Amazon announces Colorsoft, the first Kindle with a color screen, for $279

Amazon announced on Wednesday a new Kindle e-reader that features a color display for the first time ever.

The retail giant launched the Kindle in 2007 and since then every device has featured a black and white screen. The new Kindle features a display that ensures colors don't appear washed out or pixelated, even when users zoom in on images.

The $279 device, which Amazon calls Kindle Colorsoft, has a “week-long battery life,” the company said. It is available to pre-order now and will ship on October 30th.

Amazon also introduced an updated $399 Kindle Scribe with new note-taking features, an updated $159 Kindle Paperwhite, and a 12th-generation Kindle that costs $109. At a press event on Tuesday in New York, Amazon's device chief Panos Panay called the updates “the largest single update ever to the Kindle line.”

The Kindle Scribe, which Amazon launched in 2022, features a stylus that allows users to take notes, create to-do lists, and write directly on the pages of the book they are reading. The new note-taking feature called Active Canvas allows users to take notes directly on the pages of an e-book and the text will automatically move to flow around them. You also have the option to make notes in the margins of the book and hide them for later.

The Kindle Scribe includes another new feature that uses generative artificial intelligence to combine pages of notes into a neat list. According to Amazon, the feature uses Bedrock, a software tool that allows users to access large language models from Amazon and other companies such as Anthropic and Stability AI. The device is available to pre-order now and will ship on December 4th.

The new Kindle Paperwhite is faster than previous models and also has a larger 7-inch display (versus 6.8 inches on the previous version). According to Amazon, the 12th generation Kindle is the “most compact” e-reader ever, with a brighter display. Both devices will be available from Wednesday.