The Kindle Scribe is nice for taking notes, but it...

Amazon has been sluggish to meaningfully change the Kindle, largely as a result of it does not should. When you can learn your books and, maybe extra importantly, buy them for a less expensive value than they’d price from a bookstore, you are most likely proud of the corporate’s e-reader because it exists. The most important change the corporate made to the Kindle final 12 months was the addition of the Kindle Colorsoft to the lineup, the primary of Amazon’s e-readers that has a shade display.

Colour E Ink existed for years earlier than Amazon adopted it and by including it, the corporate was acknowledging a pattern. This is not the primary time Amazon has tried to maintain up with the competitors. The Kindle Scribe, the corporate’s main addition to the lineup earlier than the Colorsoft, was an try and do the identical factor.

The Kindle Scribe is an e-reader crossed with a note-taking machine, with help for a stylus, and a display sufficiently big to show paperwork correctly. Notice-taking tablets just like the reMarkable 2 or Boox Note Air 3 have glad these wants beforehand, however Amazon’s benefit is that your library of books and audiobooks are on the Scribe, too, without having to obtain a separate app or side-load EPUB information.

Whereas note-taking appeared like a little bit of an afterthought when the machine debuted, Amazon has continued to help the Scribe with new options, even updating its design alongside the Colorsoft. It is a strong choice if studying and writing matter to you equally, but it surely’s additionally restricted in a single apparent manner: its dimension. You compromise on portability utilizing the Scribe and Amazon ought to think about making a smaller machine that may do the identical factor.

The Kindle Scribe makes books document-sized

A giant display is sweet for notes, however not for pockets

Regular-sized Kindles can learn PDFs and different paperwork in case you’re prepared to ship them out of your pc to your e-reader. The benefit of the Kindle Scribe over a Paperwhite or a Colorsoft is that you may view these paperwork at one thing near the scale of an actual web page, and write on them as naturally as a print-out you’d obtain at work or college. Compared to Amazon’s different Kindles, which have wherever between 6- and 7-inch screens, the Scribe has a ten.2-inch E Ink Carta show, packed into a comparatively mild 15.3 oz aluminum physique.

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The Scribe is simple to carry and feels good to write down on. Amazon offers you ample house to take notes and has provide you with clever software workarounds to allow you to write straight on books with out obscuring the textual content (a collection of options the corporate calls “Lively Canvas”). The scale of the Kindle Scribe solely feels bizarre when you begin studying. I really like giant fonts as a lot as the following particular person, however nothing in regards to the expertise of studying on the Scribe appears like studying a ebook. If something, probably the most comfy and best technique to truly learn on the machine is sitting, propping up the Scribe on one knee.

This has much less to do with weight or thickness, as a result of the e-reader itself is just 0.22-inches thick, and extra to do with how its display dimension makes it awkward to carry in a single hand, and a bit more durable to accommodate in a backpack or bag. It takes up more room than a Kindle in a carry-on and if you take a look at the competitors, it is simply greater than it must be to supply all of the options that make it nice.

A extra compact note-taking machine

Boox and Kobo do not restrict their styluses to the massive display

After I take into consideration the sorts of notebooks I loved writing in earlier than I began testing out note-taking tablets from Amazon, Ratta, and reMarkable, they have been all rather a lot smaller. The best Moleskine pocket book is pocketable, one thing you’ll be able to slip right into a again pocket or inside a coat jacket with out considering twice. That is a a lot smaller dimension than a ten.2-inch Kindle Scribe. The best type issue for one in every of these note-taking tablets or e-readers is one thing smaller, much less like a college-ruled pocket book and extra like a Moleskine.

Rivals to Amazon provide a number of units which can be across the identical dimension as a Kindle, however help handwritten notes just like the Scribe. If you need a shade display, you can get one thing just like the Boox Go Colour 7 Gen II or Kobo Libra Colour, for instance. Or in case you’re tremendous with conventional E Ink, you can do the Ratta Supernote Nomad or Kobo Sage. All of those units provide the portability of a traditional e-reader, round a 7-inch display, and help for stylus enter. They match the Kindle Scribe when it comes to options, and in some circumstances, even transcend what Amazon’s prepared to supply (Boox’s units run Android, for instance).

Clearly, there is a marketplace for this dimension of machine. Amazon’s simply chosen to not tackle it but. Moreover portability, studying on a Kobo Libra Color simply feels higher, too. You get precise buttons to show pages, and the machine is sufficiently small to carry in a single hand and use, one thing not as simply stated in regards to the Kindle Scribe.

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There’s extra work to do on the Kindle lineup

Amazon should not relaxation on its laurels

Previous to the Kindle Scribe’s authentic launch in 2022, I by no means would have anticipated Amazon to enterprise out of the “meat and potatoes” of e-readers that may play audiobooks. Someplace inside the corporate there was a want to attempt one thing new, although, and I hope that the identical motivation exists to contemplate a smaller Kindle Scribe.

Within the meantime, in case you’re prepared to do your studying in a Kindle app, it could be value contemplating the Boox Go 7 Colour. I discovered rather a lot to love once I went hands-on with the machine. For one thing much more centered on studying, the Kobo Libra Color is a good choice, too.