Amazon unveils redesigned Kindle Scribe with first-ever color soft display

What you need to know

• Amazon launched a new wave of Kindle Scribes at its event this week, stating consumers will find a Scribe with a front light, without the light, and a Scribe Colorsoft.
• The Scribe Colorsoft is easy on the eyes with its colored display, and sports the same redesign the others do, including improved performance, "texture-molded" glass display, and more.
• The Scribe Colorsoft starts at $629, while the Scribe with front light begins at $499; sales to begin "later this year."

What's an Amazon hardware event without something new coming for Kindle, but this one's all about the larger notebook, the Scribe.

There are three new Kindle Scribes announced this week by Amazon in a press release following its hardware event. There are some initial updates for the Scribe that consumers should know, such as Amazon's redesign that's made the device even thinner, coming in now at 5.4mm. The three new Scribes, the Kindle Scribe (with front light), Kindle Scribe (without front light), and the first Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, are even lighter this year and ~40% faster.

That improved performance is thanks to a quad-core chip, increased memory, and Amazon's Oxide display tech for a snappier feel.

The Kindle Scribes also feature a "texture-molded" glass display that is designed to replicate the sensation of writing on paper. Moreover, the Scribe with a front light display now features its LED "tightly against the display" to facilitate narrower bezels, which means more screen for your eyeballs.

While that rounds up the more forward-facing design changes for this year's Scribe, Amazon's Scribe Colorsoft is the first of its kind for the form factor, and follows a year after the very first color Kindle.

The Kindle Scribe gets colorful

The first Kindle Scribe Colorsoft packs the same updated designs as the other two Scribes this year. The primary difference is that Amazon has packaged this one with a soft-on-the-eyes colored screen that still brings out that Scribe experience. While the lights are soft for this colored display, Amazon says users should still find vibrant hues, not washed-out tones.

There's a subtle difference with the Scribe Colorsoft, and that regards its new rendering engine that keeps the writing side of the Kindle fast, smooth, and improves its colors even more. Though everything's not in black and white, the company claims the Scribe Colorsoft can deliver "weeks of battery life."

Putting aside the hardware side of these devices for a moment, there's a huge set of AI updates for the Scribe that consumers should know. Amazon's been fueling its latest devices with AI, just like it did with the new Fire TV series and Echo devices this week. For the Scribe, consumers will notice a revamped Home that brings Quick Notes and the ability to easily open previously opened books, documents, and more.

Inside Workspace, users can store and organize their imported/created documents, notebooks, books, and other digital items. This is further enhanced if you've connected your OneDrive or Google Drive account, as those files are also easily accessible. The Scribe Colorsoft sits away from the others, bringing a Shader tool, colored pens, and highlights for annotations and notes.

Amazon also highlights its available AI-powered search involving your documents and files. Users can ask the AI to summarize those files with follow-up questions available afterward.

Coming soon...

The Kindle Scribe (front light) starts at $499, the Scribe without its front light starts at $429, and the Scribe Colorsoft begins at $629 in the U.S. Consumers should be aware that these devices are listed on Amazon; however, there's no button to pre-order yet. The post states this devices are coming "later this year," so keep your eyes peeled for more details.

Next year, Amazon plans to bring these updated models to the U.K. and Germany.

These Kindle Scribes, when purchased, include a three-month subscription to Kindle Unlimited, bringing in even more AI-powered features, like "Ask this Book" for highlighting passages or sentences and receive answers about its potential story significance.