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Kindle Scribe Colorsoft: Two-minute review
The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft delivers everything you could want from an e-reader (mostly). Amazon packed this device with all of the key features of its other Kindles, but unfortunately, it commands a much higher price as a result.
The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft nails all the e-reader basics, and that chunky upcharge brings some color into the mix so you can experience comics and the like. You also get a fancy pen to annotate and take notes. Those features function well overall, but they’re not perfect.
Despite combining the “Scribe” and “Colorsoft” portions in the Kindle, you actually can’t use them in tandem. You can’t annotate or take any notes when you’re reading comics or manga, which is ironic considering this is meant to be an all-in-one solution.
However, the 11-inch display is large enough to mimic the size of some graphic novels. That means you have plenty of room to take notes, too. The screen also captures images in strong detail.
So, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is a great e-reader, but unless it’s on sale, I’d only recommend it to folks in a higher tax bracket.
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: price and availability
- From $629 / £569 / AU$999
- Launched in the US and UK on December 10, 2025
- Launching in Australia on June 10, 2026
No. I simply cannot recommend the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft to the average Kindle user. It’s just too damn expensive. Adding color and a pen to your Kindle is a luxury that I would only recommend to those invested in Amazon’s eBook ecosystem or someone with significant disposable income.
At its starting price with 32GB of storage, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft costs $629 / £569 / AU$999 (it will launch in Australia on June 10). For 64GB of storage, that price jumps up to $679 / £629 / AU$1,099. As someone who just wants to read a book, that makes my wallet cry. But keep in mind that this is the peak premium Kindle device.
You can break down the features of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft into three categories — Kindle, Scribe, and Colorsoft — and it’s quite simple to pick apart its value proposition as a result. The Kindle is just your traditional Paperwhite device for $159 / £159 / AU$199, and then the Colorsoft adds a splash of color to that for $249 / £269 / AU$399, and finally, you’ve got the Scribe for $399 / £379 / AU$649, which is like the Paperwhite, except you can write on it. Combine all that, and you get the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.
If, for some reason, you need all three features packed into one device, then obviously, your only option in the Kindle ecosystem is the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. But focusing on one key feature will save you some decent coin, so I recommend doing just that before committing such a princely sum to this all-in-one device. Not to mention, there are cheaper color e-readers out there, like the Kobo Libra Colour ($219 / £199 / AU$359).
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: Specs
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Starting price: |
$629 / £569 / AU$999 |
|
Display size: |
11 inches |
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Storage: |
32GB |
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Display sharpness: |
300 ppi Black; 150 ppi Color |
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Weight: |
400g |
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Dimensions: |
189 x 245 x 5.4 mm |
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Screen lights: |
36 white LEDs; 34 amber LEDs |
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Battery life: |
8 weeks, reading 30 minutes/day, Brightness: 13 |
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Document support: |
Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion; Audible audio format (AAX) |
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: design
- Slightly less portable, but more reading room
- Pen placement is awkward
The 11-inch Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is almost as big as some of the taller graphic novels I have on my shelf, which seems appropriate considering its purpose. It does make it somewhat more difficult to carry around than the 7-inch Kindle Colorsoft, but it feels more authentic. And despite the larger 189 x 245mm body, it weighs only 400g and is 5.4mm thick, so it’s still more portable than some hardcover books.
As far as the overall design goes, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft looks exactly how you imagine a Kindle would look, except without that chunky bottom bezel. The bezels are still large enough for your hands to grip the device without getting in the way of the screen.
I reviewed the Graphite model with the white pen, but you can get the Fig colorway, which also comes with a Fig-colored pen. I usually don’t say this about tech, but I think I prefer the black model, only because the Fig colorway might be a little distracting while reading.
At the bottom, you’ll find the USB Type-C port for charging, and the power button is located on the top-right side. Just below that is the space where the pen attaches.
If you’re thinking that the pen might get in the way while attached to the right side, you’d be correct. It’s a silly design choice, especially when the pen is small enough (155 x 8.8mm) to easily fit on top of the Kindle.
Overall, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is sleek and inoffensive. It’s thin and light, albeit a bit harder to carry around than previous models, but who doesn’t want a little more reading and writing space? However, I am frustrated by the pen placement.
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: display
- There’s color, but it’s not colorful
- Text and images are sharp
The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft covers the black-and-white spectrum at 300 ppi and adds a splash of color at 150 ppi. There isn’t much the 11-inch display could do to elevate the average book reading experience, but it didn’t have to. Text looked clear and crisp, and the 36 white LEDs and 34 amber LEDs made it so I had a more comfortable reading experience depending on the setting I was in.
Like with other e-ink displays, the LEDs do create a layer of color (white or amber) that warps the image on the screen a little bit. With black text, it’s perfectly fine, as the difference is negligible. However, when introducing color, it’s more noticeable.
The problem is that, while it’s nice to have color, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is just not as colorful as I’d like it to be. I read “Hellblazer Vol. 1,” and when John Constantine heads to Africa, there are supposed to be these bright and bold pink and yellow hues, but they are muted on the Scribe Colorsoft’s screen. Even when set to “Vivid” mode, the color doesn’t pop. Honestly, this is to be expected from an e-ink display. But it doesn’t change the fact that you won’t get the same experience as looking at a real graphic novel. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that we can experience color at all, but at this wild asking price, it’s definitely not worth it for the color alone.
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: performance
- Relatively smooth
- The response times you expect
You’re not looking at a racehorse here; this is a little pony, and that’s OK. You don’t need all the performance in the world to run an e-reader.
The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is relatively smooth across the board but still suffers from slightly slow response times during navigation. This isn’t a huge turn-off, since most of the experience comes down to turning a page. I did have to restart my Kindle once because it simply refused to connect to Wi-Fi no matter how many times I tried, but it resolved itself afterwards.
When doing more involved things like annotating or taking notes, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft kept up with all of my movements and demands with little issue. Zooming in around the pages also looked and felt smooth, although there’s still a slight awkward delay for the image to refresh, as I could clearly see the ghost of an image from the previous screen.
- User experience score: 4 / 5
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: software
- Surprisingly fast performance on E Ink
- Smooth zooming, whether color or black and white
All of the important bits of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, or any e-reader, come down to the software experience. I am generally happy with what this Kindle provides, and it’s not that much different from other e-readers.
You’ve got the essentials that allow you to adjust the layout, font, spacing, etc. There are little things like the “Popular highlights” and “About this book” info, which are neat. Then there’s Word Wise, which defines unfamiliar words but also still needs a lot of work — it identifies overly simple words even at its lowest setting instead of exclusively honing in on the university-level vocabulary that most people would struggle with.
One of my personal favorite software features is being able to isolate comic panels. Double-tapping on a comic panel will make it full screen, and then you can flip through the following panels with ease. When it gets to a new page, it’ll show you the full page and then break down each panel at full screen. This is super cool because you don’t have to zoom in to get a closer look at what’s happening. However, it’s not perfect. I noticed an issue when reading “Attack on Titan” where, when there are two panels and text sprawled across them, sometimes the Kindle won’t combine the panels, and it cuts off the text.
Another cool feature is being able to simulate page turns, which I love in theory, but it doesn’t look the best in practice. The problem is that it’s a fade-in and -out effect instead of an actual flipping animation. It looks a bit more natural when reading a book because it’s a quick fade between texts, but it’s a much uglier transition with comics because there’s a lot of ghosting happening. It looks like it fades in chunks, and it was visually unsatisfying to the point where I turned it off.
To highlight the “Scribe” portion of this Kindle, the notetaking and markup process is rather smooth. The pen is equipped with an eraser on the back and a shortcut button on its side (defaulted to highlight). When reading a standard book, there are two important icons, one on the left and right. The leftmost icon is for all of your pen settings to customize the look, change between highlighters and erasers, and even insert notes and canvases between the text.
The right side of the screen is where you take your notes; it can expand and either split the screen with the text or hover over it, and wherever you write notes, it’ll attach a note symbol next to the closest text. That’s pretty intuitive, since you can change the layout of the book, so naturally it would move the space of your notes. You can even expand the size of notes to take up the full page if you want, so there’s plenty of room to write.
There are a lot of features for folks interested in the “Scribe” portion of things, and they operate pretty seamlessly overall. There’s even a workspace section where you can take full notes unrelated to what you’re reading. In that workspace, there are two AI features, one of which can summarize your notes, and the other can “Refine writing,” which basically transforms your notes into a text font that you can customize.
The only absent feature I noticed is that you can’t take any notes in comics. That means no drawings, notetaking, or even highlighting.
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: battery
- Light readers can go for weeks
- Heavy readers can go for days
According to Amazon, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft can survive for eight weeks if you’re reading for 30 minutes at just under half brightness. I’ll save you the math: that’s 28 hours of reading time. For light readers, you could probably stretch that for a few weeks. Heavier readers will likely kill that battery in a few days.
I spent several weeks with the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, reading roughly an hour every day, and I didn’t need to reach for a charger until toward the end of the month. That gives credit to Amazon’s battery life claim.
The reading time you experience will vary heavily based on the brightness of your screen. If you’re someone who reads at close to zero brightness, you’re going to get a lot more longevity out of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.
Unfortunately, the battery does not charge fast. When I first got it, the battery was completely drained, and I had to wait quite a while before the Kindle showed any signs of life. It’ll make you think it’s broken, so I do not recommend letting it die.
Should I buy the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft?
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Attribute |
Notes |
Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Value |
What is there to say other than, “ouch.” The price of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is not for the faint of heart. |
3/5 |
|
Design |
This is a pretty sleek and light Kindle all-round, with my only complaint being that the pen placement should’ve been on top and not on the side. |
4/5 |
|
Display |
The screen is crisp and sharp, capturing text easily and, even more impressively, images in comics with great detail. Unfortunately, while there is color, it’s not quite colorful. |
4/5 |
|
Performance |
It does what it needs to do. There are still some slower response times here and there, but otherwise it functions perfectly fine. |
4/5 |
|
Software |
The software experience is great overall; notetakers will be especially pleased. However, there are some misses here and there. |
4/5 |
|
Battery |
The battery life is great. It’ll last for weeks if you’re a light reader, or a few days as a heavy reader. |
5/5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Also consider
How I tested the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft
- Review test period = four weeks
- Testing included = books, comics, manga
I spent a month bouncing around between books, comics, and manga. I read “The House Witch,” “The Time of Contempt,” “Hellblazer Vol. 1,” and “Attack on Titan,” most of which were available on Prime Reading. I spent roughly an hour a day reading. Logging into my Amazon account and getting them on the device was easy. Downloading comics and manga takes a little longer than books, but not significantly so.
For the “Scribe” portion of the review, I highlighted portions of dialogue and wrote little notes to myself to come back to later because the text was either written impeccably well or it was just a funny line. I also drew canvases between the text — just silly doodles right in the middle of the book.
First reviewed: May 2026
