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Originally Posted by issybird
I am struck by the dichotomy between the professional reviews of the Colorsoft which are overwhelmingly favorable for it as a device (although some, with reason, question the value for money) and the execrable reviews at Amazon from people who have actually bought one. Even allowing for general rantiness and people who either don't know what they're talking about or bring up irrelevances, they're still terrible.
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It's a rare day I feel sorry for Amazon, but I kind of do with this release.
I think a lot of it is that Kobo beat them to the punch AND with a less expensive device. It's not like people weren't complaining here and there over lighting gradients, or dead pixels, or pinholes in the light-guide layer with the Kobo Libra Colour, but because it was kind a first color e-ink device from the major North America players, the drawbacks seem to have been more or less overlooked, and those who desperately wanted a color device were happy enough to have one. If folks got a flawed screen, they exchanged until they were happy. If they disliked the current state of color e-ink tech, they shrugged, and returned for refund.
It's important to remember that most Kindle owners have never even HEARD of Kobo, and unless actively looking to move away from Amazon or dying for color e-ink, they probably were NOT reading about Kobo Libra Colour user experiences and therefore, did
not know about the downsides to the Kaleido 3 tech. They may not be familiar AT ALL with the tech or have read anything about it. Whereas someone thinking about getting a Kobo (that they'd never heard of before) might have been doing a little research first, thus learning about the trade-offs.
There's undoubtedly a good percentage of Kindle customers who saw COLOR and hit BUY before doing ANY research, trusting that Amazon would put out another great device. Which means that they are doing direct comparison to their Paperwhites on cost and screen brightness/contrast. And we know that doesn't necessarily end well with color vs. BW e-ink.
Unfortunately, with the Kindle Colorsoft being as expensive as it is, and the initial hype about how Kindle mitigated some of the Kaleido 3 color downsides, I think expectations were VERY elevated for this device, and now that it isn't quite living up, and also has this yellow band issue, folks are feeling more disgruntled than they might have otherwise, and taking it out via reviews.
A lot of the reviews seem premature, at best. A fair few are by folks who obviously had no idea of what they should expect from a Kaleido 3 screen, and a lot are about the yellow band issue, without ever giving Amazon a chance to fix it. Some just seem to be general rants about wanting a new Oasis, or how the premium-placed color device should've have had page-turn buttons. Some are disgruntled because they used a trade-in to get a device they now don't like.
Amazon will weather it, but it will indeed be interesting to see how this plays out! Clearly some users ARE happy with their new tech. Rating is up to 2.7 from 2.6 last night, but the 1-star reviews are still dominating.