The best Black Friday Kindle deals are here – but there’s one you should avoid

• Amazon’s Kindle e-readers are all on special offer on Black Friday but some of the discounts are better than others
• Our favourite deal is on the Kindle Scribe, which sees the price reduced from £380 to £260 – the lowest price we’ve seen on the digital note-taking device
• There is a discount on the Kindle Paperwhite, but even with £40 off, it’s not the

During Black Friday week, Amazon usually discounts all its hardware products heavily and this year is no different: there’s a host of deals on everything from Ring Doorbells to Fire TV Sticks. but it’s the Kindle ereaders that have the most tempting deals on them.

Here’s a quick summary of every Kindle deal Amazon is offering right now and, note, these prices are for the “without ads” versions. If you don’t want ads on your lockscreen, add £10 to each price:

• Kindle: ✅ £65 ✅ | Was £95 | View deal
• Kindle Paperwhite: ❌ £135 ❌ | Was £179 | View deal
• Kindle ColorSoft: ✅ £164 ✅ | Was £240 | View deal
• Kindle Scribe: ✅ £260 ✅ | Was £380 | View deal

They’re all pretty good, to be fair, but some are better than others. The best deal here for most readers is the basic Kindle at £65. This is the smallest Kindle in the range but at 6in, you won’t notice much of a difference compared with the Paperwhite and Colorsoft. It has a front light, making reading in the dark possible, and the screen is just as sharp and crisp as it is on the Paperwhite.

It does miss out on the warm light of the more expensive readers, which I find makes reading in the evening more comfortable, and it isn’t water resistant, but right now you’re paying more than double for the privilege of having those features. That’s why I don’t think the Kindle Paperwhite is a particularly good deal right now, even with £40 knocked off the asking price.

Amazon Kindle Scribe (16 GB) – Redesigned display with uniform borders. Now write directly on books and documents. With built-in notebook summarisation. Includes Premium Pen – Tungsten Grey

£259.99

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Avoid the Paperwhite – consider the Colorsoft instead

Instead, if you’re willing to spend this much on an ereader, why not plump for the Kindle Colorsoft? This adds colour capabilities to the mix, and its Black Friday price sees £76 knocked off the usual price, making it only £29 pricier than the Paperwhite.

There are a few things to be aware of, before you make the jump. First, the colours that the Colorsoft’s screen produces are muted, more like comic-book pastels than what you see on the screen on your smartphone. Second, colour resolution is only half that of monochrome text, so images can look coarse and dithered. And, third, the “paper” background is greyer than it is on the monochrome Kindles, leading to slightly lower contrast overall.

It’s odd, however, how much difference the odd splash of colour makes. It certainly makes browsing and buying books in the Kindle store a more pleasant experience. And the Colorsoft does have sensors for automatically adjusting the front light’s brightness, and it has the warm light setting for reading into the evening, too.

Amazon Kindle Colorsoft (newest gen) | With colour display and adjustable warm light – 16 GB

£164.00

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The Kindle Scribe is the best e-reader deal this Black Friday

It’s the Kindle Scribe that’s the biggest deal this Black Friday, though. Normally £380, Amazon’s take on the digital notepad is a product in a different league entirely. Not only does it have a much bigger screen, measuring 10.2in from corner to corner, but can also write on it using the bundled stylus.

This means you can use the Scribe as a tool for note-taking, diagramming and annotating documents, as well as just reading. You can even make notes directly in your ebooks, synchronise them back to your laptop or desktop and have AI turn them into typed text so you can search them by keyword.

This is the Kindle I’d buy if I had £240 to spare this Black Friday, and the deal we recommend over all the others. If you need more convincing, however, we’ve broken down all the features of the various Amazon e-readers in the table below to help you decide which one to buy.

Amazon Kindle Scribe (16 GB) – Redesigned display with uniform borders. Now write directly on books and documents. With built-in notebook summarisation. Includes Premium Pen – Tungsten Grey

£259.99

Check Price

And if, after all that, you’re still up for more Black Friday action, don’t forget to head over to our main Black Friday deals page for details of more big discounts.

Written By

Jonathan Bray

Head of reviews at Expert Reviews, Jon has been testing and writing about products since before most of you were born (well, only if you were born after 1996). In that time he’s tested and reviewed hundreds of laptops, PCs, smartphones, vacuum cleaners, coffee machines, doorbells, cameras and more. He’s worked on websites since the early days of tech, writing game reviews for AOL and hardware reviews for PC Pro, Computer Buyer and other print publications. He’s also had work published in Trusted Reviews, Computing Which? and The Observer. And yet, even after so many years in the industry, there’s still nothing more he loves than getting to grips with a new product and putting it through its paces.

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