New Kindle drops raised bezel for a thinner, lighter design

Amazon is giving the Kindle its most significant physical redesign in years, introducing a refreshed lineup of e-readers built around a deceptively simple idea: getting rid of the raised bezel. The redesigned Kindle, unveiled Thursday, replaces the traditional raised bezel surrounding the display with a flush-front design for a cleaner, more seamless look.

Bezels also give readers a place to rest their fingers without accidentally touching the screen and triggering a page turn, a problem Amazon says it has designed around. At a press briefing, Kevin Keith, Amazon’s vice president of devices, said the company uses capacitive (“Cap”) touch technology and haptics to create what he calls a “dead zone.” “When you’re gripping the Kindle, wherever you put your thumb, it will self-detect a dead zone in the Cap touch. It will just readjust, and it’ll know that the finger is there,” Keith said.

Alongside the bezel-free redesign, the standard six-inch Kindle is now 6.8 millimeters thick and weighs 140 grams, thinner and lighter than its predecessor; Amazon positions it as the most pocket-friendly Kindle in the lineup. The new display is also 30% faster at page turns than the previous generation, and the lineup introduces new colors, including Ube, Alpine Sky, Seaglass Green, Graphite, and Fig. The new Kindle starts at $149.99 in Ube and Graphite, and for the first time Amazon is also offering an aluminum-backed version with 32GB of storage in Alpine Sky and Seaglass Green.

The redesign extends to the Kindle Paperwhite, also thinner and lighter than the previous generation, which Amazon describes as having the largest display and highest contrast ratio in the Kindle lineup. The standard Paperwhite has 16GB of storage and costs $199.99 in Graphite; a 32GB Signature Edition costs $249.99 in Graphite and Seaglass Green. The Kindle Colorsoft, introduced in 2024 as Amazon’s first Kindle with a color display, also adopts the thinner, lighter, flush-front design: the standard version has 16GB of storage and starts at $289.99 in Graphite, while a 32GB Signature Edition is $319.99 in Graphite and Fig.

The new Kindle and its aluminum version are available starting today in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Poland, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Australia. The new Paperwhite and Colorsoft are available for preorder in the same regions. Amazon is also continuing its Kids lineup: the Kids Kindle is available now, while the Kids Kindle Colorsoft is available for preorder in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, and Japan.

Why it matters

Shipping the redesign across nearly 20 countries at once, rather than staggering a U.S.-first rollout, signals Amazon is treating the e-reader refresh as a global product cycle rather than a regional test.