Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, and Kindle Colorsoft 2026
Amazon (Hacker News, Slashdot):
The all-new 6-inch Kindle is the most pocket-sized Kindle we’ve ever made. With 16GB of storage, up to 6 weeks of battery life, and 30% faster book opening than the previous release, it is lighter and features a new seamless flush-front design. This required rethinking how the display, front light, and touch layers are assembled and bonded. We’re also introducing edge-to-edge color across the entire family. The housing is made from recycled materials with a 100% recycled cobalt battery. Starting at $149.99 and available in Ube and Graphite.
[…]
The all-new Kindle Paperwhite is thinner and lighter than the previous lineup, waterproof with an adjustable warm light for comfortable reading at any hour, and up to 12 weeks of battery life on a single charge. The Paperwhite display uses an oxide-thin film transistor backplane and is the largest Kindle Paperwhite display with the highest contrast ratio—delivering deep blacks and crisp text, and images that pop off the screen, whether you’re reading in bright sunlight or under the covers at night. The Signature Edition adds aluminum rear housing, 32 GB of storage, an auto-adjusting front light, pogo pin dock charging, and double tap to turn pages—all while remaining thinner than the previous version.
Kevin Keith, Amazon’s vice president of devices, said the company is using “Cap” (capacitive) touch technology and haptics to create what he describes as a “dead zone.” As a reader grips the Kindle, the device detects where a finger is resting and adjusts the touch-sensitive area accordingly.
Amazon announced a range of new accessories on Thursday. And one of them, a $34.99 remote called the Kindle Click, caught our eye.
The Kindle Click is a compact Bluetooth remote designed to let readers turn pages without touching their Kindle.
[…]
Amazon also announced other accessories as part of the new Kindle family, including a magnetic cover with physical page-turn buttons and a charging dock stand for the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition and Colorsoft Signature Edition.
I still wish for the return of built-in page-turn buttons, but the new Page Turn Cover is the best news on this front in a while. Unfortunately, it adds bulk, costs $80, and doesn’t work with the base Kindle or the regular Paperwhite.
The Paperwhite Signature Edition is $249.99, and Amazon is offering me $50 off if I “Upgrade” my old Oasis by October 8. This isn’t explained very well, but it sounds like you keep the old device, and it doesn’t get bricked. There’s a separate 20% + $5 offer for a “Trade-In” where you do give up the old device. There’s a bundle with the Page Turn Cover and the Sling Bag, but there doesn’t seem to be a bundle with just the cover.
I admit that I find it somewhat shocking that even a basic e-reader costs $170 these days, but here we are.
[…]
I gotta say that I don’t love that Amazon has decided that to use page-turn buttons, you need to pay $80 and keep your Kindle in a case. But at least they’re finally offering an option. (For the record, Kobo’s Libra Colour is priced similarly to the Paperwhite Signature Edition and has buttons right on it, no case required. It’s the e-reader I use the most these days.)
Previously:
- Apple Hardware Price Hikes
- Kindle Scribe 2025
- Double-Tap Kindle to Turn Page
- Kindle Colorsoft and 2024 Updates
- Color Kobo E-readers
Update (2026-10-05): Tony Polanco:
It replaces standard Qi wireless charging with a pogo pin dock system[…]
I’ve been looking at various options with page-turn buttons and not really finding anything that I like compared with my dying Oasis:
- The Oasis has built-in buttons and weighs 131g. (This doesn’t count the cover; I don’t like reading with the cover attached.)
- The 2026 Paperwhite Signature is 229g without the buttons. I couldn’t find the weight for the Page Turn Cover, but it’s got to be at least 100g.
- The BOOX Palma 2 is 170g and has a weird phone shape, with the buttons on the side.
- The BOOX Go 7 is 195g. It looks OK hardwarewise (a bit wide), but I’ve read mixed stuff about the software. Its Kindle app experience may be a bit worse, but you also get access to other apps.
- The Kobo Libra Colour is 200g. I don’t want color and would prefer something narrower.
I want page-turn buttons, but probably not as much as I’d prefer a smaller size. I’m leaning towards just getting the base 2026 Kindle at 140g. It has the same size screen as the Oasis but with warmer color.
I’ve perhaps made the mistake of purchasing most of my content from Amazon. But their system does work very smoothly across all my devices, and the hardware alternatives are not as compelling as I expected.
Update (2026-10-15): I ended up getting the base Kindle, and it’s been great. It’s a bit heavier than the Oasis, but the shape is easier to fit into a pocket. It’s much faster than I was used to, and I no longer have to think about battery life.
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Kindles used to be the best e-readers, but nowadays, I don't see a single reason to buy them anymore apart from the integration into the store. And since I really don't want to give Amazon any money, even that has ceased to be relevant for me.
> I still wish for the return of built-in page-turn buttons, but the new Page Turn Cover is the best news on this front in a while. Unfortunately, it adds bulk, costs $80, and doesn’t work with the base Kindle or the regular Paperwhite.
Typical gafam enshitification. Remove a useful feature builtin, and sell it as an overpriced accessory.
What are they putting in these devices these days that they weight so much more than they did a decade ago?
> I’ve been looking at various options with page-turn
> buttons and not really finding anything that I like
> compared with my dying Oasis:
My mid-sized ebook reader is a PocketBook Verse Pro. FWIW, I like it.
> I’ve perhaps made the mistake of purchasing most of
> my content from Amazon
I liberated all my Amazon books (not sure how difficult that is nowadays) and put them on a self-hosted Grimmory instance. It supports OPDS, which most ebook readers can connect to.
@Plume Thanks. I think I forgot about that one. The hardware looks appealing (186g with buttons and a good shape). Not sure I want to go through the hassle to access my content, and it looks like it doesn’t sync highlights.
> not sure how difficult that is nowadays
Depends on if you still have an older Kindle. Calibre can pull the book files off and, if it is the correct generation of device, the resulting files can be decrypted with the appropriate Calibre plugins.
My preferred solution these days is to buy the book and then acquire the ePub through another source, rather than going through the effort of decrypting my own files now that Amazon won’t let us download the book files directly.
> it looks like it doesn’t sync highlights
Yeah, PocketBook's OPDS integration doesn't sync highlights. You can sync highlights using PocketBook Cloud, then export them into something like Obsidian, but that's another weird dependency.
> My preferred solution these days is to
> buy the book and then acquire the ePub
> through another source
At one point, it was easy to just run everything through Calibre and liberate all the books. Nowadays, it's probably easier to just get them from Anna.
