Amazon’s updated Kindle Colorsoft adds colour at a high price

Amazon’s refreshed Kindle Colorsoft adds a lighter, thinner design and an edge-to-edge colour screen, but starts at $290, making it a costly choice for an e-reader. The Signature Edition costs $320, and the review concludes that colour may appeal to readers of comics, graphic novels and cookbooks, while owners of the first model have little reason to upgrade.

Both versions have a 7-inch colour E-Ink display, with 300ppi resolution for black-and-white content and 150ppi for colour. The Signature Edition has 32GB of storage, compared with 16GB in the base model, plus an aluminium back; Amazon claims up to eight weeks of battery life. The screen’s colours are muted compared with an iPad, but it offers adjustable colour temperature and brightness, is waterproof, and has a repositioned power button.