Key Takeaways
- Amazon is delaying shipments of its new Kindle Colorsoft e-reader.
- The delay is in response to complaints about quality control issues relating to the display.
- Colorsoft units are now expected to ship in the mid-to-late November timeframe, with Amazon offering both replacement and refund options to customers with faulty units.
Just a few short weeks ago, Amazon officially unveiled its next-generation lineup of Kindle e-reader products. Early impressions of the new hardware were positive, with the $280 Kindle Colorsoft being the clear star of the show. The Colorsoft is notable for being the first-ever Kindle with a color E ink display, which is an emerging technology with the potential to improve the overall reading experience.
Unfortunately for Amazon, it appears that early Colorsoft units are suffering from quality control issues relating to the screen itself — users are complaining of a film-like graininess, as well as a distracting yellow tint being displayed over their content. The company has since responded by offering affected customers a choice between a replacement unit or a full refund.
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Why is my Kindle Colorsoft shipment being delayed?
Amazon is temporarily halting sales of its new flagship e-reader
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As reported on by Good e-Reader, Amazon is temporarily canceling shipments of its Kindle Colorsoft e-reader. The product was initially slated to ship on October 30, but the company now intends on delivering units to customers in the mid-to-late November timeframe.
“Anyone who ordered or pre-ordered the device will not receive it until November 9th to 18th in the US and November 26th in the United Kingdom,” says Good e-Reader’s Michael Kozlowski.
Amazon has since released a statement regarding this Kindle Colorsoft situation, confirming that a solution is in the works. The company says that customers can expect shifts in device availability, as it implements additional quality control measures.
“A small number of customers have reported a yellow band along the bottom of the display. We take the quality of our products seriously — customers who notice this can reach out to our customer service team for a replacement or refund, and we’re making the appropriate adjustments to ensure that new devices will not experience this issue moving forward,” an Amazon spokesperson says.
Previously, it was unclear whether an over-the-air update would be able to solve these display irregularities, or whether a bigger hardware defect was at play. It now seems that Amazon is taking a hardware-first approach to the problem.
Amazon’s Kindle Colorsoft listing currently sits at a user review score of 2.6 on Amazon, with hundreds of disgruntled users complaining of a noticeable yellow bar at the bottom of the product’s screen, as well as overall image fuzziness. Many users have stated that they’ve developed headaches after their reading sessions, as well.
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Is color E ink the future, or is it simply a passing fad?
E-readers with E ink technology are beginning to hit the mainstream market
Amazon
The Kindle Colorsoft represents Amazon’s first consumer foray into the world of color E ink, but other e-reader manufacturers are utilizing the tech in their own products as well. The Kobo Libra Colour and the Boox Go Color 7, for example, are both available on the market, and are both equipped with color E ink displays of their own.
In fact, Kobo has a growing color-clad e-reader portfolio, currently consisting of the well-received Libra Colour and Clara Colour products. The Clara is a $150 model with a 6-inch screen and a lightweight form factor, while the Libra is a higher-end $220 product with stylus support for annotations and note-taking.
When it comes to reading comics, graphic novels, and cookbooks, the benefits of color-infused E ink go without saying. E ink remains a remarkable technology, able to simulate physical paper while remaining highly visible even in bright and sunny outdoor conditions.
…it’s unclear whether the company will need to perform a more drastic hardware re-work.
While Amazon may have stumbled out of the gate with its first color E ink product, it’s hardly an indictment of color E ink as a whole. We’re seeing more and more e-readers incorporate full-color displays into the mix, and I expect this trend to continue in the years to come.
As for the Kindle Colorsoft itself, we’ll have to wait as Amazon investigates the root cause of the display problems plaguing early units. Both the strange grainy image and the yellow tint effect are serious hardware issues, and it’s unclear how drastic of a re-work is needed to fix the defect. The company says it’s working quickly to get new and replacement devices out the door, but it doesn’t go as far as to provide an exact ETA on new shipments.
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