On my recent unboxing of the brand-new Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition (the one with the brushed aluminum back), I noticed someone asking about the quality of colors in dark mode, and I realized I didn’t have a good answer.
Dark Mode, which became popular on modern screens over the past 15 years or so — a throwback to the original CRT displays — has never been my thing. As a result, I don’t use it on phones, browsers, or Kindle e-readers. Still, the more I thought about this question (below). The more I wondered about it.
“This might be a dumb question,” started one TikTok commenter, “but do the colors still show when in Dark Mode? I’ve only seen photos in light mode.”
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I instantly tried to imagine what a comic or graphic novel might look like in Dark Mode and realized I’d never seen it that way either.
Let’s try the Colorsoft Dark mode
The Kindle Colorsoft shares a menu system with the rest of the monochrome Kindles, with the Dark Mode option sitting right up top. You access the quick menu with a swipe down from the top of the display. You can also dig into settings to turn on the control from there.
I turned on Dark Mode on the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition and noticed that my library immediately reversed, turning all the white borders black, but the book, magazine, and graphic novel covers remained untouched. If I opened a book, I saw white text on black pages.
The other thing I noticed is that the screen looked a lot dimmer. Basically, Dark Mode automatically lowers the screen brightness by half.
I opened a graphic novel. As with the rest of the Colosoft interface, the borders around each graphic novel page were black. However, each page was still white, with the untouched color panels inside. Honestly, this makes sense, since I can’t imagine any artist would want dark mode reversing their work. It would probably look terrible.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
I could see all the colors, but the pages looked too dim. Fortunately, I could still push the front-lit LEDs brighter (I turned them up to max) to return some of that vibrancy, though I’m not sure if that defeats the purpose of Dark Mode.
The other option is to take advantage of the Kindle Colorsoft’s reflective display (unlike an LCD, there are no traditional backlights). If you have a good external light or even sunlight, the page looks great with or without dark mode, which can reduce eye-straining screen glare and save some battery life (not much of an issue with Kindles).
Here’s what I learned: Yes, you can still see colors in Dark Mode, but as Amazon confirmed to me, “When setting Colorsoft devices to dark mode, the screen may appear dimmer overall due to the color E-Ink layer.”
If the screen looks too dim, adjust the brightness or find a good light source and enjoy your colorful graphic novels.
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lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff)
