2mo ago

Amazon announces first Kindle ever with color screen, retailing for $279

www.cnbc.com Amazon announces first Kindle ever with color screen, retailing for $279

The company is refreshing its entire e-reader lineup, launching four new Kindle devices.

I still have an old Kindle and it still gets months of battery life. I occasionally read comics so this may get me to upgrade.

123 comments

I'd recommend everyone to buy a Kobo over these, it's much easier to read your own .pdf and .epub files than on a Kindle.
- Thanks for this. Was in the market for an e-reader and didn't really feel like jumping through Amazon bullshit
  
  Kobo is the way.
- I also love my Kobo. I've heard you can unlock it and flash a community supported OS, which might be another true benefit over Kindle depending on your needs.
  
  Im just using KoReader on mine. I don't remember the last time that I've seen the stock interface.
- Kobo
- I recommend Boox, I don’t know about their dedicated e-reader, but I have the Onyx Boox Air C it’s a little pricier, but it’s an E-Ink tablet so I take all my notes there. (The C versions are color)
  As someone who takes a lot of notes during their work, I can’t recommend enough. Gone are the days I’ve bought paper notebooks.
  
  The only reason I never bought into Boox is their flagrant violation of GPL.
- Amazon also bought up a comic distributor a while back which may make this easier to get the content I want.
  I’ve never had issues emailing PDFs and epubs to my kindle address to read them.
  I’ll need to check out kobu though, they have a color one that’s $100 cheaper.
  
  interesting, my mum's kindle used to regularly wipe all ebooks i've sideloaded with calibre, only keeping it in airplane mode helped so far
- Got a very old kindle for free, from someone getting rid of it. No touch, no backlight, most basic thing ever. I only got my account on it to download a dictionary.
  I am never buying anything from Amazon to read on it, but I've been using it quite a bit, only on calibre converted stuff. It was not too hard to set up, and once it's done it's just drag n drop.
  
  Until it decides to delete every single side loaded book you have on there, which they like to do from time to time. The only way to completely avoid it is to load all your content via email, which unfortunately only supports limited formats.
- Biggest draw to Kindle for me is whispersync. Having my progress synchronized between Audible and Kindle is fantastic.
- I would agree at this point. I love my Kindle but if I am buying a new one that’s they way I would go
- Did a quick google and the first review that came up shows that's not true at all, it's the exact same process on a kindle as it is a Kobo, though you and this review are both really over-selling it:
  Getting ebooks from other stores onto the device is also a hassle. You have to plug the e-reader into your computer and drag and drop files (though Calibre, the ebook management app, does make it a scootch easier). But that problem isn’t unique to Kobo. Amazon and Barnes & Noble also insist you sideload books.
  The real reason seems to be that the Kobo is cheaper, honestly, don't see why the kindle is that much more
  
  You can change the store on the Kobo to become to your selfhosted calibre library
  https://brandonjkessler.com/technology/2021/04/26/setup-kobo-sync-in-calibre-web.html
- Where's the one with unlimited internet connectivity for the lifetime of the device...I'm not seeing it.
  My wife has the oasis that has cellular connectivity so she can read newspapers, rss feeds, etc. But I don't see a Kobu with that feature.
  
  I don't think Kobo has that option. I just toggle on my wifi hotspot on my phone though and that works just fine.
  
  Where do u go that doesn’t have Wi-Fi in 2024?

I've had two kindles so far, but my next e-reader won't be from Amazon.
I'm trying to move my tech life away from closed ecosystems as much as possible, So I'll probably go for a kobo or boox.
For me the dream would be a really large colour ereader around 10 inches, where you can view even the densest manga or comics comfortably without zooming or scrolling. I think that's what I'm holding out for.
- Have you looked into the Note Air 3 C or the Tab Ultra C Pro from boox? They're both exactly what you describe, and the Tab is out now but the Note launches October 24th.
  
  Thanks. I've been keeping my eye on colour ereaders, and the tech has improved so rapidly in the last couple of years I do wonder if I just hang on for another year then the colour reproduction could be even better.
  Can't wait forever of course, that defeats the whole purpose, but it might pay to wait just a little.
  
  I need them to make a 13" color so damn bad...

I don't understand what the point is with having an e-reader with a colour screen when the screen is so small. Anything I read that would benefit from a colour screen is either a PDF or a comic, and those suffer from tiny letters on a screen under 10 inches.
Or is there a lot of newer books that have images and such that aren't PDF/CBR based?
- pdfs don't have a hard-set text size, and cbr/cbz is just a bunch of jpegs in a rar or zip file, respectively. the first one is a non-issue if you reflow and the second one can be zoomed in to. granted, neither is ideal, but it's workable.
  personally i've kept it to comics in pocket format.
- Comic book sized would be perfect

Still, I won't give in to their monopoly

Uhh... What was the Kindle Fire? Wasn't that color, it was basically a very dumb tablet instead of a smart eReader?
Paperwhite is awesome, anyway. Great battery life. Perfect format. USB-C for charging, unlike the Oasis, seriously fuck you guys so hard for giving the Oasis microUSB, fuck you fuck you fuck you. Sometimes...you just need to know your lane & stay in it.
- The Kindle Fire was an Android tablet, not an e-reader. Completely different products.
- My guess is that Amazon thinks everyone forgot about the Kindle Fire cuz that was before last quarter and that's as far back as they remember.
  
  Amazon Fire wasn’t an e-Ink screen, it was LCD.
- I have an older kindle. The micro USB is the only thing that really bothers me about it. It hasn't bothered me enough to upgrade, but it almost did the other day if they hadn't sold out and now jacked the price.

Anyone know of a color ereader that I can get a custom Linux distro on? Maybe Pine64 will do one eventually.
- Onyx boox runs android. You could probably root it, but I've never looked into it
- The remarkable 2 is apparently good for this if you know what you are doing.
  https://www.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/lzuxti/experience_using_the_remarkable_2_as_a_linux/
  I have one and I'm very happy with it, but I use it exclusively for todo lists and taking notes, so I have no need to tinker with it.
- Pocketbook has always been the best option for linux because it already runs Linux out of the box and is easily modifiable by design

Only if you live in the US or UK. Lol I didn't realize Amazon's international kneecapping of their products moved to include hardware along with software.
For context if you are Canadian you don't get access to overdrive or audiobooks on Kindle. Fun fact this also includes their fire tablets.

There were already multiple such devices from competitors on the market last year.
Personal fazit: they lose in almost every area against a cheap tablet.
- Except for the screen
  
  Especially the screen, unless your only plans for the device involve lots and lots of static text. eInk has improved tremendously over recent years, but it still has a long way to go before it starts replacing LCDs and OLEDs.
  
  There too. Low contrast and less bright than b/w e-paper and still suck more power. AMOLED is better for the eyes, even though it glows.

I just got a boox e ink tablet. It runs android. I have a sideloaded manga reading app and Google books installed. epub books (found easily on Yandex) can be uploaded to Google books from my phone.
I love it.
- Which one do you have? That is pretty much my exact use case!
  
  Oh nice! Yeah this is 100% the best way to go. I use the app Mihon for finding/reading manga, its basically the same as tachiyomi before it got shut down.
  The one I use is the Boox 7.8" Nova Air2 eReader. I chose one without a color screen. The color screens are cool and all, but for black and white content, the color layer makes the white more of a grey color. For that reason I don't recommend the color e ink quite yet.
  The 7.8" screen is literally the perfect size for manga. It feels perfect.
  Good luck!
  
  I have a boox page and i love it. I don’t use it for reading manga but i haven’t tried it so can’t speak on whether it would be good or bad. It’s amazing for books though, great battery life and SD slot which were huge for me. It also runs regular android so I use Koreader to read books and you could definitely download Mihon to read mangas.

I’m super torn between not wanting more Amazon in my life and wanting a convenient way to binge a lot of comics and manga
- I quite like my Kobo Libra Colour
  
  Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll look into it 🤔
- Youre looking for an Onyx Boox tablet - a little pricey, but worth it for the un-enshitified tablet.
- I want to read comics but I also don't want to miss out on that feeling when you turn a page and are greeted with awesome two page spreads.
  Unfortunately no tablet or e-reader can have this functionality.
  
  My Kobo Libra Color does it. I do sometimes need a bit of time to format manga properly but it's perfectly doable.
  
  On my iPad, I use an app called Manga Plus and in landscape I get the two page spreads. I suppose any app that's supports two-page landscape view would work. But that wouldn't work well for smaller tablets
- A tablet for $100 would do...
  
  Normal tablets don’t have e-Ink screens and for reading electrophoretic displays are vastly superior to LED/LCD screens.

Cool, I wonder which type of color technology this uses though, I can't seem to find that info.
I would prefer Gallery over Kaleido, but I'm guessing it's Kaleido because of the different ppi listed between the b&w and color modes.
- Have you ever actually used gallery? it sucks
  
  Does it still? Refresh time looked much improved with Gallery 3 so I thought it was better now. The ReMarkable is the only device I know that uses it and I haven't had the chance to try it yet.

I’ve often wondered why e-ink displays are so expensive
- IIRC licensing monopolies and capitalist bullshit.
  old link but still : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143407

I have a 2011 kindle, the silver one with no backlight . I got second hand from a friend and I use calibre on linux to convert books to the amazon format and copy them over via USB. It does the job but I have seen that these are like 20 ducats on eBay and other places if anyone wants a cheap option.
Anna's archive with virus total for books

What's the @#%^ing point, honestly
- Comics and graphic novels mostly. Maybe scientific papers and textbooks.
  Oh you mean the point for Amazon? Extract money
  
  Ha, good response. Didn't know people got comic books on Kindle. Thought the point was having/collecting the physical ones.
- Because if you read the article, it says it has a battery life of several weeks.
  Name one fucking color display tablet that can be used every day for over a week on batteries without charging? I'll buy it tonight.
  
  Any of the color e-ink readers from Kobo, Boox, reMarkable?
- For weebs and such to read their comics
- No clue. I read on a $20 tablet I got off Amazon. With the app that suits you, why not indeed? It's a total POS for anything but reading, but I bought it for an epub reader.

All e-readers with the e-ink tech are like $499.99
That's just too expensive. $100 is the best I can do. So I'll just wait for it to show up on eBay.
- https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-clara-bw?variant=41202831949894
  https://www.thalia.de/shop/home/artikeldetails/A1070734292
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNV9F72P
  https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/kobo-nia-ereader/681495007998.html
  None of these are even close to $499.99
  
  I'm sorry I made a mistake. I meant to refer to the note taking tablets. There's a difference there.

So.... a tablet?
- A tablet with a color eink display
- If the Kindle is a tablet, then yes. If the Kindle is an e-reader, then no.

123 comments