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When Amazon released the first Kindle in 2007, it kickstarted an entirely new way to read your black and white books. Using e-ink, which relies on tiny pixels made up of real ink droplets, Kindles display content like novels, putting much less strain on your eyes than traditional backlit screens, and with lower battery draw to boot. But until recently, technology limitations meant color content hadn’t gotten the same treatment.
Now, with the release of the Kindle Colorsoft, Amazon’s first color e-reader, color e-ink is finally in the mainstream. It’s not the first of these devices, but it is likely the one with the most name recognition behind it.
That said, it still comes with a few drawbacks, some due to its own individual quirks, and some due to color e-ink in general—it might be easier on the eyes than an LCD screen, but also is severely limited when it comes to accurate color reproduction.
With that in mind, I wanted to compare the Kindle Colorsoft with the flagship color device from one of Amazon’s biggest competitors, the Rakuten Kobo Libra Colour, to see which one offers the better way to try out this exciting but still nascent technology.
Specs
Raw specs are a bit of an unusual topic when it comes to e-readers. You’re not necessarily browsing the internet or using productivity apps on these devices, and so topics like processor speed or memory capacity don’t matter as much as they do on, say, a laptop. While slow computing can hamper these devices, typically, any lag you’re going to encounter has more to do with the limitations of e-ink than anything else.
But there are still considerations to take into account here. Factors like screen size and resolution matter, as do battery life, lighting, and weight. For the most part, the Kindle Colorsoft and the Kobo Libra Colour have almost the exact same capabilities, with some minor differences worth noting.
Both e-readers use the same 7-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 display, which has a 300 ppi resolution when looking at black-and-white content, a 150 ppi resolution when looking at color content, and can display 4,096 colors overall. Both have 32GB of storage, both are IPX8 waterproof, and both have an adjustable front light with color temperature settings, although their specifics differ.
For instance, the Kindle gets a little brighter than the Kobo, measuring in at 395 nits for me vs. the Kobo’s 382 nits, although the bigger difference is in color temperature. Speaking subjectively, the Kobo felt as if it always had a yellowish tint, even with the color temperature set to 0, whereas the Kindle more easily emulated a white page with color temperature set to 0. This isn’t noticeable with the lighting turned off, and both are adequately warm with the color temperature set to max. It’s likely just a quirk of the lights each manufacturer chose, but worth taking into account if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing.
Similarly, the Kindle Colorsoft has a light sensor that allows for automatic brightness adjustment. Both brightness and color temperature can also be put on a schedule on the Kindle, but on the Kobo Libra Colour, scheduling is the only automation available. Any other changes to lighting or temperature will need to be made manually.
For weight, the Kobo Libra Colour is slightly lighter at 199g versus 217g for the Colorsoft, although both are still more lightweight than the typical paperback novel (based on a few I pulled off my shelf). Battery life is also similarly rated at a little over a month for each, and while that mostly rang true over my time with each device, your situation will differ based on how bright you set your screen and how frequently you enable wifi.
When it comes to build, each device is roughly the same thickness, but the Kindle is a little taller while the Kobo is a little wider. That’s because the former places its grip on the bottom of the device while the latter has it to the right.
On paper these two e-readers are roughly on par, which mostly bears out in reality. That said, the Kindle does have a slightly more adjustable light, so I’ll give it the win here.
Winner: Kindle Colorsoft
Image quality
Despite having the same specs on paper, not to mention the same screen, image quality is less of a toss-up than you’d think. Both use the same base display, yes, but Amazon also says it’s supplemented the Kaleido with a special oxide backplane for sharper contrast and a light guide to help keep light rays from bleeding into areas where they’re not wanted. Are these changes actually noticeable, or are they marketing speak? To my surprise, yeah, they make a pretty big difference.
In testing with both older and newer comic books, the Kindle Colorsoft regularly displayed color content with more accuracy and fewer washed-out colors. In particular, shading was more consistent on the Colorsoft, whereas the same details were often either splotchy or lost entirely on the Kobo.
This also extended to black and white content. While both e-readers suffer from the “rainbow effect”—an unavoidable artifact of the Kaleido 3 that sees anything from a glittery background to full on spectrums of color invading your black and white reading—it seemed much less prevalent on the Kindle Colorsoft, as you can see in this particular scene from the manga Berserk.
I should note that the Kobo does have a “Reduce Rainbow Effect” setting that’s supposed to combat this, but in practice, I found it made images so blurry and performance so laggy (both effects Kobo warns may happen when enabling it) that I preferred to leave it turned off. The Kindle has no such option, but even comparing the Kobo with rainbow effect reduction turned on to the Kindle, I still preferred the latter.
The Kindle does ship with two color modes that allows you to control how vivid colors are. Similar to the Kobo’s “Reduce Rainbow Effect” option, I pretty much never touch the Standard mode here, as Kaleido is limited enough already, but it is there if you think Vivid is too, uh, vivid for you.
To me, this is the best reason to get a Kindle Colorsoft: The reading experience itself, while still not on par with a tablet for color content or a more traditional e-reader for black and white content, is the best I’ve seen yet on a color e-reader.
Winner: Kindle Colorsoft
Extra features
That’s two categories down for the Colorsoft, including the seemingly all-important image quality category. But here’s the trick: having a bit better image quality on a color e-reader might not be the be-all, end-all, depending on your preferences. With only a few thousand colors available, you’re already making a compromise here versus reading on an LCD or a physical copy. Beyond that, marginal improvements to the way content is displayed will really only matter to you based on how sensitive you are to minutiae like inconsistent shading. I do think the Kindle’s changes are noticeable, but I could also see a certain user being willing to sacrifice them for more conveniences elsewhere.
And the Kobo Libra Colour offers a few bonuses that the Kindle Colorsoft doesn’t.
While both e-readers have bluetooth connectivity for audiobooks, that’s about it when it comes to alternate ways to use the Kindle Colorsoft. Otherwise, it’s just a nondescript tablet, with page turns activated via touchscreen, even if the color screen does allow for color-coded highlighting.
The Kobo Libra Colour, meanwhile, has two big additions that make it feel a bit more premium than the Kindle at first blush: page turn buttons and stylus support.
The former is pretty self explanatory, and how much it matters to you depends on the type of reader you are. I suppose I would say that they might be better for people who like to grip their books with one hand rather than two, since the grip that houses these buttons makes holding the Kobo that way a bit more comfortable, but I think that’s largely down to the individual.
Personally, I don’t mind losing page turn buttons, but I do acknowledge that some of my friends would die for them, and it’s a bit of a shame that despite the Colorsoft being Amazon’s second most expensive Kindle, it doesn’t have them. Their presence on the Kobo does make it feel more premium in comparison.
Also helping on that front is the stylus. It’s a $70 add-on, but it allows you to jot notes right onto your books, as well as make your own notebooks, complete with text conversion and multiple available highlighter and pen colors. The responsiveness isn’t quite as good as on a more traditional tablet, but I found it worked well enough for shorthand and basic doodles, so I could see the feature being of use to students. It’s also a much cheaper way to get a digital notebook than Amazon’s $400 Kindle Scribe or any of its similarly priced competitors from the likes of Boox, Supernote, and reMarkable.
Are either page turn buttons or stylus support necessarily system sellers? I wouldn’t say so. But they certainly do help the Kobo Libra Colour stand out, which is more than I can say for the Colorsoft.
Winner: Kobo Libra Colour
Content library
To me, access to content is a problem for almost all color e-readers, but there’s still a clear winner here.
Starting with the good—both devices have access to large content stores for traditional books, with the Kobo sending users to Rakuten’s digital bookstore and the Kindle using Amazon’s. You can find pretty much any novel or non-fiction book you’d like on either, and if you’re keen on a subscription, both devices have plans that offer access to select titles for free.
Both devices also let you sideload your own content, so you can continue to port EPUBs or PDFs to your new e-reader.
But here’s the rub—comics availability on both is hit-or-miss, and usually requires you to buy each individual comic you want piecemeal. That can get expensive quick, much more so than using apps like Marvel Unlimited or DC Infinite, and could leave you with a gap in your reading if you discover when partway through a series that it crosses over with a title you can’t get. While both devices suffer from this, I find it’s still worth bringing up, as comics make up the majority of the color content I read. This is the biggest warning I would make to anyone considering a color e-reader that can't run apps.
Still, despite both devices having similar flaws, there is one place where the Kobo pulls ahead. Recently, Amazon changed its policies to make it impossible to download and export your Kindle library to other apps or devices without breaking its rules. There are still ways to do it, but it’s possible the tech giant will shut them down with future updates. Long story short, Amazon is trying to make it so that buying content on its stores locks you into using its devices and apps, whereas Rakuten actually has official guides for accessing your purchases wherever you want.
That relative openness is a big part of the Libra Colour's appeal, and while you won’t notice it if you only ever buy content through each device’s respective primary storefront, it presents a great peace-of-mind to Kobo owners if they ever want to swap ecosystems in the future.
Winner: Kobo Libra Colour
Price
This one’s pretty self explanatory. Despite having the same basic specs as the Kobo Libra Colour, a more locked down storefront, and no bonuses like page turn buttons or stylus support, the Kindle Colorsoft is $50 more expensive, at $280 versus $230. You’ll really need to value native access to your Kindle library or that improved contrast and lessened rainbow effect to justify the price—especially because the Kobo Libra Colour has an even cheaper sibling, the Kobo Clara Colour, that offers a similar experience but with a 6-inch screen, no page turn buttons, and no stylus support. Given that the Clara Colour costs $160, those seem like fair tradeoffs to me, although I’ll admit I don’t have firsthand experience with it.
Winner: Kobo Libra Colour
And the Winner Is...
Choosing a winner here was a little difficult. The Kobo Libra Colour takes one more category than the Colorsoft in the above writeup, sure, but the Kindle is also flatly better when it comes to key metrics like lighting and image quality.
That said, it’s not so much better, to my eye, that it makes the Libra Colour irrelevant. Right now, color e-ink is a compromise no matter which device you’re using, and with that in mind, the Kobo’s improvements elsewhere start to look a bit more attractive.
For one, it’s significantly cheaper, while still giving the same basic experience. That’s especially key here, because given color e-ink’s current limitations, unless you’re already familiar with it, I'd suggest it’s probably better to start cheaper and see if it appeals to you rather than go all out with your first purchase. And while the display and lighting fall a little bit behind, the rest of the hardware does give you more for your buck, with page turn buttons and stylus support.
But most important to me is the more open library. Buying content using the Kindle store essentially locks your library to Amazon devices, which means that if you upgrade, you’re going to have a hard time swapping out down the line. Yes, you can port content from other stores to your Kindle, but it’s much less convenient than using Rakuten’s store and just knowing that Rakuten will explicitly support you moving content to other ecosystems in the future.
All of that comes together to make the Kobo Libra Colour an easier recommendation for me. But that doesn’t necessarily make it the best color e-reader. While I haven’t tried them, alternatives with larger screens or access to Android apps do exist. For more, check out this Boox Note Air 4C review from my colleague Joel Cunningham.
Michelle Ehrhardt is Lifehacker's Associate Tech Editor. She has been writing about tech and pop culture since 2014 and has edited for outlets including Gizmodo and Tom's Hardware.
