Deals and Price Comparison
Last updated on 1. September 2025 at 22:11. All statements without guarantee.
Tolino Shine Color: At a Glance
With the Shine Color, Tolino is launching its first eBook reader with a color display. The new screen is based on E Ink Kaleido 3 technology and renders content in 4,096 colors at 150 ppi, while black-and-white content is still displayed at a crisp 300 ppi. This makes the display particularly appealing for color content such as comics, magazines, or illustrated eBooks, but it also adds real value in everyday use, like showing book covers in color. If you’re expecting highly saturated colors like on LCDs, you’ll be disappointed: the rendering is more pastel-like, but it is color-accurate and noticeably better than older Kaleido generations.
Hardware: strengths and weaknesses
Visually, the Shine Color follows previous Tolino models, but it opts for a more budget-feeling plastic housing that’s prone to scratches. The slightly recessed display also looks less modern than flush-mounted designs. On the plus side, it features a new MediaTek processor that delivers the power needed for color content, along with a good touchscreen and very little ghosting. Battery life is solid but not outstanding: around 33 hours at medium brightness is a good figure for a color eReader. The 16 GB of internal storage (12 GB of which are free) cannot be expanded.
Kobo interface with teething issues
On the software side, the Shine Color is a fresh start: instead of Android, the new Tolino generation now runs a customized Kobo interface. It offers a modern, clean user experience, but also comes with a few minor drawbacks—for example when displaying menus on the small 6-inch screen or with Onleihe integration. Some early teething issues such as long loading times or missing book covers at launch have now been largely fixed thanks to regular updates. The new support for LCP DRM is forward-looking and improves compatibility with public libraries, but for now it still causes slight performance hits when opening encrypted eBooks.
Reading experience and extra features
Overall, the reading experience is very good. Text rendering is highly customizable, with a wide range of options for fonts and layout. Dark mode is available, albeit with limitations. The Shine Color, however, shows weaknesses in its highlighting and notes: controls are imprecise, exporting isn’t possible, and there’s no way to filter by color. On the plus side, the dictionary has been noticeably improved, even if it still doesn’t quite reach Kobo’s standard.
Color content such as comics or PDFs clearly benefits from the new display. It may lack contrast depth, but the gain in information is noticeable. PDF use remains fairly rudimentary due to limited features. Audiobooks are played back via Bluetooth, but the native player is limited to content purchased in the store. Your own audiobooks require workarounds and offer only a pared-back user experience.
Conclusion: Color as a nice extra, not a reason to buy on its own
The Tolino Shine Color is mainly of interest to users who value color content but don’t expect uncompromising color reproduction. The new display is a noticeable upgrade over pure black-and-white models, but compared with tablets its colors remain restrained. If you want to read comics or magazines, this is a well-executed E Ink alternative. For classic novels, the Shine 5 remains the better choice. If you can live with minor limitations in build quality, software details, and audio playback, the Shine Color is a versatile eReader that charmingly enhances the user experience with color.
Tolino Shine Color: Technical Specifications
| General | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Tolino |
| Market launch | 2024 |
| Device type | E-Reader |
| Device category | Upper mid-range |
| Price (USD / EUR) | 149 |
| Available colors | black |
| Size & Weight | |
| Size (L × B × T) | 160 x 112 x 9.1 mm |
| Weight (g) | 173 |
| Display | |
| Technology | E-Ink Kaleido 3 |
| Flexible Display Technology | No |
| Size (inch) | 6 |
| Resolution (px) | 1448×1072 |
| Pixel density (ppi) | 300 / 150 |
| Colors | Yes |
| Color depth | 4096 colors |
| Touchscreen | Yes, capacitive |
| Built-in light | Yes, dual-tone frontlight |
| Flush display | No |
| Connections | |
| USB | USB-C |
| Bluetooth | Yes |
| Wi-Fi | Yes |
| Cellular connectivity | No |
| GPS | No |
| Hardware Specs | |
| CPU Cores | Unknown |
| CPU Type | |
| RAM (GB) | |
| Internal Storage (GB) | 16 |
| Internal Storage up to (GB) | |
| Storage Expansion | No |
| Speakers | No |
| Microphone | No |
| Battery (mAh) | |
| Operating system | Linux |
| Features | |
| Text-to-speech | No |
| Page turn buttons | No |
| Water protection | IPX8 |
| Accelerometer | Unknown |
| E-book store | Yes |
| Supported file types | EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT, CBR, CBZ, JPEG, PNG |
All information provided without guarantee.
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