Amazon's Kindle Scribe Bet that Handwriting is the Future of E-Readers - CNET

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With the Kindle Scribe, Amazon is hoping that a instrumentality it launched during the George W. Bush medication tin beryllium its adjacent large happening again.

Amazon doesn't shy distant from flashy ideas, whether it's a delivery drone, robotic sentry or a speech with virtual adjunct Alexa. But this week, Amazon started selling its Kindle Scribe, a refreshed mentation of the E Ink scholar archetypal launched backmost earlier Amazon adjacent had a mobile app.

The Kindle Scribe isn't futuristic. It isn't semi-sentient. It doesn't adjacent person color. Its large update: In summation to reading, you tin constitute connected it present too.

But by rejuvenating the low-frills Kindle, Amazon is hoping to springiness you caller reasons to acquisition the centuries-old joyousness of reading. The archetypal Kindle launched the aforesaid twelvemonth arsenic the archetypal iPhone, and successful the decennary and a fractional since, our idiosyncratic devices person grown smarter, faster, flashier -- and present exert a greater power connected our intelligence well-being. Swimming against this tide, the Kindle Scribe's ngo is unglamorous. It's engineered to assistance you get heavy into tasks undermined by astir internet-enabled devices: attentive speechmaking and note-taking.

"We've expanded the satellite of what customers tin bash but inactive kept this thought of a sanctuary wherever radical tin get into the contented and not beryllium distracted," Kevin Keith, Amazon's vice president of merchandise absorption and marketing, said successful an interview.

The Scribe's existent beforehand whitethorn simply beryllium that Amazon, the world's 4th biggest institution by marketplace value, is making it.

Kobo, reMarkable and Boox E Ink tablets from smaller makers already connection penning arsenic a feature, and immoderate person ample formats with surface prime astir arsenic bully arsenic the Scribe's. But nary fto you people up Kindle books, and immoderate don't adjacent enactment the Kindle app. With the Scribe, Amazon has opened up its immense and fashionable room to your scribbling.

Adding a caller sparkle to the Kindle acquisition makes sense, fixed that Keith says Amazon's customers bargain much Kindle books than carnal books. And there's a ample imaginable basal of aboriginal Kindle users who already usage Amazon's e-reading app. The Kindle app has been downloaded much than 326 cardinal times globally since 2012 onto Apple and Android devices alternatively of Kindles, according to data.ai, a marketplace analytics institution that tracks mobile apps.

The institution sees the instrumentality "as a caller class of Kindle that adds penning to everything customers emotion astir Kindle contiguous and opens america up to caller and antithetic customers," Keith said.

Chris LaBrutto, a main merchandise manager astatine Amazon, said Kindle users were already creating a "Cliff Notes" mentation of their Kindle books with highlights and typed notes. Adding a stylus to constitute connected the Scribe elevates that experience, letting readers get much actively engaged, LaBrutto said.

The question is whether, aft 15 years of rising smartphone addiction, gadget buyers similar you are longing to instrumentality to speechmaking and penning successful shades of gray.

E Ink's fans similar its limitations

First sold arsenic portion of e-readers successful the mid-2000s, E Ink screens person earned devoted admirers from readers of each genres. The displays render substance and graphics successful grey standard with tiny, charged capsules that crook either achromatic oregon achromatic successful effect to antagonistic oregon affirmative electrical signals. They gully acold little powerfulness than a accepted tablet, giving them artillery lives measured successful weeks alternatively of hours.

You tin besides work an E Ink show successful nonstop sunlight and debar shining bluish airy into your eyes, due to the fact that it isn't backlit. That instantly appealed to Nick Price, a information technologist successful Portland, Oregon, who's utilized a fig of Kindles with E Ink, arsenic good arsenic a Boox e-reader.

"I recovered it was a batch easier connected my eyes successful the evening erstwhile I'm trying to spell to bed," Price said of his archetypal Kindle's screen.

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For aficionados, the simplicity of the devices are the point. In summation to eliminating agleam colors shining from screens, E Ink devices typically don't connection the entirety of the internet, a monolithic distraction from focused reading. That was the entreaty of the reMarkable 2, an E Ink tablet with a stylus that came retired successful 2020, said Andrew Loeb, an English prof astatine Trent University successful Ontario, Canada, who wanted to beryllium capable to absorption connected his speechmaking and note-taking.

"For the aforesaid price, you tin get an iPad," helium said, but that would decision the purpose. "If I person an iPad, past I'll bash different things with it."

Writing connected an e-book is simply a logical adjacent measurement erstwhile trying to seizure the acquisition of speechmaking from paper. Loeb uses his reMarkable 2 to people up student's papers, solving a occupation helium faced astatine the opening of the pandemic erstwhile his classes went remote. He besides likes to usage it to work articles and instrumentality notes astatine meetings and conferences. The tactile sensation of penning connected the tablet adds to the experience, helium said.

E Ink that engages the senses

With devices similar the reMarkable to vie with, Amazon aimed to marque the Kindle Scribe a high-end penning experience.

The Scribe's favoritism is its operation of upscale features. Its realistic penning acquisition coupled with a 10.2-inch surface with sharp, 300 ppi representation prime bring unneurotic aspects of a assortment of well-liked e-readers.

Amazon sent maine a trial portion truthful I could get a consciousness for it myself. I recovered the stylus captures the papery pleasance of writing, rendering a crisp enactment immediately. The surface has conscionable capable texture to elicit a satisfying scritching dependable arsenic you write.

That acquisition was the effect of aggravated effort, according to LaBrutto and Tim Wall, a main concern decorator astatine Amazon. It progressive fine-tuning the texture of the screen, the sharpness of the images and the immediacy of the penning experience.

With an E Ink display, "you're not really penning connected the aboveground that you're penning on," said Wall. "Everything beneath that lens, that surface, is additive."

The squad focused connected microns of region betwixt the apical furniture of the show and each the components that needed to beryllium sandwiched nether it on with the E Ink. They besides focused connected microseconds of latency, oregon however agelong it takes the enactment to look aft the stylus makes interaction with the screen.

Amazon says the Kindle Scribe is geared successful peculiar to speechmaking nonfiction. The ample show sharply renders charts and graphs successful grey standard and fits much substance connected each page. In summation to sticking notes successful Kindle books, you tin people up PDFs and Microsoft Word documents. Adding handwriting besides makes consciousness for nonfiction, arsenic probe has shown it improves learning compared with typing notes.

Highlighting and marking straight connected a PDF helped maine sorb accusation from a dense ineligible brief, for example. Reading a nonfiction publication successful the Kindle App, I went close into highlighting important names and dates, arsenic good arsenic creating a moving commentary with some handwritten and text-based sticky notes.

(I'll beryllium returning the Kindle Scribe trial portion aft this communicative is published, astatine which constituent I'll spell backmost to the Kindle app connected my telephone -- wherever I won't beryllium capable to entree my handwritten notes. I tin download them separately arsenic a PDF. But my highlighting and text-based notes created connected the Scribe volition stay for maine to spot successful my Kindle telephone app.)

Writing connected the Kindle publication progressive much steps than penning straight connected the PDF did, thing CNET's reviewers recovered unfortunate and cumbersome. The Kindle squad made this plan prime to permission pages uncluttered, Keith said. It besides means readers tin set their font without disrupting the determination of their notations connected the page, helium added.

"One of the things customers emotion astir Kindles is it being distraction-free," helium said.

If the Scribe succeeds, this simplicity volition support you wrong Amazon's universe, without the gadget needing a dash of color, fto unsocial the quality to alert similar a camera drone oregon rotation and creation similar a location robot.

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