Amazon just released its first-ever color-screen Kindle, the Kindle Colorsoft, but some early customers have already taken to the Internet to complain that the e-reader may have a serious screen flaw. There are several online reports that some Colorsoft units have a discoloration on the bottom of their screen, which appears as a yellowish band.
An early buyer of the Colorsoft, which was released on October 30, posted a review on the device’s Amazon listing pagesaying: “I was disappointed to see that there was a yellow tint at the bottom of the screen. It’s very striking and once you see it you can’t unsee it.
“I returned the Kindle because I didn’t want to pay so much for a device with a defective screen. I use my Kindle a lot, so I want it to be perfect. Once Amazon resolves the issue, I will definitely buy one again.”
“We are aware of a small number of reports from customers seeing a yellow band across the bottom of the screen,” an Amazon spokesperson told Express.co.uk. “We take the quality of our products seriously and investigate them. If customers notice this on their device, they can contact our customer service team.”
“As soon as I turned it on for the first time, the major flaw became very apparent,” another early buyer wrote in a customer review.
“The bottom of the screen, where the bottom tabs on the home screen are, is very yellow compared to the rest of the screen, regardless of which heat setting is used. It’s very distracting and ugly, and not really acceptable for a device of this price.”
Technical site The edge first reported this apparently widespread problem with Amazon’s flagship new e-reader, which costs £269.99. There are also reports on Reddit of this apparent problem. For what it’s worth, Express.co.uk reviewed the Kindle Colorsoft and couldn’t see this problem in our review sample.
“Amazon’s first color Kindle does a lot right, but most people probably don’t need to spend that much to get a color screen that they’ll rarely benefit from,” we said in our review, where the Colorsoft 3.5 got five stars. It’s a nice device, but if you mainly read books without illustrations, you may not need the color screen and you will spend less on an alternative e-reader.
On the other hand, it’s a pleasure to see your book covers in color, and it makes shopping for books in the Kindle Store a more enjoyable experience.
We’ll have to wait and see if the Colorsoft units with alleged screen flaws can be fixed via a software update or if this could be an innate problem with the new display technology. Amazon hopes it’s the former.