Amazon Kindle Scribe overview: Not very outstanding, nonetheless note-worthy

Stylus help and note-taking have been a very long time approaching Amazon’s common Kindle e-reader line-up. They’re lastly right here on the Kindle Scribe, together with the most important e-ink show within the collection but. The Kindle Scribe guarantees to be a superb e-book reader but additionally a useful digital notepad and sketchpad. Does it reside as much as its potential? I spent one month studying books, sketching, jotting down ideas, and fixing math issues, to reply that query. So let’s see the decision in Android Authority‘s Amazon Kindle Scribe overview.

• Amazon Kindle Scribe (16GB, with Primary Pen): $339.99 / €329.99 / £369.99
• Amazon Kindle Scribe (16GB, with Premium Pen): $369.99 / €359.99 / £399.99
• Amazon Kindle Scribe (32GB, with Premium Pen): $389.99 / €379.99 / £419.99
• Amazon Kindle Scribe (64GB, with Premium Pen): $419.99 / €409.99 / £449.99

The brand new Amazon Kindle Scribe touts the most important show of any Kindle but. At 10.2 inches with a 1,860 x 2,480 decision (300ppi), the e-ink panel isn’t solely giant sufficient to accommodate books, comics, magazines, and PDFs, nevertheless it additionally serves as a superb canvas for your whole sketching and note-taking wants. It’s flanked on one facet with a bigger bezel for higher ergonomics, and you may rotate the show for right- and left-handed use.

The facility button and USB-C port sit on the facet, a seemingly awkward place at first, however one which is smart as you utilize the Kindle Scribe for longer durations of time. Having the USB-C cable come out of the facet means you possibly can nonetheless relaxation the reader in your lap and browse or write whereas it’s charging, with out twisting or bending the cable. It nonetheless appears funky, although.

Amazon is providing two stylus choices with the Kindle Scribe; each of them connect magnetically to the facet, include three additional nubs within the field, and don’t require any pairing or charging. They will let you take standalone notes, annotate instantly on high of PDFs, and take handwritten sticky notes in common e-books. The Primary Pen does one factor solely: write. The Premium Pen introduces a pressure-based eraser on the other finish and a customizable button on the facet.

That is the highest-end Kindle e-reader accessible in the present day and the worth displays it. It’s $90 costlier than the earlier flagship Oasis (2019) and $200 greater than the Kindle Paperwhite (2021). You should buy it instantly from Amazon, clearly, but additionally from Finest Purchase within the US. The one colour accessible is tungsten black.

The star of the present with the Kindle Scribe is its 10.2-inch e-ink glare-free show. It’s simple to learn outdoor in direct daylight, and the 35 LED lights make it fitted to indoor use too. Just like the Oasis (2019) and Paperwhite (2021), the Scribe can adapt its show’s brightness routinely and schedule its heat adjustments to comply with the native dawn and sundown. It switches from a cooler tone through the day to a hotter colour at night time.

The show’s largest asset, although, is its bodily measurement. It has the approximate dimensions of an A5 sheet of paper, making it ultimate for note-taking and sketching with out being too unwieldy. Comedian books, magazines, and PDFs are simpler to parse on it than on any 6- or 7-inch Kindle.

In my month testing the Kindle Scribe, that is the function I appreciated probably the most. I had beforehand tried and did not learn comedian books, paperwork, and examine books on different Kindle fashions. The shows have been too small, textual content was painful to parse, and zooming in/out each two seconds was a irritating expertise. The Scribe is the primary time I used to be in a position to truly learn these books on a Kindle.

Writing on the Amazon Kindle Scribe is a pleasing expertise, just like the Huawei MatePad Paper. It’s as shut as a digital show and stylus can get to the acquainted pen-and-paper really feel. Latency is unnoticeable; you instantly see each stroke.

The Premium Pen is value the additional $30 if just for the eraser performance. It’s tremendous intuitive to flip it round to delete errors or bits you not want. The additional facet button might be programmed to behave as a highlighter, pen, eraser, or so as to add a sticky word in books. I like to recommend you set it as much as spotlight in case you plan on learning or studying essential documentation on the Scribe; it’s as in case you had a secret Sharpie in your hand.

Like each different e-reader, the Kindle Scribe boasts glorious battery life. I solely wanted to high it up after three weeks of very energetic use (studying 4 full books, and taking many notes and sketches).

Amazon can be smart sufficient to not show lock display screen advertisements on the Scribe. On the worth, it might’ve been very sleazy to see random books on the inactive show. Nonetheless, I’d love if we may disable all of the random suggestions from the principle house display screen too.

For a first-generation Kindle with stylus help, the Scribe presents absolutely the naked minimal of note-taking and sketching options. First, the pen doesn’t help variable tilt and stress sensitivities. The stroke is identical, regardless of the way you maintain it. Amazon has solely carried out pen, highlighter, and eraser features, every in 5 completely different stroke widths. You don’t get any extra instruments or brush sorts, however these are supposedly coming in a future replace.

There are additionally zero gestures or good functionalities related to the pen. In contrast to extra superior note-taking experiences just like the iPad and Apple Pencil or reMarkable 2, you possibly can’t choose elements of your sketches to maneuver or resize them. You’ll be able to’t insert traces between textual content or areas between characters, copy and paste bits round, or draw good shapes. If you happen to’re like me and you may’t draw a straight line to avoid wasting your life, the Scribe received’t straighten it for you. Neglect about rectangles or circles too. Handwriting recognition and OCR are nowhere to be discovered both.

General, this looks like digital note-taking 1.0, circa 2010. It’s precisely the identical workflow as working with an actual paper — zero good advances for our fashionable digital age. Each time I picked up the pen to take notes, resolve a math downside, or sketch one thing, I knew I used to be going to make use of the undo button or eraser far more than I meant. A easy factor like shifting an merchandise down one line in an inventory requires erasing your complete line and writing it once more. Suffice it to say, that is far, very removed from what you are able to do with a contemporary tablet or a digital notepad just like the reMarkable or Supernote.

Export choices are fairly restricted too. Mainly, you possibly can e mail something as a PDF. Standalone notes additionally sync throughout your Kindle account and might be accessed in view-only mode through the Android and iOS apps — no enhancing. PDF annotations and handwritten sticky notes don’t sync to different units but. All of this hinders the usefulness of your complete note-taking expertise.

However worse than which might be all of the complicated limitations round e-book codecs and what you possibly can or can’t do. See in case you can comply with the logic:

• You’ll be able to’t instantly obtain PDFs or EPUBs instantly from the Scribe’s built-in browser. Solely AZW, PRC, MOBI, or TXT extensions are supported. Different file sorts should be loaded utilizing Send to Kindle. There’s nothing new right here in comparison with different Kindles, nevertheless it’s an arbitrary limitation that makes much less and fewer sense on a tool that thrives on e book studying and annotation.
• You’ll be able to solely scribble and instantly annotate PDF paperwork. Another format doesn’t permit this, however makes use of sticky notes as a substitute. Nevertheless, you possibly can’t annotate PDFs loaded through USB-C or despatched to your Kindle earlier than 11/11/2022. One other arbitrary limitation.
• Sticky notes with typed or handwritten notes might be added to most Kindle Retailer or imported e-books in any format besides PDF. Nevertheless, Kindle Retailer mangas, comics, graphic novels, magazines, and newspapers don’t permit that for some cause. Additionally, see if you could find the sticky word icon within the above-right photograph. It’s quasi-invisible.
• Since Amazon is phasing out MOBI help, you possibly can’t add handwritten sticky notes or direct annotations to these.

In just a few phrases: it’s a complicated mess. Throughout my first week with the Scribe, I had no concept annotations, and sticky notes have been doable as a result of I used to be studying an previous e book within the MOBI format. It was solely after I began studying different content material that I noticed I may typically connect a sticky word and typically instantly write on the web page. I needed to dig on-line to seek out the excellence. Amazon must make clear this on the gadget, not on a help web page nobody will discover, and it ought to take away a few of these haphazard restrictions. A extra constant expertise can go a good distance.

The shortage of water resistance is one other very disappointing alternative for the Kindle Scribe. If you happen to thought we’d moved in the direction of IP ranking by default on all however probably the most primary Kindle reader, you’d be mistaken. This $300+ mannequin can’t deal with water.

Throughout my first week with the Scribe, I didn’t find out about this downgrade; I simply wrongly assumed it was water resistant. So I positioned it on the sink’s edge whereas washing my palms and propped it up within the kitchen whereas cooking a number of instances. Nothing broke, however I’m glad I didn’t determine to take it into the bathtub or out within the wet Parisian climate. Now that I’m conscious of the limitation, I’ll child it once I’m utilizing it. It’s value holding this in thoughts in case you’re in search of a pool-side or outdoor-friendly e-reader — you may be higher off with one thing else.

Different downsides of the Kindle Scribe embrace its bigger and heavier measurement, which might be annoying for longer studying periods, and its fairly primary interface that requires a number of faucets to change between books, notes, and the browser. There aren’t any page-turning buttons both, a beloved function for any Kindle Oasis consumer.

The Kindle Scribe represents a giant leap in Amazon’s e-reader line-up. For the primary time, we are able to learn paperwork, PDFs, and comics on a bigger, extra comfy show, whereas additionally having the choice to annotate and sketch. Save for the dearth of water resistance, the {hardware} is phenomenal too.

The software program expertise, nonetheless, is mediocre. Even when Amazon rushed the Scribe out to satisfy the 2022 vacation season, it nonetheless had years to develop a extra sturdy note-taking expertise. The restricted pens and brushes, the absence of digital stylus gestures or options, and the dearth of handwriting recognition are objectively inexcusable these days. Particularly when different e-ink tablets supply them. Then there are the arbitrary and convoluted restrictions across the completely different e book and doc codecs. Amazon is promising software program updates with new options, although, and can probably drop the Scribe’s worth many instances over the course of the following months. These would definitely make it extra interesting.

Because it stands, the Scribe is a little bit of a singular beast within the e-reader market. It’s an e-book reader at the beginning, with some primary note-taking options in tow. If that is all you want, and also you’re glad sticking to Amazon’s software program expertise, then by all means, go for it.

However if you’d like a greater stylus expertise and you understand you’ll be jotting down notes and annotating paperwork greater than studying books, you need to have a look at the reMarkable 2 ($299) or Supernote (s$343). In order for you a extra open ecosystem with entry to extra Android apps, you’re higher off with the Onyx Boox Word Air 2 Plus ($499.99) or the very high-end Onyx Boox Tab Extremely ($599) — or doubtlessly the Huawei MatePad Paper (€499 at Huawei) in case you don’t thoughts side-loading APKs.

Nonetheless, Amazon will in all probability promote an order of magnitude extra Kindle Scribe models than any of those different firms, and is extra prone to preserve the Scribe up to date for a number of years with new options. You get to determine what issues extra to you.

It’s humorous how an objectively irritating gadget can be one I’m delighted to make use of daily. Throughout my month with the Kindle Scribe, I discovered myself continually wishing it may do extra, as a result of what it does now, it does so properly, and I simply love utilizing it.

My aunt, a retired math instructor, and I’ve been difficult one another with high-school-level math issues and random enigmas and riddles for a number of weeks. It’s a nerdy method of staying in contact whereas dwelling in numerous nations. Every time there’s a brand new downside, I simply seize the Scribe and begin fixing away. It helps that I can erase and re-write a number of instances and ship her a clear copy, giving her the phantasm that I solved it multi function go. Shhhhh, don’t inform her.

I additionally instinctively grabbed the Kindle Scribe when my husband and I have been debating the right way to set up the 13 Nanoleaf Canvas panels we acquired on the wall. After dozens of sketches over a number of days, we settled on one design and put in it. It solely took just a few weeks, however I don’t give it some thought anymore — that is my private notepad now.

The Scribe received me over with these quite simple use circumstances. Positive, it’s very primary digital note-taking, nevertheless it works for my present use case. Any additional options Amazon provides would be the cherry on high of that cake for me. E-book annotation, although, is a mediocre expertise. The black-and-white show makes annotations barely distinguishable on high of PDFs, and the sticky-note icon is so tiny it’s not possible to identify. I’ve began highlighting textual content and including a sticky word, simply to make it extra apparent.

Though I’ve completed 4 books on the Scribe up to now, I nonetheless want the Kindle Paperwhite for normal e-books. I solely learn one phrase at a time, so a much bigger show is pointless; the small Paperwhite can be nicer to carry for lengthy durations of time.

The show does matter, although, once I’m opening paperwork, PDFs, or comics. The expertise is leaps and bounds forward of the smaller Kindle fashions. This does make me desire a coloured e-ink Kindle, although. We’re nonetheless removed from that, however I actually need to see examine books and comedian books in colour.