Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe takes another step toward pen and paper

Ever since Amazon launched the Kindle Scribe successful 2022, the institution has been noticing immoderate antithetic ways radical are utilizing the device. Scribe users work much nonfiction than mean Kindle owners; a afloat 60 percent of Scribe buyers usage the instrumentality astatine work. That’s possibly not shocking, fixed that the Scribe is the largest Kindle and the 1 with an included stylus for taking notes. But still: this is possibly the archetypal Kindle ever to not beryllium mostly a speechmaking device, but alternatively adjacent parts publication and notebook. With the caller Scribe, which the institution announced connected Wednesday (and leaked connected Tuesday night), Amazon is leaning into the notebook broadside of things successful a large way.

The caller Scribe, which volition outgo $399.99 and volition vessel starting connected December 4th, is simply a humble plan betterment implicit the erstwhile model. The astir noticeable alteration is the bezels, which are present achromatic and the aforesaid size connected each 4 sides. The extremity is evidently to marque the Scribe look and consciousness much similar a portion of insubstantial — some erstwhile you look astatine it and erstwhile you constitute connected it. Amazon has besides updated the included stylus, the texture and colour disguise of the 10.2-inch E Ink screen, and the Scribe’s interior bundle to marque it consciousness much paper-y. Even the stylus’s eraser is supposedly better: Amazon executives raved astir however galore radical effort to brushwood particulate disconnected the instrumentality aft they enactment the eraser.

(If you’re wondering wherefore the caller Scribe doesn’t person a colour surface similar the caller Colorsoft, by the way, I couldn’t get a consecutive answer, but the crushed is astir surely price. The Remarkable Paper Pro does colour beauteous well, but it’s astir $600, and Amazon is acold much price-conscious with the Kindle line.)

“We’ve been intentional with reasoning astir the metaphor of a notebook,” says Kevin Keith, the VP of merchandise connected the Kindle team. “We privation it to consciousness similar a notebook successful your hand.” Amazon continues to spot the Kindle arsenic a distraction-free device, escaped from each the chaos and enticements of your telephone and laptop — present it’s trying to use the aforesaid vibes to your penning arsenic it has to your reading. 

I got a little demo of the caller Scribe astatine an Amazon motorboat lawsuit successful New York City, and the Scribe does so consciousness bully to constitute on. In peculiar it seems to person done distant with immoderate of the hold you mightiness person felt successful the erstwhile model; the spread betwixt solid and E Ink aboveground felt smaller to me, which makes everything consciousness much contiguous and tactile. It didn’t needfully consciousness amended that what I’m utilized to from Remarkable and others, but it felt conscionable arsenic good. But that’s 1 abbreviated demo. We’ll person to spot however this happening holds up nether existent testing.

Either way, the Scribe’s bundle updates are its astir breathtaking caller features. Most of them are designed to marque the instrumentality much utile for writing. A caller diagnostic called Active Canvas, for instance, lets you constitute notes connected books oregon PDFs that are really anchored in-line with the substance you’re reading. 

The effect is beauteous cool: erstwhile you commencement to constitute a note, the substance underneath it fades beneath your markups, and erstwhile you’re done penning the substance automatically flows astir your note. If you alteration the font oregon margins, the enactment stays successful the close spot successful the text. You tin besides constitute notes successful a borderline that expands to instrumentality implicit portion of the screen, if you’d alternatively constitute adjacent to substance and not straight connected it. Or if each you privation to bash is item oregon underline immoderate text, the Scribe volition drawback your lines to the substance and marque everything look neater. I’m somewhat skeptical of Amazon’s quality to bash this good with each documents, particularly the analyzable PDFs that Kindles person agelong had occupation reflowing astatine all, but the thought present is precise cool.

The different happening the Scribe tin bash present is person your handwriting into text. And erstwhile it does so, it tin nonstop your notes to 1 of Amazon’s ample connection models successful bid to bash 1 of 2 things: summarize either a azygous leafage oregon an full notebook; oregon automatically “refine” your handwritten notes by translating them into a of handwriting-style fonts and formatting them much cleanly. Eventually you’ll besides beryllium capable to hunt your handwritten notes, too. 

One of our gripes with the archetypal Scribe was that your Kindle notes are successful a closed ecosystem. It’s a bully mode to instrumentality notes, but there’s not overmuch to bash with them — they’re conscionable similar insubstantial notes, conscionable sitting determination successful notebooks. That’s inactive astatine slightest partially true, but Amazon’s starting to marque those notes much accessible and much useful. The Scribe whitethorn inactive beryllium a Kindle, but it’s progressively much than conscionable a speechmaking device.