Amazon Kindle Scribe review: absolutely adequate - The Verge

Last year, I bought my archetypal caller car since 2003. Every day, I would telephone a person oregon household subordinate to archer them astir yet different caller diagnostic I’d discovered. It had Bluetooth! Lane alteration warnings! A camera for parking! With each caller diagnostic my friends and household — each who person purchased cars successful the past 20 years — sighed and reminded maine that these features were communal and simply caller to me. I ideate for a batch of radical the Amazon Kindle Scribe volition beryllium the same. This happening is packed afloat of aged ideas turned into a mediocre reality, but if you’re not heavy into the satellite of E Ink note-taking tablets, they’ll conscionable look neat.

The $339.99 Kindle Scribe is Amazon’s largest Kindle ever. (It’s adjacent bigger than the long-discontinued 9.7-inch Kindle DX.) The Scribe has a 10.2-inch show with 300 dpi, which means you tin marque the people bigger and not blurrier, oregon you tin battalion much words onto the leafage than with Amazon’s smaller Kindles. It’s besides a batch much comfy to work comic books and graphic novels connected than the emblematic 6- oregon 7-inch Kindle.

But the existent entreaty of the Kindle Scribe is this is the archetypal Kindle with a Wacom layer, which means you tin easy annotate the books you’re speechmaking oregon jot down notes successful a gathering utilizing a stylus. Unfortunately, I’ve utilized a batch of the Kindle Scribe’s E Ink competitors, similar the likewise priced Remarkable 2 and the much costly (but much flexible) Onyx Boox Note Air 2. And compared to those devices, the Kindle Scribe is lacking.

But look, I’m an E Ink nerd. I import e-readers from China due to the fact that I privation to spot what the cutting borderline of E Ink plan looks like. I knew going successful that Amazon’s instrumentality wasn’t going to person immoderate of the fancier features of its competitors. I knew it was going to marque sacrifices to support costs down. I besides knew, fixed Amazon has a virtual monopoly of the e-reader abstraction successful the United States, it doesn’t person to truly bash overmuch to compete. I was inactive disappointed. 

As an e-reader, the Kindle Scribe is fine. I’ve been rereading Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree, and it was highly casual to bash — adjacent with an e-reader this big. Words are crisp and clear, and leafage refreshes are fast. The Scribe is airy and casual to clasp successful 1 manus and work with its asymmetrical plan — though it is truthful large, I occasionally consciousness similar an other successful Star Trek: The Next Generation erstwhile I locomotion astir the location portion reading. The cases made for the Scribe are meant to imitate a pen pad much than a book, but I inactive emotion them. It didn’t look to get successful the mode of the instrumentality similar the book-style lawsuit connected different e-readers do. It besides has a loop built successful for the (mercifully) included pen, and it doesn’t consciousness similar a dinky add-on arsenic pen loops astir ever do. 

There are 2 pens available: my reappraisal portion came with the much luxurious Premium Pen (a $30 upcharge), which includes a shortcut fastener and a built-in eraser, but there’s besides the eraser- and button-free Basic Pen. Both person a magnet for latching onto the broadside of the instrumentality if you don’t person a lawsuit with a pen loop. Because the pen uses Wacom technology, there’s nary charging it. Surprisingly, I didn’t miss my mean E Ink stylus erstwhile utilizing the Premium Pen either.

The Scribe besides has immoderate of the champion artillery beingness I’ve seen successful an e-reader this big. I don’t person to crook disconnected the Wi-Fi to support the artillery from draining betwixt uses similar I bash with different devices (though I’ve lone had the Scribe for a week and a fractional — I’ll request much clip to person definitive thoughts connected the artillery performance). 

But 1 of my biggest frustrations with the Kindle Scribe is erstwhile I americium trying to take what to read. Earlier this year, Amazon finished integrating Comixology with the Kindle Store. Now, each of my books and comics are recovered successful the aforesaid spot — adjacent erstwhile that spot is simply a black-and-white e-reader not meant for speechmaking comics. Recently, Amazon added the quality to filter retired comics successful your library. That worked connected the Scribe, but it didn’t assistance with the recommendations connected the Scribe’s homepage. That’s inactive filled with colorful Harley Quinn comics I person nary involvement successful speechmaking connected this thing. (Kevin Keith, vice president of merchandise absorption and selling astatine Amazon, was amazed erstwhile I mentioned this to him and said he’d person the squad look into it.) More obnoxious than the recommendations was however rapidly the Scribe tried to get maine to motion up for subscriptions to Kindle Unlimited and Audible. I had to skip ads for some services erstwhile I archetypal turned the Scribe on. Given that the Scribe starts astatine $339.99 and it doesn’t person fastener surface ads similar different Kindle readers, the nags felt similar a spot much. 

But possibly that’s good due to the fact that you’re not conscionable buying this to work books; you astir apt besides privation it to instrumentality notes. Amazon aped the Remarkable 2 and gave the solid a rougher surface. The nibs connected the stylus person a rougher texture, which gives the Scribe a much pleasant feeling erstwhile penning that the hard solid of the iPad volition ne'er have. It, situation I say, astir feels similar existent paper. 

Yet, the Remarkable 2 inactive does it better. Unlike the Remarkable 2, the Scribe has beforehand lights that make a tiny spread betwixt the solid you’re penning connected and the E Ink aboveground beneath. That spread is evidently visible, and it creates a precise tiny but noticeable hold arsenic you write. But fixed the prime betwixt this tiny hold and beforehand lights oregon nary hold and nary lights, I’ll happily instrumentality the delay. 

I’ll besides happily instrumentality the speechmaking acquisition of the Scribe implicit the Remarkable 2 — and particularly the annotation ability. On the Scribe, you tin make small notes arsenic you work a book, and it automatically collects each of the annotations successful 1 place. If you’re perpetually jotting down marginalia, it works similar a dream. There isn’t truly different mainstream instrumentality that lets you bash that truthful easily. 

The aforesaid goes for marking up PDFs — it conscionable works. You unfastened the PDF, you commencement scrawling each implicit it, and past you email it to yourself. Done.

The dedicated notebook diagnostic is capable but not arsenic bully arsenic thing Remarkable oregon Onyx Boox is doing. It’s beauteous casual to get writing: conscionable flip unfastened the cover, unfastened a notebook, and go. But you cannot take from aggregate pen and pencil grades oregon shades. You get 5 antithetic pen thicknesses, 5 antithetic highlighter thicknesses, and an eraser. I would person loved to person a fewer pencil options and much than 1 benignant of pen choice. Keith didn’t springiness specifics but did suggest that bundle updates could bring much features to the Scribe’s Notebook app. So fingers crossed it volition amended with time. 

I’m besides crossing my fingers that the full sync concern volition amended due to the fact that close present it is goofy arsenic hell. To get articles and different documents connected the Scribe, you email your Kindle and hold for it to person the files, which it automatically loads into your room alongside immoderate books (or comics) you mightiness already own. But it doesn’t really sync immoderate notes you marque to the Kindle app connected your telephone oregon the web. So annotations vanish erstwhile you unfastened the aforesaid PDF connected your phone. Notebooks bash sync, but you can’t adhd to them connected your telephone oregon different instrumentality — lone work them. And if you’re hoping to instantly person your handwriting to text… question different device. The Scribe doesn’t bash that. Given Amazon is 1 of the largest and astir palmy unreality computing companies successful the world, it’s stunningly goofy however poorly this full process works. 

Here was a spot wherever Amazon couldn’t conscionable lucifer the Remarkable 2, it could person crushed the different institution into dust. It could person followed aft Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft, which each person intuitive and flexible note-taking options — adjacent if their tablets aren’t arsenic pleasant to constitute connected arsenic a Remarkable 2. Instead, the Scribe conscionable provides a perfectly adequate, if underbaked, service. The full clip I’ve utilized the Scribe, I’ve struggled to flight the consciousness that this is simply a benignant of lazy introduction into a burgeoning market. While I support comparing Amazon’s Kindle lineup to the Remarkable 2 and devices similar the Onyx Boox Note Air 2, they aren’t truly important competitors. Amazon has acold much resources, and I expected thing of existent prime from Amazon — particularly fixed the Scribe starts astatine $339.99. 

The Scribe is technically cheaper than the Remarkable 2, which starts astatine $299 but requires you to walk astatine slightest $79 connected a stylus. And it’s cheaper than the Onyx Boox Note Air 2, which includes a pen (and a case!) for escaped but starts astatine $449. While Amazon mightiness presumption the Kindle Scribe arsenic a luxurious enactment compared to its smaller e-readers, it’s inactive a bargain compared to the 10-inch competition. I conscionable privation it did much and took the note-taking abilities further. 

For astir people, the Kindle Scribe astir apt is the easiest prime if they’re looking for a elemental note-taking instrumentality oregon large e-reader. It works, and there’s plentifulness of country for betterment for the software. Amazon’s ain execs person told maine the institution plans to rotation retired much updates. But close now, the Scribe does conscionable capable to support up with the competition, and not a azygous spot more.