Amazon Kindle Scribe review: Better than pen and paper but not the competition

When I turned 10, I used to be lastly allowed to personal a pen. In school, that was once we moved from pencils to ink, and our mother and father have been informed to get us all-new stationery. That was additionally the yr we realized to write down in cursive, as a result of we have been lastly massive youngsters and cursive writing meant we may… signal checks, I assume.

I don’t learn about youngsters nowadays, however bodily writing notes in pen and paper is a large a part of how I realized issues and arranged my ideas. It in all probability had one thing to do with the truth that my mother skilled my brother and I to make use of “mind maps” as examine instruments, too. Once I begin planning a visit or a giant mission, I instinctively attain for a notepad and a pen. That’s why writing on a pill that mimics this expertise holds a lot enchantment for me (and doubtless lots of people round my age or older).

Although you may get an honest stylus expertise on an iPad, Floor or Galaxy system, e-ink tablets sometimes final loads longer and supply a extra paper-like studying expertise with no glare or blue gentle hurting your eyes. Additionally they sometimes don’t include distracting apps or notifications to interrupt your work. So when Amazon introduced the Kindle Scribe can be its first e-reader that may help stylus enter, I used to be intrigued. The Kindle sequence are in all probability the most well-liked e-ink readers within the US, they usually may make digital word taking rather more accessible to a mainstream viewers.

At $340, nevertheless, the Scribe is the costliest Kindle. For that premium, you’ll get an even bigger 10.2-inch display screen with the identical 300ppi pixel density, a entrance gentle with 35 LEDs, an included Primary Pen and at the least 16GB of storage. You possibly can sync your notes to the Kindle app to view them with out the pill. However whereas e-readers by no means totally changed books, the Scribe would possibly simply supply a greater expertise than an precise pen and notepad.

Design and {hardware}

Like most Kindles, the Scribe is marvelously skinny and light-weight. At simply 0.22 inches thick, this is likely one of the slimmest e-readers round, and I truly frightened it’d break once I left it within the flimsy purse I threw into an overhead compartment throughout my Thanksgiving flight to San Francisco. Fortunately, with the case that Amazon despatched alongside, the Scribe not solely survived being tossed round with heavy suitcases, it additionally held up once I unintentionally sat on it. (Sure, I’m a monster who’s too tough with devices.)

Extra importantly, at simply 433 grams or 0.95 kilos, the Scribe was gentle sufficient for lengthy intervals of studying. It’s only a hair lighter than the M1 iPad Air, which weighs 1.02 kilos, and due to a beneficiant bezel on the lengthy facet, the Scribe is straightforward to carry with one hand with out unintentionally triggering the touchscreen. As a result of the show rotates to all orientations, you should use this along with your proper or left hand.

In contrast to the Oasis or some e-reader fashions by Kobo, the Scribe doesn’t have bodily buttons for web page turning. There’s only a single energy button on the sting subsequent to the USB-C charging socket. It’s additionally price noting that, once more, not like the Oasis and Paperwhite fashions, the Scribe is just not waterproof.

As a pocket book

In some ways, the Scribe provides a greater expertise than precise pen and paper. I by no means run out of paper or ink or must sharpen a pencil. Erasing my errors is easy, I don’t must cope with cleansing up eraser mud, and I by no means find yourself with ink or lead stains on my palms. Amazon’s palm rejection right here is nearly good, apart from once I drag it throughout the display screen, which turned the web page. That didn’t occur typically sufficient to be annoying, and I rapidly realized to not transfer my palm when resting it on the show.

I beloved the sheer smoothness of writing on the Scribe. The latency is almost zero, and the moment I positioned the nib on the display screen, it left a mark. Due to the display screen’s matte end and responsiveness, drawing on the Scribe felt simply as pure as the true factor. The Premium Pen that Amazon despatched with our evaluate unit has a shortcut button and devoted eraser on the prime. Flipping the pen over to undo errors felt pure, however extra importantly it was simply as easy as inking. In fact, because it’s a a lot bigger goal than the stylus’ nib, the eraser isn’t as exact, however the deleted marks on the display screen fade in a satisfying method.

The one factor that took away from the Scribe being a full duplicate of a notepad is its display screen refreshing. While you erase one thing, it slowly fades away and when it’s nearly gone, the show refreshes itself fairly jarringly. It’s a small quirk, however can undoubtedly catch you off guard.

Identical to pen and paper, the Scribe is restricted. You possibly can’t edit your notes on a cellphone or laptop computer after writing them. You possibly can view them, positive, however as a result of Amazon syncs them to the Kindle app as picture information, you may’t make modifications to them. You possibly can export them as PDFs to a different system and use a third-party editor to tweak your notes, however at that time you would possibly as nicely use Evernote or Samsung Notes.

Amazon’s software program doesn’t supply this perform although, and in comparison with competing note-taking apps for iOS, Android and Home windows, the Scribe’s options are very rudimentary. It doesn’t even do handwriting recognition to transform your scrawl to machine-readable textual content, that means it can also’t index something you’ve jotted down so you may search your notes by key phrases later.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t imply the system isn’t a delight. I beloved utilizing the Scribe as a notepad for my many lists. You can begin notebooks utilizing numerous backgrounds — a easy lined sample, or checkboxes to maintain monitor of duties or purchasing gadgets. I spent my week or so with the Scribe organizing my vacation purchasing lists, planning a household trip, drawing tropical fruits that my associates haven’t heard of and refamiliarizing myself with writing the Japanese alphabet (hiragana). I felt extra productive and arranged once I had the Scribe with me, and virtually misplaced once I wanted to jot down a thought and it wasn’t by my facet.

For my functions, the Scribe was completely sufficient. However for others who would possibly want a extra refined note-taking system, Amazon’s system is critically missing. A bio-medical engineering professor I spoke to who was eager on utilizing the Scribe to annotate notes and analysis articles, for instance, was disenchanted to be taught the system didn’t help colours. You possibly can solely spotlight in grayscale. Should you’re trying to create artistic endeavors, you received’t discover a full toolkit in Amazon’s app — only a pencil with a couple of thickness choices or a highlighter. And in contrast to on an iPad, you may’t transfer parts of your drawings round simply by dragging and dropping them along with your stylus.

Making a pocket book isn’t the one method you may doodle on the Kindle Scribe, by the best way. You can even take down notes if you’re studying an e-book. But it surely’s not like you may scribble instantly onto the phrases of your e-books. You need to use the floating toolbox to create a sticky word, then draw inside a delegated rectangle. While you shut the sticky word, a small image seems over the phrase it was hooked up to, however in any other case, your scribbles are hidden. No annotating within the margins right here.

Like I mentioned, Amazon’s software program is rudimentary. Nonetheless, if you concentrate on the Scribe primarily as a clean writing pad that replaces all of your free items of paper versus a complicated notes administration system, then it’ll nonetheless serve a function.

The Pen

A big element of the Scribe expertise is the pen. The Premium Pen I obtained prices $30 extra, and provides a devoted eraser and shortcut button alongside the sting. Each the Primary and pricier pens snap magnetically to the sting of the Scribe and don’t must be charged, which is sweet. The stylus stays securely hooked up to the pill, due to the sturdy magnets, although you may take away it with out an excessive amount of drive. I did discover the shortcut button on the Premium Pen a little bit too simple to unintentionally set off, because it’s positioned proper the place my thumb or index finger would relaxation. I regularly needed to remind myself to show the stylus so I wouldn’t press it by mistake.

Amazon’s Premium Pen is about the identical dimension as an Apple Pencil or Samsung’s bigger S Pen for tablets and paying homage to an actual pen. Anecdotally, it truly felt extra comfy than Apple’s stylus, probably as a result of a contact of malleability in its physique.