To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more
Amazon launched the Kindle Colorsoft in 2024 and I wasn’t too impressed. My problem with the Kindle Colorsoft is that it doesn’t really fit any need: a small format device designed for reading, but with colour. While lying on the beach reading the latest novel, there’s little need for colour.
The question asked at the time was why the Kindle Scribe wasn’t being offered in colour too. That’s changed in 2025, with the launch of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, alongside the third-gen Kindle Scribe. This time, however, colour makes a lot more sense – and the Kindle Scribe makes more sense as a result.
Kindle Scribe started life as the Kindle for writing and sketching out ideas, but it never really raised itself to compete with the likes of Remarkable. The initial Scribe launch was a little patchy, with regular software updates needed to make features work and make the device more appealing; the second-gen device improved the writing experience, but the arrival of a third-gen device within a year, suggests that Scribe is really getting a lot of attention.
The Scribe now comes in two forms
To clear up any confusion, there are two versions of the Kindle Scribe – the new third-gen which retains a black and white display, and the Colorsoft version, which offers the colour experience.
Both models benefit from a new design, which is slimmer and lighter than the previous Kindle Scribe and quite significantly so. It’s now only 5.4mm thick compared to 5.6mm over the previous version, while the new model is 400g, compared to 433g previously.
But visually, it’s now a much more symmetrical device, losing the strip to the side of the display on the last two versions. This gives it a more uniform appearance, now with a colour-matched frame to the display. This perhaps suggests a u-turn compared to the second-gen model where the frame went from black to white (with Amazon saying this was making it look more like a piece of paper), but the new design is certainly slick.
Both models retain the 11in glare-free display, with over 70 mini LEDs down the side to provide the front illumination, while there’s a new moulded glass finish for the display to enhance the paper-like texture (and sound) when writing. To reduce parallax, the distance between the surface of the glass and the screen underneath has been reduced, again to make it appear as though you’re writing directly on the surface.
These changes to the hardware make for a superior writing experience and while the previous version of the Kindle Scribe offered a good experience, this is even more compelling – it just feels better.
Let’s talk about Colorsoft
At its core, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is the same device as the new Kindle Scribe, but with that colour display added. That really brings things to life on the larger display – and this is a case where size matters.
Amazon’s pitch with the original Colorsoft (which was an adapted Paperwhite model), included the suggestion that you could use it for reference books, but the 7in screen really doesn’t work for larger format books. The 11in screen on the Scribe, however, really does work with both graphic novels and reference books.
That’s going to be a boon for students, who can now use that Kindle for reading, benefit from colour illustrations and tables, while getting access to colour highlighting and annotations. The Scribe now makes more sense than it ever did before – even if it is really expensive.
There are 10 different pen colours and 5 highlighter options, as well as 5 different pen (or brush) types, so you can get different effects when writing. That means you can also use it for drawing and I saw some artwork at the launch of the new device, although I didn’t try that myself – I doubt it’s going to be as versatile as drawing on a full-colour tablet, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra.
New Kindle Scribe is more powerful
Sitting at the heart of the new Kindle Scribe is a new quad-core processor that Amazon says leads to a 40% faster experience – both in writing and reading. That means faster page turns, while there’s more RAM too – increased to 4GB over the 1GB of previous models. There’s also a higher voltage display for faster refreshes.
But that’s not all that’s happening here. The Kindle Scribe has had a number of software updates to better focus the device on productivity. Core to this is the ability to sync to Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive which is going to make it so much easier to integrate Scribe into your workflow.
Elsewhere there’s searching across your notebooks – with the ability to read and understand handwritten notes too. This builds on the previous enhancements in this area, with Amazon saying that Alexa+ now has a role to play, able to convert handwritten notes into questions, so Alexa can pull out the details for the specific search you’re asking for.
In 2026, there’s going to be an update that will allow you to send notes to Alexa+ and have a conversation about them – which might be great for brainstorming.
The whole experience is wrapped into a new homepage aesthetic, where Quick Notes can be quickly accessed, your previous documents are listed and books sit at the bottom of the page.
Some of the software changes will be coming to previous Kindle Scribe models, like the connection to G Drive and OneDrive, which will benefit all Kindle Scribe owners.
And then we come to the price: the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft will cost $630 for the 32GB model; if you want the fancy new Fig colour, you’ll have to pay $680 as it has 64GB storage.
The standard third-gen Kindle Scribe will cost from $500. Currently there’s no word on UK prices, but it will be launching in the UK and Germany in early 2026.
