Amazon’s 2026 Kindle lineup — including the new basic Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, and Kindle Colorsoft, is shipping now. But users are already reporting a visible display quirk: a faint glow around the edges of the screen in dark mode, especially at high brightness and in low-light environments. Amazon confirms it’s real. And says it was intentional. The issue appears only on the base-model Kindle (priced at $150), not the Paperwhite ($200) or Signature Edition ($250). It shows up as a soft white halo along the bezel when reading with dark mode enabled, text remains crisp, but the background doesn’t fully go black near the frame. Reddit users posted side-by-side comparisons with older models, noting the 2024 Paperwhite had no such effect. Amazon told Android Authority the glow is “expected”. A trade-off to achieve a color bezel in the redesigned reverse-stack display architecture. That design flattens the bezel into the front glass, eliminating the raised lip of past models. The result? A lighter, thinner device, and, per Amazon, a necessary optical side effect under specific conditions: dark mode + max brightness + ambient darkness. No fix is coming. Instead, Amazon recommends lowering brightness in dark mode. There’s no mention of firmware patches, hardware swaps, or refunds for affected units. Just guidance to adjust settings. Pre-orders remain open for the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Colorsoft, both of which Android Central notes are not reported to show the same behavior. The basic Kindle is shipping now. The $150 Kindle starts at 16GB storage, promises six weeks of battery life, and opens books 30% faster than its predecessor. The Bluetooth-enabled Kindle Click page-turner remote is available separately.