Amazon has sent out a batch of invites to a handful of lucky journalists and influencers for a September 30th hardware event in New York. We weren’t fortunate enough to get one (you know how to reach us, Panos), but along with the invite was an image teasing the hardware that would be featured, and we’re pretty sure there’s a new Kindle on the way (from The Verge).
We love new hardware
The image is broken up into four quadrants, with a quarter of a blue circle in each, hinting that the main theme of the reveal will be Echo hardware. It’s not obvious what’s hidden in each quadrant, except that we spied the Kindle logo in the lower right, in color with a cropped bit of text that reads “… stroke of a pen.”
New Kindle Scribe color confirmed? A new line of color Kindles was predicted by industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo back in February 2024, eight months before Kindle revealed its Colorsoft e-reader. In that exact same prediction, Kuo foretold of a new 10” Kindle as well (the Scribe is 10.2”), and it appears that his prediction is about to bear fruit.
I think there’s a good chance Amazon may have more up its sleeve. Kuo also predicted that Amazon would embrace ACeP technology like the modified Gallery 3 displays used by reMarkable, but the Colorsoft uses Kaleido 3, so it’s likely that any new color Kindles will use that as well. But that doesn’t preclude a new Colorsoft with stylus input. Kindle’s biggest rivals (Kobo, Boox, Bigme) all offer 7” color e-readers with stylus support (and page-turn buttons!!!); and all of them are either the same price or cheaper than the Colorsoft. I don’t think Kindle’s adding buttons to the Colorsoft, but I can envision a world where they do add stylus support.
What else does Amazon have cooking?
It’s hard to be sure of the other three devices hiding in Amazon’s invite, but the blue wave in the bottom left looks like a TV to us, so expect a new Fire TV. The top right looks like an Echo smart speaker, perhaps an Echo Studio. The top-left quadrant has me stumped, but other outlets have speculated that it could be new Echo Buds. Maybe a new Alexa? Whatever happens, we’ll have to wait until the September 30th event to find out, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do.
