Amazon announces unprecedented Kindle refresh, with first color Kindle and new Paperwhite

Updated October 18th with more details about the new Kindle line and specific details about the Kindle Oasis.

Amazon just announced four new Kindles, marking an unprecedented shift in its e-book readers. In the following 24 hours, new details have emerged. The updated range includes new versions of the entry-level model (in a bold new color), the fastest Kindle ever in the new Paperwhite, a stylishly redesigned Scribe and the first-ever color Kindle. Here you can find out what, when and how much. However, it was also initially confirmed that a popular Kindle would be discontinued.

This is the Kindle Oasis, which has been the most sought-after, highest quality and most expensive Kindle in the series for years. For some time now, it has been the only Kindle with physical page turning buttons, which many readers prefer to the pure touchscreen controls of the other models. Amazon confirmed to The Verge that it would soon sell out.

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That doesn’t mean you can’t buy one, but supplies are running low, and once they run out, the Oasis runs out too. I asked Kevin Keith, vice president of devices and services for Kindle at Amazon, if the idea was that the new Colorsoft (see below) would replace the Oasis.

“I view Oasis as a premium tier and a lot of the things we did with Oasis we were able to move to Paperwhite,” he told me. “The waterproofing and flush front display were firsts on the Oasis. The speed of the page change and the chips that were in the Oasis somehow shifted to the Paperwhite and it just kept getting better. The other thing is that we’ve always wanted to bring color to the Kindle. But the technology had to be ready. And so, thanks to the oxide backplane and the new light pipe, we were able to bring color to the Kindle for the first time.”

This is all true, and it’s also the case that the writing has been on the wall for the Oasis for some time. It has 8GB of storage, less than the storage of other Kindles, although it was the most expensive.

With the discontinuation, another Oasis specialty has also been eliminated: the free mobile phone connection. This has been a feature on some Kindle models since the first version. They paid a surcharge on top of the purchase price, but could, for example, connect to the mobile network to download books without having to be in a Wi-Fi area. This was particularly useful if, for example, you finished reading the second volume of a trilogy while lounging on a sun lounger by the sea and didn’t want to wait until you got home or back to the hotel to grab the next volume . This excellent ability will also disappear when the Oasis is gone. If that’s what you want, then don’t dawdle.

Since the reveal, more details have come to light, including some design details. For example, as Lance Ulanoff points out on Tech Radar, the power button on the new Colorsoft and Paperwhite devices remains on the bottom of the readers, making it easy for the reader to accidentally turn off.

At least Ulanoff figured out the reason for the placement. Ulanoff spoke with Amazon’s vice president of Kindle hardware, Kevin Keith, who told him that in redesigning the wildly popular Paperwhite, “the thing you don’t want to mess with with a Paperwhite is how it feels in your hand for a long time.” .” One-handed reading sessions, and that’s why when we increase the screen size, we always need to reduce the margins. And the fact that the button has to be close to the light guide is essentially what triggers this.”

There were also questions about the speed of the Kindle Colorsoft, with people asking if page turning was as fast as the new Paperwhite. I’m told it’s not quite as fast, not least because rendering color content takes time, but it comes very close.

And there’s a new way to turn pages on the Paperwhite. Press and hold on the display and the pages will turn over and over again at high speed. I was told it was almost like being able to quickly flip through the pages of a real book to find your place.

Amazon Kindle Colorsoft

This is the first Kindle with a color screen. There are other e-book readers with color screens, but this is Amazon’s first attempt. It’s a similar size to the new Paperwhite (more on that below) but can display color images, ideal for graphic novels, cookbooks and travel guides.

Color e-readers often look washed out and so pale that it’s hard to see color, but here the colors are more effective, although not the saturated hues you’d see on, say, an iPad. Of course, the Kindle has always been easier on the eyes than a tablet. The subtle colors are attractive and add an eye-catching touch to highlighted text, for example.

By far the most striking of the new Kindles, the Colorsoft combines the power of color with an authority and simplicity that other color e-book readers cannot match.

It’s available to pre-order now and will ship on October 30th, priced at $279.99 or £269.99 in the UK

Amazon Kindle

The entry-level Kindle is now available with a redesign that, for the first time, features a matcha colorway that looks cool. There is still a black version (what can we say?) that is more conservative in color. It has a 6-inch display and, like all new models, a resolution of 300 pixels per inch. It’s also brighter than before. The new colorway appears to be designed to appeal to Gen Z shoppers, which Amazon says is a rapidly growing group of buyers. $109.99, £94.99 in the UK

Amazon Kindle Scribe

The largest Kindle, with its 10.2-inch display, is designed as both a digital notebook and a reading device. It has a sleek new look and a new premium pen that feels and sounds like you’re writing on paper.

It introduces new features like Active Canvas, which allows you to simply pick up the pen and doodle on the page of a book. The printed text flows around it. You can also write in the margins like you still do in real books, and your notes can be saved there too. These new features will also be available on the first generation Scribe via a software update. It works with most books.

And in both the new and first-generation Scribe, generative AI features allow users to do things like summarize their notebooks.

The new Kindle Scribe launches on December 4th and costs $399.99 or £379.99 in the UK

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

The “Goldilocks Kindle,” as I call it because it offers the ideal balance between price and features, has been redesigned in a thinner version with a slightly increased display size – it is now 7 inches instead of 6.8 inches. But it’s still lightweight and easy to hold in one hand for long, intensive reading sessions. This immersion in the text is facilitated by the fastest page turning ever on a Kindle, 25% faster than the last Paperwhite. If that sounds insignificant, it isn’t: as a reader, you don’t want anything standing between you and the words.

The Kindle Paperwhite has 16GB of storage and is available in black, jade and raspberry. It costs $159.99 (£159.99 in the UK) and is available now. A Signature Edition is also available for $189.99 (£189.99 in the UK) with extra storage space and a metallic finish with aluminum flecks for shine and features wireless charging.