Amazon Kindle (2026) Review: A great e-reader at the wrong price

Design

• Optional aluminium finish and new colours
• Pocketable design
• No waterproofing

There are two versions of the Kindle (2026), and there’s quite a difference between the two. One is made from plastic, with a rubbery finish, and the other is made from aluminium, giving it a much more premium feel. It’s the latter I have here.

Each variant comes in its own selection of colours, like the standout Ube for the plastic version and a green or blue for the aluminium. I’d have liked a Ube aluminium version, but it is nice you don’t need to spend more to get anything other than black.

I’ve got the aluminium version here, and wow, it is an upgrade in terms of general feel. A Kindle hasn’t felt or looked this good since the Oasis. The cool feel of the metal is nice, as is the more robust build. I’ve been using a Kindle Colorsoft for a couple of years, and the rubber edges are starting to peel off. That won’t happen here.

You are, of course, paying a premium for the metal body. And I can’t say for sure how the cheaper model feels as I haven’t used it. I think the extra price is worth it though, as this isn’t exactly a bargain device to begin with – so you might as well get the model that’ll last the longest.

Whichever material you choose, there are some general design updates. The reader is a little boxier, with flatter sides. The power button has been moved from the bottom to the top right – a smart move that fixes one of my biggest issues with recent Kindles. The power button is still easily knocked when the device is in a bag, but at least it’s easier to not accidentally turn it on when simply holding it.

I love the size of this Kindle. It’s the smallest and lightest of the whole range, and that comes with numerous benefits. It is easy and comfortable to hold for extended periods, and it can slip into larger coat pockets or handbags without faff. It’s a real joy.

There are some trade-offs, though, that are harder to ignore now this basic Kindle isn’t quite so affordable. The big one for me is the lack of water resistance – a feature I feel should be a given for something like this. There’s no support for the new case with the page-turn buttons either, so unless you plump for the Bluetooth remote, you’re stuck with the touchscreen for navigation.

Screen

• Sharp display
• Even light
• No warm settings

The 6-inch black and white screen here is great, even if it looks very much the same as previous versions. The 300PPI resolution renders text crisply, and as there’s no need for the Colorsoft’s colour layer, no fuzzy finish.

Amazon has made the screen flush to the body, so there’s no lip – just a smooth panel running across the whole front. This ups the ‘premium’ feel and, for me, makes it easier to comfortably flip through pages.

As this is an e-ink panel, rather than an LCD or OLED, it is glare-free. It is also not backlit as such, with the light coming from the sides to make the screen readable at night and in darker environments. It’s a very even light, with no patchy areas.

Unlike the Paperwhite and Colorsoft, there isn’t a warm light here, so you can’t add that orange hue to make it more comfortable to use at night. This is a real shame, especially with the price rises. Not having a warm light on a reader that costs upwards of £130/$130 is a real issue for me. The default light is just a bit too white at night.

One small issue I have noticed, as have others on Reddit, is that when reading in dark mode, there’s a faint white line running around the bezel, breaking the illusion of a true ‘dark mode’. If you read in this mode a lot, I can see this being an issue. It likely isn’t helped by the coloured front, so it could be less obvious on the black plastic model.

Features

• Weeks of battery life
• Very Amazon-focused
• No charger or cable included

There isn’t much by way of new features with the Kindle 2026. The general software is the same as before, and it remains very much designed for those deep in the Kindle ecosystem. This isn’t an open reader, and it’s a faff getting books onto it that aren’t purchased directly from Amazon. Go for a Kobo or Boox device if you want something more open.

You’ve got the choice of either 16 or 32GB of storage, both of which are more than enough for thousands of books. You’ll only really start to eat into that space with larger audiobooks from Audible. Some of these, especially those ‘full-cast’ dramatised versions, can easily hit 10GB. The Kindle isn’t an ideal audiobook device in my opinion, especially with the lack of an onboard speaker.

Amazon claims this new Kindle is quicker, saying ‘books open 30% faster’ than before. To me, I can’t see much difference. Maybe it is marginally better, although not to the levels where anyone would notice unless they have both models next to each other. It’s still a bit of a slow process navigating the UI and store, although that is to be expected with e-ink.

Charging is done via USB-C, and the port is on the bottom. In regions like the UK, not only do you not get a charger in the box, but you don’t even get a cable. So, hopefully you’ve got at least one USB-C cable around somewhere.

When I unboxed the Kindle 2026, I charged it up to 100%. After a week of use – an hour of reading in the morning, and the same again at night – it is down 30%. Amazon claims around six weeks of juice between charges, although this claim is with around an hour of use per day. Still, by my calculations, I should go three and a bit weeks between charges. That’s around half of the juice of the Paperwhite, but perfectly acceptable for a small device.

Should you buy it?