I’m a nighttime reader. I usually read in the dark with my e-reader of choice in its native dark mode (if you’re unfamiliar, it’s the mode that turns the background black and all text and lines white, making it much dimmer but still easy to read). That allows my husband and even my almost-4-year-old to snooze next to me while I read, with no beacon of light blasting from my device.
It’s no surprise that, as such a nighttime reader, the lack of dark mode on the Kindle Colorsoft or Kindle Scribe Colorsoft was a big complaint for me. Yes, you can turn the page color black on books (but not on imported documents, including AZW3, which is designed specifically for reading on Amazon’s devices), but the menu bars and home pages would blast me in the eyes in a dark room if I wanted to switch what book I was reading or use a menu feature. It was one of the many features we found lacking in the Kindle Colorsoft, but it’s the one that keeps me from using it over another Kindle. I’d rather grab my Kindle Paperwhite and know I won’t be blinded at 11:45 pm.
That all changes today. Amazon announced that dark mode is rolling out to Colorsoft Kindle devices starting today and continuing over the coming weeks. It’ll also include customization options, in case you don’t want everything on your Colorsoft Kindle to go dark when you use this mode. If dark mode has kept you from getting a Colorsoft, you can take that off your list of cons.
Into the Dark (Mode)
Courtesy of Amazon
If you’re already a Kindle Colorsoft owner, you can start checking your device today for updates, but they might not appear right away. If you don’t want to wait, you can download the update here from Amazon, but you’ll need to install it on a desktop computer and follow these instructions to manually update your Kindle.
The Colorsoft dark mode will also give you options. You can choose to darken some screens while leaving others on the regular, brighter screen. This seems primarily designed for the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, the digital notebook version of the colorful Kindle line, so you could choose to leave your digital notebooks in Light Mode while having your home screen and books in dark mode. But it’ll work on all Colorsoft devices (and so far, only Colorsoft devices, but we’ll see if that changes over time). Amazon says you can access this by clicking on dark mode in the Quick Actions menu, and you’ll be able to customize what gets dark mode from there.
Amazon also confirmed that any color you’ve used on the Colorsoft Kindle Scribe notebooks or colorful highlights you’ve done to annotate your ebook on any Colorsoft device will still remain the same color when the device switches to dark mode.
Amazon’s Colorsoft Lineup
If you’re ready to own a Kindle Colorsoft now that dark mode has arrived, here’s a quick look at the lineup.