Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more

The color model is uncharacteristically expensive for Kindle at $280, more than the color Kobos which are $220 for the same 7" size (which also has physical buttons and stylus support) or just $150 for the smaller 6" size. Kindles are usually the cheaper option, at the expense of being less amenable to sideloading and jailbreaking than Kobos are.

The color model is expensive, indeed. My guess is that they will quietly offer discounts after the hype goes away.

This article really buries the lead. It talks about updating monochrome kindles, when they just released their first color Kindle (not counting the Fire). I had to look elsewhere to confirm this was indeed a brand new line of products, and others give it top billing.

It's because Ars ran a separate article just for the color Kindle.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/amazons-first-color-...

Yeah, black friday is near. I am thinking older models will be given higher discount via their deal site woot.com. And latest model on Amazon with 20-50 dollars off depending on original price.

From the second paragraph of the article:

> In addition to the monochrome e-readers, Amazon introduced its first color e-reader today. The new Kindle Colorsoft, covered in more detail here, looks almost identical to the new Paperwhite and launches on October 30 for $279.99.

Don’t forget you can also trade in pretty much any old kindle in any condition for another 20% off (plus a few bucks for the old device itself).

the scribe was on a nice discount for fathers day and randomly in march this year

All their splash art shows comics. That makes sense, inasmuch as comics are a primary reason you'd want color in a book. But it still strikes me as a bizarre choice, since Amazon is only offering colors in their tiny form factor. They also make a larger device, and if you want color, you can't have it.

Comics are unreadable on a 7" kindle's tiny screen anyway. What's up with the marketing?

> being less amenable to sideloading and jailbreaking than Kobos are.

jailbreaking sure but what is the issue with sideloading on kindles? You can either email them which is very practical for third party services that support it (I have a digital magazine subscription that supports this for example) or just drag and drop via USB or a manager like calibre.

I have never had any issues getting documents on the Kindle.

The screen tech is a bit too expensive in larger sizes for now, so it'll take a bit until you'll get a large fast color e-ink screen.

TLDR: Kindles just plain do not work with DRMed library books

https://www.giga.de/artikel/onleihe-mit-amazon-kindle-nutzen...

So the rule of thumb is that Kindles work well with Amazon books and very badly with everything else. Vice versa for non-kindle e-readers

>> What's up with the marketing?

Why advertise a function that you know your device can't fulfill?

I should have known before I gave away old kindles to my younger relatives :)