Do you have a color eink device?

[Frogm4n]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Colorsoft on Amazon US has 2.5 stars. On Amazon UK, it's 3 stars. This is not good for something so expensive.

I'm still amazed they priced it like they did. Sure, they got the die-hards and ones who must have anything new, but fence-sitters surely went the other way as would anyone only mildly interested. If Kobo hadn't had the Clara BW and Clara Color out already with a much more narrow price gap it might have been better for Amazon. If the Colorsoft was entirely it's own device instead of being a panel swap from another model it might have been better for them as well. I don't see the Colorsoft being a long-term success if they stay with this kind of premium.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I have a Clara Color for my kid, which she rarely uses. It's a neat gimmick, but quickly loses its novelty.

One of my grandnieces has a Kobo Libra Colour. She is an avid reader and loves that many of her ebooks have colour illustrations that are newsprint/comics quality which look pretty good on the KLC. Hopefully her reading will survive puberty—too many of my younger generation relatives have lost most of their interest in reading around that time.

[patrik]

I'm probably going to get whatever the upgrade to the (Kobo) Sage will be, color or not.

[Paperbackstash]

I don't read in color much but when I do I use a Fire, so it is not a necessity for me right now until the tech improves, then I may upgrade/trade in one of my existing e-ink devices for a future model

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I voted that I don’t know if I’ll get one or not. Every day that goes by I get less and less inclined to do so. Aside from the discussion on this forum I look at the reviews on Amazon which seem too get worse by the day.

Seriously, when I looked at reviews a couple of days ago, the 1 star reviews were 28%. My minuscule interest evaporated totally.

I use my iPad mini or iPad Pro for cookbooks, and for some non-fiction books that have more than a few pictures.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by John F

Does she have non-colour ereader? Does she use it frequently?

No. She's not a heavy reader and mostly reads paper. She seems to spontaneously decide which book she's going to read next, usually when we insist she start reading something before she goes to bed (right now she's reading Dead Until Dark) and random stuff she finds at the school library.

The quality of the screen is not what keeps her from using it.

There is a difference between color and black and white readers. But I think most readers would be fine with color readers. I could be fine using the Color as my only reader.

But they cost more and are not as good for reading, so I would advise against them.

[graycyn]

Not yet. I'm not hugely interested, but am curious.

Most of my content is not color, yet, there are times when a book contains illustrations or photos and it might be nice to have an idea of which are in color.

At present, if I suspect something might be color, I go look at it on my iPad, but sometimes there's no easy way to know. One book I suspected of having color, thanks to numerous photos, many by the author, had zero, zip, nada, LOL!

I'm not in a rush. Eventually, I'll have to order one from somewhere, just to satisfy my curiosity. Might be Amazon, might be Kobo, might be elsewhere. It would likely be a spare device rather than a primary one. And I'd probably want a sale or other decent deal.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Seriously, when I looked at reviews a couple of days ago, the 1 star reviews were 28%. My minuscule interest evaporated totally.

I use my iPad mini or iPad Pro for cookbooks, and for some non-fiction books that have more than a few pictures.

Mine has evaporated as well. I have an iPad pro, an 8" Kindle fire and an iPad mini 5th gen. If reviews had been great, I'd have picked one up, but not now.

One star reviews are up to 32% today.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

One star reviews are up to 32% today.

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.

It seems that Amazon has stopped shipping the Colorsoft and that it didn't ship the pre-orders, although again I'd discount the reports to an extent. Also, there are complaints that the turnaround on returns of faulty devices is unacceptably slow, as people have to wait up to 30 days (!) for their refunds. And many, of course, traded in a working device for the gift card plus discount deal and now have lost the discount, because Amazon isn't processing these as exchanges. I don't know what to think, but to the extent this is all true, it's a poor situation especially heading into Black Friday.

I'm sure Amazon will weather this and I'm not their target customer as I have no interest either in color or in a new Kindle, but I'm fascinated to see this play out.

ETA: As of right now, positive reviews (four and five stars) are only at 31%. I must say that going by the pictures I personally wouldn't be bothered by the yellow strip, but I also understand that people expect better on such a significant outlay.

[cgsmom]

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.

I was just thinking the same thing. I had not looked at actual customer reviews, but I was watching review videos and they were overwhelming positive. I was thinking maybe Amazon would consider putting out a color Kindle with buttons after all the positivie feedback on the Colorsoft since a lot of the reviewers said they wished it had buttons. Oh well, glad I talked myself out of trying it.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by issybird

I don't know what to think, but to the extent this is all true, it's a poor situation especially heading into Black Friday.

I'm sure Amazon will weather this and I'm not their target customer as I have no interest either in color or in a new Kindle, but I'm fascinated to see this play out.

The entire Kindle ecosystem (inc all ebooks on apps, which is the majority) is down the back of the sofa loose change for Amazon.

[Josieb1]

I’d love a colour eink reader, kobo or kindle, it doesn’t matter to me, but right now the screens are just not good enough.

[graycyn]

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.

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.

[cfrizz]

I'm interested in getting the Boox 7 go color e-ink. I like the fact that I can access Google Play store and put the reading apps that I use all on one device, download the books I have for those apps, sideload all my books and being able to put all my music on a sd card so that I can listen to music and read my books all on one device! That's useful.

Has anyone on here gotten one yet? If so, how do you like it? Do a review please.

[drofgnal]

I went to Amazon and selected put the colorsoft in my cart to see when it would arrive. It showed a delivery of Nov 13-17. I'm not sure if that's a guess from a stop ship order or just demand. One star reviews down slightly, but 1-2 star reviews combined are at 56% and 4-5 star reviews at 30%.