Review: Kindle Scribe Colorsoft

 For as long as the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft has been available for purchase, I'd wanted one. While I did enjoy my Kindle Scribe a lot, I wanted color for comic books. I didn't use it as a note taker very much, as it was a little too bulky to carry around casually, so the device mostly stayed at home. Of course, at $630, it was a steep ask, but I knew that it would eventually go on sale.

During this year's Prime days in July, it finally got discounted to $480. You get another $96 off if you traded in your old Kindle, which I promptly did. Having learned my lesson about storage, I knew I didn't need the 64GB model and just went for the 32GB basic model. The Cobak Case had a separate compartment for the pen which ensured I wouldn't lose it, which happened to all the kindle scribes in our family's possession, so I bought that instead of the official case.

I've used it to read multiple comics, and to be honest, it's still a little disappointing. The colors are muted, looking more like old-school newsprint rather than a bright display. Now, if you're outdoors this is still way better than any tablet, but for anything other than that, the muted display occasionally even makes reading text in colored dialog boxes difficult.

Having said all that, it's still a big improvement over no color at all, compared to the old kindle scribe. The screensaver page looks fantastic, and certain books have colored fonts for their chapter titles, and every time I look at it it looks great.

The battery life is not so good. If you're reading standard text, it'll last about half as long as the Kindle Scribe. That's plenty. But if you're downloading and reading comics? I've drained the battery in as little as 3 days of 3 hour per day of reading. Now I do have the brightness turned up, but it's clearly not a device that will go a month without charging like my older Kindle Scribe.

I used it to take notes recently, and the handwriting recognition isn't great. Expect to have to clean up the text if you use the handwriting recognition feature to deliver your own handwriting. Obviously, my handwriting has deteriorated over the years, so if I actually practice writing by hand a bit I expect I'll get better results. I'm not an artist, so I can't comment on how much it is to draw or color or anything like it.

Now, anything that will get you to read more is always a good thing. But this is the first Kindle I've bought where the value proposition was no longer a slam dunk (especially at the undiscounted price). Overall, for me I think it's still a good device. I'm not sure it makes sense for a lower volume reader. Obviously, the price will go down. I'd say at around $400 you should definitely consider it!