Colour Kindle

We cannot wait to find out when the Colour Kindle release date will be. The UK Kindle has been a runaway success already, but gadget fans simply cannot help wondering what great improvements their favourite toys will have next.

News that Hanvon were releasing the world's first full colour electronic ink based ebook reading device, have certainly increased speculation that a Kindle in Colour is on the cards.

After all, until late in 2010 the only way to make an ebook reader colour, was to do away with the awesome battery life, and relaxing read that is provided by e-ink. The only colour option was to go for a back-lit, power hungry, eye taxing display like the one on your computer. Thankfully most ebook reader manufacturers recognised that this would mean simply producing yet another tablet PC, but one that didn't really do too much and so one that would be a wasted opportunity. Now though, since Triton e-ink displays mean we can have colour, and keep the same easy on the eye display that uses hardly any power, why on earth wouldn't Amazon introduce a colour display Kindle?

The only question now then is when will that release date be? Well Amazon are never in any hurry to share their Kindle plans with anyone. It is highly unlikely that we would see anything new till the summer of 2011, but then who knows a new model, somewhere between the current Kindle 3 and the over-sized DX but with a glorious technicolour display might be on the cards!

This is where things might get a little disappointing for some. If you want colour like you see on your smart phone or laptop screen you probably want a tablet PC rather than a simple ebook reader.

The Triton colour e-ink displays can display thousands of unique colours. But without any back-lighting and trying to look like ink on paper rather than a computer screen, the whole thing is a little muted. The mock up image at the right gives you an idea of what colour e-ink could be. It is good enough, but not vibrant.

So the colour display on a Kindle will probably not be colourful enough for all. But so long as you think highly of readability and the portability that comes with a mammoth battery life, you will understand that colourful enough is pretty fantastic anyway!

So the next batch of Kindles in the UK are likely to give us a colour option.  But what else?  Well one trend that isn't going away within the fickle world of consumer electronics is of course the touch-screen.  

So much so in fact that Sony revamped their entire ebook reader range late in 2010 to incorporate touch-screens into them all.  Moving the Kindle towards the touch-screen could have added benefits.  As well as making navigation easier (particularly when you're online), it would also help with the whole look of the reading device itself.  Get rid of the keypad and you can stream-line the whole thing.  Either make it all smaller, or keep the general size and increase the display size.  My preferred option would be to give us a touch-screen 7" display version Kindle.  Many of us would be happy to stick with the cheap wi-fi Kindle 3, but those of us that want to splash out a little more cash on something a bit more current could go for the seven incher with touch-screen display, and perhaps colour too!

So my wish list for the next crop of the great Kindle UK, is the following:

• The option of a larger 7" touch-screen display
• Triton full colour display options
• Sort the MP3 player out so it is easier to use
• Make the classification side of things a little easier.
• Improve the support for Chinese and other foreign characters.