Amazon confirms biggest-ever Kindle refresh including something that's totally new

If you like reading ebooks, there’s never been a better time, as Amazon has just announced the biggest shake-up yet to its popular Kindle line. Four new models have been unveiled, including the first-ever colour-screen Kindle and a thinner-than-ever version of the excellent Kindle Paperwhite. They are hot off the press but .co.uk has already had our hands-on on all four models to see what's arriving in stores soon.

First up, there’s a new version of the basic Kindle, which now comes in an attractive Matcha colour – eye-catching enough to ensure you don’t leave it behind easily. Like all the new models, the display is high-resolution (300 pixels per inch) to ensure crisp text for easy reading. It’s faster than before, so page refreshes are quicker, and it’s brighter. It matches the brightness of the new Kindle Paperwhite. It’s available now and costs £94.99. The light, compact Kindle is advanced enough to be powerful enough for many.

Then there’s the Kindle Paperwhite. This is the Goldilocks ereader with the perfect storm of features, great design and strong pricing. Page turns on ebook readers used to be clunky, slow flashing experiences. The new Kindle Paperwhite has the fastest, slickest page turns yet for any Kindle and its slightly tweaked design squeezes a 7-inch display into a convenient package. It’s priced at £159.99.

The biggest head-turner in the range is the Kindle Colorsoft. Ignore the American spelling of colour, it’s a branding thing. Instead, focus on the display which is beautiful. Like the Paperwhite, it’s a 7-inch screen, but here the colours stand out. While not as saturated or bright as on a tablet like the iPad, the colours here are more vivid than on some other colour ebook readers, which tend to have wishy-washy hues.

And unlike an iPad, all four of these Kindles have displays which are easy to read in the brightest sunlight – through sunglasses! Resolution on the Colorsoft is the same 300ppi for text, 150ppi for colour images.

This is one of the most exciting things to happen to Kindles, though it comes at a price: £269.99, available from the end of the month.

Finally, there’s the new Kindle Scribe. If you don’t know, the Scribe is Amazon’s biggest Kindle with a 10.2-inch display which is designed to be written on.

The new model has a neater design and a Pen which even sounds and feels like you’re writing with a pencil on paper. And there are new features: pick up the stylus and start writing on a book and your scribbles instantly appear – the printed text reformats around it.

If your favourite thing is to scribble in the margins, you can do that, too, with the page opening up automatically to accommodate, and shrinking back to the edge when you’re done. Both of these features will come to the original Scribe through a software update, too.

And new generative AI features mean you can turn your scribbles into text, or even summarise your notes for you. The Scribe will land on 4 December and cost £379.99.

The new range is comprehensive and impressive: you may never want to pick up a real book again.