-generation Paperwhite's dimensions, and Amazon sells its covers as fitting both. The glass front is flush with the bezel.

At that weight it is light enough for one-handed reading in bed. Black is the only color.

The water rating is IPX8, which Amazon defines as surviving 2 meters of fresh water for 60 minutes.

Amazon rates the battery at up to eight weeks, "based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless off and the light setting at 13". That works out to about 28 hours of reading per charge (8 weeks by 7 days by half an hour). The Paperwhite and Paperwhite Signature Edition are rated at up to 12 weeks under the same wording, about 42 hours. Amazon points readers who want longer runtime to those models. The FAQ says the Standard and Vivid color styles make no difference to battery life, but streaming Audible over Bluetooth shortens it.

At an hour a night, Amazon's test conditions work out to a charge roughly every four weeks, more often with the light turned up or Wi-Fi left on.

The Colorsoft charges over USB-C only, and Amazon quotes under 2.5 hours from a 9 W adapter. The box holds the reader, a USB-C cable and a quick start guide, so you supply the adapter yourself. Wireless charging is a Signature Edition feature.

Amazon says the 16 GB of storage holds thousands of books, and Amazon content is also kept in free cloud storage. There is no card slot, and audiobooks and large comic volumes take far more room than novels.

Amazon and Kobo differ most in their software. Amazon quotes over 15 million titles in the Kindle Store worldwide, with Kindle Unlimited as an optional subscription. Color adds four highlight colors (yellow, orange, blue and pink) that you can filter later, plus cover art in the library and store.

Files from outside Amazon are the weak spot, because EPUB, DOCX and several image formats arrive only "through conversion" by Amazon's Send to Kindle service. The technical details list AZW3, AZW, TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI and PRC as native formats. If your library is EPUBs bought from other stores, check how those files are protected before assuming they will move across.

There are no physical page-turn buttons, so every page is a tap or a swipe. Kobo's Clara BW and Clara Colour have none either, and the Libra Colour puts two on its grip.