Color e-ink displays have existed for a while. Still, this week, Amazon announced its very first e-reader with a color display - the new Kindle Colorsoft (priced at $279.99 USD), available for preorder today.

As part of the announcement, Amazon noted that creating a colorized Kindle required more than simply swapping out the traditional black-and-white display for a color one. "It uses an oxide backplane with custom waveforms for fast performance and a higher contrast on both color and black-and-white content," Amazon writes in the announcement.

The display includes custom nitride LEDs that enhance color and brightness without affecting image quality. Amazon adds that you can zoom in on images without "worrying about pixelation." The new technology also means that Amazon's new Kindle Paperwhite is the fastest yet, with 25% faster page turns.

The Kindle Colorsoft is definitely the new flagship, as it allows readers to view book covers and any images in full color. Color is excellent for navigating libraries and the Kindle UI, and this extends to highlighting text and your favorite passages in yellow, orange, blue, or pink. It will offer two modes, 'standard' or 'vibrant,' with underlying tech based on E Ink's Kaleido technology. The Kindle Colorsoft maintains the long-lasting battery that Amazon's e-readers are renowned for, with up to eight weeks of battery life and support for wireless charging.

It includes a 7-inch waterproof display (300 ppi B&W, 150 ppi color) and 32GB of storage. Amazon has confirmed that shipments will start on October 30. Alongside the new Kindle Colorsoft, there's also a new Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Scribe. The later is an "AI-powered notebook enables you to quickly summarize pages and pages of notes into concise bullets in a script font that can be easily shared directly from the notebook tab."