3 Best Kindles You Can Buy Today: Portable, Colourful, and Versatile

By Dean Blake - Guide

Published: 24 Sep 2025

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Table of contents

Table of contents

• Why Trust Us
• Best Kindles at a Glance
  • 1. Kindle: The Lightweight
  • 2. Kindle Colorsoft: The All-Rounder
  • 3. Kindle Scribe: The Enthusiast
• What to Consider When Buying a Kindle

Readtime: 8 min

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For literature lovers, e-readers and Kindles offer a level of portability you just can’t get with a physical book. Having one of the best Kindles on the market in your bag will allow you to take a whole library’s worth of prose on your travels, wherever you might venture. Understanding exactly what makes the best Kindle, however, is largely dependent on you. Whether you’re after something more portable and compact or a larger display that enables you to mark up what you’re reading and jot down notes on the go, Amazon’s line-up of ebook readers has a surprising amount of features spread across its differing iterations.

As with any purchase, it’s important to make sure you know what you’re getting and, additionally, what you’re not getting when you part with your cash. As avid readers ourselves, we’ve put together this handy guide to help you decide which Kindle is best for you.

Why Trust Us

To arrive at this list of monitors, the Man of Many team went through hours of rigorous testing, implementation, and analysis before culling it down to the very best. As a result, the list is comprised of products we’ve tested in-house and have used extensively firsthand.

As a publication centred on the latest in products, culture and style, impartiality is at the core of what we do. Over the past 10 years, we’ve built up extensive experience in reviewing tech as a publication. We’re not fans of any one brand and like to get our hands on the latest and greatest tech before we call it the next best thing. For more information on our independence, testing, and review guidelines, you can read our full editorial policies here.

Best Kindles at a Glance

• The Lightweight: Kindle
• The All-Rounder: Kindle Colorsoft
• The Enthusiast: Kindle Scribe

1. Kindle: The Lightweight

The newly revamped base-line Kindle is actually really good, despite the relatvely cheap price point. We’ve been testing a Macha-coloured unit for the past few months, and it is an excellent entry point to the Kindle ecosystem, but is definitely missing a few quality-of-life features that we’d have loved to have seen.

So, what’s this version got going for it? Well, it’s a great upgrade if you’ve been holding onto an older model that’s about to pass on, need something small and light to carry around with you, or want a cheap way to carry thousands of books around with you. The USB-C port is essentially standardised now, thankfully, though it does come with a cable if you haven’t got your own, and it’ll last for weeks on a single charge.

It is missing quite a bit, however. Firstly, the device isn’t water- or dustproof, meaning that while it’s very portable, you might want to be selective about where and when you actually take it outside. It also doesn’t feature a warm backlight option, making it less suitable for reading in the dark, say in bed, and it can’t be charged wirelessly.

Not all of those are dealbreakers, but they’re definitely downgrades compared to the other models. We’d recommend the base-level Kindle for new ebook readers, or people looking to replace their previous models that don’t need some of the extra features bigger models provide.

2. Kindle Colorsoft: The All-Rounder

It’s rare for us to recommend a first-generation product, but the Kindle Colorsoft isn’t exactly a groundbreaking product. Yes, it’s the first Kindle product with an e-ink display capable of displaying colour (!), but it isn’t the first product to do that. What it is, though, is very good.

The shift from reading on a regular Kindle to one capable of colour can largely be felt in two ways: when highlighting text, or when reading graphic novels and comic books. When highlighting text, you’ll be able to choose between four colours (yellow, pink, blue, and orange), which enables you to set up your own system of how you highlight. Is blue for notable quotes, while pink is for important statistics? That should be going back through a title to find important bits simpler, as you can more easily discern what it is you’re looking for.

The other major advantage is in displaying items like comic books and graphic novels in their full glory. It’ll still be muted compared to reading a comic on something like an iPad screen, but the fact that Colorsoft’s screen is glare-free means you’re not going to deal with a highly reflective display. In fact, the Colorsoft’s screen is pretty muted when you’re display a bunch of colours (the screen’s PPI literally halves when it’s in full colour mode), but it’s still enough to get you through your favourite comic. Just come in understanding that you’re trading some vibrancy for a portable reader with space for thousands of books on it.

The best part is that when you display a regular book, as you would with any other Kindle, you’ll get the same experience—text looks crisp, the screen isn’t overbearing, and it’ll last you multiple days. It’s a step up from the Kindle Paperwhite in most ways and so has taken our ‘all-rounder’ spot as the pick for most people.

3. Kindle Scribe: The Enthusiast

While the bigger Kindle Scribe loses the water and dust resistance of its smaller brothers, it also picks up a much bigger display, as well as some nifty new note-taking features that make us think Amazon was paying attention to ReMarkable all along.

See, the Scribe doubles up as a bigger than average e-reader, as well as a reusable-and-almost-infinite notepad – and not only can you take notes in a dedicated place, you can also now mark up books and documents you’re reading on the device using the included pen. It’s a nice feature, if you’re in the habit of drawing all over your books or writing in the margins of your PDFs, but we feel that the notepad feature is a bit more useful.

In saying that, it’s still a Kindle, and displays books with the best of them. Where this model shines, though, is in displaying bigger, more intricate images, such as on comic books, graphic novels, or manga. It’s still a black-and-white display, so it’s not quite perfect for comic book enthusiasts, but it’s getting there—we’re hopeful for a full Colorsoft Scribe combo in the coming years.

Still, it’s the least portable version of the Kindle that Amazon has on sale today, and it shines most when used for content that properly uses the bigger screen.

What to Consider When Buying a Kindle

Before you buy a Kindle, it’s worth taking the time to consider your options, and for good reason. Here are some things you should consider before purchasing a e-book or a Kindle.

• Display Size / Colour – This is probably the most straightforward of all considerations, how big do you want your Kindle to be? Think about its purpose – will you be taking it on the go or leaving it at home for a relaxing read. Remember, bigger is not always better. It’s worth noting that Amazon is launching a colour Kindle in Australia and New Zealand in 2025, so if you’re desparate to read books in colour, it might be worth waiting a bit.
• Built-in Light – Not all e-readers and Kindles come with a built-in light option, however, it’s a great addition. The integrated light allows you to read at night without a lamp, so if you plan on hitting the books late, this feature is a requirement. The basic Kindle has only a blue backlight, while the Paperwhite and Scribe have both blue and orange backlights.
• Storage: Kindles come with a base-line storage size of 16GB now, thankfully, but if you absolutely need more storage than that you’re looking at the Kindle Paperwhite or one of the more expensive Scribe upgrades.