New 2024 Kindles Just Announced: Hands-On With All of Them
Hey, I'm at the Kindle launch event here in New York City where Amazon has announced four new Kindles. Let's dive right in and find out what they're all about. Ok. To be clear, these aren't full reviews of the new Kindles, but I did get a chance to play around with all of them at a launch event in New York City. So we'll call this a hands on first take. Let's start with the least expensive model first. That's the entry level Kindle which Amazon simply calls the Kindle weighing only 100 and 58 g and equipped with a 300 PP I six inch display. It's the smallest and lightest Kindle in the line. The specs are very similar to the previous model, but you now get slightly faster page turns a higher contrast ratio and a front light that's 25% brighter at the Mac setting. Also, this model now comes in a new Macha color, that's quite nice. Some people prefer readers with bigger screens, but I actually like the smaller size of the entry level Kindle. And ever since Amazon improved the sharpness of the screen with the 300 PP I display and added a built in light. It's sort of become a paper white mini that cost significantly less than the paper white that said at 100 and $10. This new model which comes with 16 gigabytes of storage cost $10 more in the previous gen Kindle. So the price is creeping up a bit. Next up is the new Kindle paper white starting at 100 and $60 with 16 gigabytes of storage. It too costs $10 more than the previous base model. But the changes with the paper white seem more substantial. Amazon has reduced the size of the bezel. So instead of a 6.8 inch diagonal screen in a similar size chassis, you get a seven inch screen, the device itself is also slightly thinner and has 25% faster page turns. Amazon is touting it as the fastest kindle yet and the page turns and refresh rates do seem noticeably quicker. Amazon says the display uses a new oxide thin film transistor which gives it the highest contrast ratio of any kindle which makes tech slightly easier to read. Even with its slightly thinner size battery life is rated up to three months of battery life. Aside from the larger screen and more advanced lighting scheme, the paper white is fully waterproof while the entry level kindle isn't. The paper white also comes in a signature edition which includes 30 gigabytes of storage, wireless charging and an auto adjusting front light for $200. Both the standard paper white and signature edition come in metallic raspberry, metallic jade and metallic black colors onto the kindle color soft, which is the first ever color kindle. A lot of people have been waiting for Amazon to add color particularly after Cobo did it with its Cobo Clara color and Cobo Libra color E readers. I'm not quite sure why Amazon went with a color soft name. Maybe because the color does appear a little soft and muted. It does bring book covers, graphic novels and comic books more to life than a monochrome screen. But a tablet with an L CD or a Moled screen offers much richer color. While these E ink displays are inherently more sluggish than L CD technology, you can pinch and zoom to get a closer look at images and text. It's also nice that you can highlight text in various color options rather than just gray. At first glance. I do think Amazon's color Ereader offers a little more vibrant color than Cobos E readers and better overall performance. The colors soft uses the same oxide back plane with custom waveforms as the new paper white. And Amazon says the custom display includes new light guide with NR led S that when combined with custom algorithms enhances color and increases brightness in all other respects. The kindle colors soft is very similar to the kindle paperwhite signature edition. The colors soft does have slightly worse battery life at eight weeks of battery life compared to the three months of battery life of the paper white. Um And in fact, the colors soft only comes in a signature edition priced at a hefty 200 $180. It too is fully waterproof and has wireless charging. Finally, there's a new second gen Kindle scribe. It cost $400 or $20 more than the original. It really has three main upgrades. First, the 10.2 inch 300 PP I display has new white borders along with a new coating that gives it more of a paper like texture. Second, the included stylus, Amazon's new premium pen is an upgrade over the original premium pen. The combination of the new texture on the screen and the new tip on the pen and better waiting at the pen makes it feel more like you're writing on actual paper. Also, the new soft tip eraser gives you the sensation that you're using an actual pencil eraser and yes, using the pen and eraser does feel more analog. Amazon is also touting a few new A I enhanced features for the new scribe. While you still can't write on and mark up a Kindle ebook, you purchase like you can with a PDF file. Amazon has improved the way you annotate a book and even save comments in the margin. Additionally, a new summarized feature quickly condenses several pages of notes. You've saved in a digital notebook into a concise bulleted script. And last but not least there's a new feature that cleans up your handwriting and converts it into a legible easy to read script. In some of the demos of the new scribe features. Not everything was quite working perfectly, but the new scribe software is still in beta as the device doesn't ship till December. Both the new Kindle and new paper white are shipping now while the Kindle colors soft ships on October 30th, I should also add that. I asked Amazon whether those new Kindle scribe A I features will be available for the original scribe. The answer is yes. So that's good news for any of you who bought the original scribe. Those are the new Kindles in a nutshell while some of the changes aren't major, it's good to see the whole line turn over and while the prices are fairly high for some of the models, as most of you already know, they do go on sale at various points during the year, including during the holiday buying season. As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. What's your favorite Kindle? And what do you think about Amazon finally adding a color Kindle. I'm David Connor for cnet.com. Thanks for watching.