ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Kindle Scribe is on sale on Amazon, beginning at $325 for the 16GB model.
- It combines the acquainted options of the Kindle e-reader with a vibrant show and a set of premium note-taking options.
- The aforementioned options have a little bit of a studying curve to completely reap the benefits of.
extra shopping for decisions
apr / 2025
Amazon is at the moment providing the Kindle Scribe at 22% off, a $100 low cost. The ultimate value is $350. You can even save more money by buying and selling in your outdated product.
Amazon’s newest Kindle Scribe will be thought-about a 2-in-1, because it’s each a note-taking pill and a devoted e-reader. It does each properly, and it stands out from the group due to the way it combines these two options. Proper now, all three configurations are 19% off, bringing the bottom 16GB model right down to $325, one of many lowest costs we have seen.
The Scribe’s bodily type issue is smooth and light-weight, with a thick grip that permits it to be simply held by both your proper or left hand, as turning it the other way up realigns the angle. Together with its satisfying type issue is the Scribe’s entry to Kindle’s already-massive library of e-books.
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The Kindle Scribe’s standout function, nonetheless, is its “Lively Canvas,” which lets you take notes and scribble your ideas immediately onto the pages of your guide — one thing that resonates with me personally as an avid note-taker.
The most recent Scribe comes with a pen that permits you to change your brush measurement and form from a pen for margin scribbling to a highlighter should you’d fairly emphasize sure elements of the textual content. The cool design component right here is that the notes you draw with the pan exist on one other “layer” than the guide textual content, permitting you to edit what you write with out messing with the textual content within the guide.
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In follow, the lively canvas seems as a clean house in between the textual content the place you’ll be able to jot down your ideas. I can see this performance being helpful for sure texts, nevertheless it may be a bit distracting for others. I really discovered that I most popular utilizing the sticky notes operate, which drops a tiny icon on the textual content that, when tapped, opens up a floating window together with your notes that may then be closed.
The pen is among the Scribe’s greatest options, nonetheless. It delivers a easy and lag-free writing expertise on par with high-end pill/stylus gadgets just like the ReMarkable Paper Pro, which is one in every of my favourite all-time gadgets.
The tip of the pen is gentle and textured, leading to a silky, silent writing expertise that feels precisely like a “actual” pencil. It is weighty, feels premium, and attaches to the aspect of the gadget with a magnetic snap, though you do must align it excellent to get it to stay.
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Be aware-takers who do not have essentially the most elegant penmanship can simply translate their handwriting into textual content after which edit the font and measurement additional. It is a nice approach to clear up and manage unexpectedly taken notes you could save for additional reference, significantly in case your writing leaves one thing to be desired.
The on-board AI is superb at parsing even essentially the most illegible rooster scratch, though it does get slightly dodgy in case your handwriting approaches full illegibility.
The show on the Kindle Scribe is sort of good, if fairly just like different Kindle fashions. It has 300 pixels per inch, which leads to advantageous and crisp textual content, even with the tiniest fonts. The display may get fairly vibrant, making it straightforward to see open air. You can even alter the heat of the show, going all the way in which to a extra sepia-toned picture on one finish or a cool white on the opposite.
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Relating to battery life, Amazon advertises as much as 12 weeks on a single cost should you learn for about half-hour a day, however that quantity begins to go down should you use Scribe for many writing and note-taking. In my testing over the course of some weeks, I solely bothered charging the gadget a number of instances, and with intermittent, common use, you will most likely get a number of weeks out of a single cost.
The gadget itself comes with both 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of on-device storage, which is various house for e-books. In follow, that is sufficient house to carry hundreds of books, sufficient for a veritable digital library.
The gadget is geared to retailer extra than simply e-books, nonetheless. In the event you’re utilizing the Scribe, you are most likely going to be taking numerous notes. You manage them by preserving them in notebooks, which, like bodily ones, are books with a number of pages.
Notebooks are then additional organized by folders, which you’ll title and categorize, permitting you to maintain your content material streamlined. Even higher is the myriad of “paper” picks you’ll be able to select to put in writing your notes on, together with checklists, every day and weekly planners, trackers, and even storyboard templates.
This opens the gadget as much as be a succesful note-taking pill in its personal proper, with simply sufficient creation instruments to permit for a sturdy function set with out all of the bells and whistles of different high-end tablets. In different phrases, there could also be a restricted variety of brushes and marker features, however the ones have labored easily, with zero lag or false inputs.
The Kindle Scribe additionally options some AI features, in fact. The on-device AI can summarize as much as 15 pages in a pocket book, extracting key takeaways from the textual content in a neat abstract that, in my testing, is about on par with generally used AI providers discovered on different platforms. In different phrases, it is typically correct, though advanced info can produce generic-sounding outcomes.
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Apart out of your collections of notes, the Kindle retains every part you’ve got highlighted throughout a number of texts in a “Clippings” folder, which will be tremendous useful for mechanically taking a look at key info at a look.
In fact, the Kindle Scribe is about as much as make shopping for e-books as seamless as attainable, with Amazon’s Kindle Retailer simply accessible on the gadget and plenty of methods to seek for what you need to learn. Relying on how a lot you intend on utilizing the gadget, you should buy e-books individually or spring for the Kindle Unlimited membership, which supplies you limitless entry to (most) titles with a subscription of $11.99 monthly.
Proper now, Amazon is providing a free 30-day trial of Kindle Limitless, so it is value checking it out to see should you’ll get essentially the most out of it. In the event you’re a slower reader, you would possibly need to go for particular person purchases.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation
All in all, the Kindle Scribe is an e-reader designed for readers who like to interact with their texts, doodlers, note-takers, and list-makers preferring to “simply write it down.” On the sale value of $324 for the 16GB model, the Scribe is competitively priced as a purposeful pill, and until you really want a bigger gadget, I would say it is definitely the most effective choices on the market, considering its full suite of options.
Nonetheless, needless to say the 32GB model is repeatedly priced at $420, and if you’d like 64GB, you will pay $450. This brings the value in keeping with the ReMarkable Paper Pro, an ultra-premium gadget with many extra options for note-taking (coloration show, myriad of brush picks, and so on.) however much less in the way in which of easy-to-access e-books.
In the event you’re not somebody who must scribble on the web page or take a highlighter to what you are studying, the Scribe continues to be a top-tier e-reader with a grippable, flippable type issue and a vibrant show and nice battery.
We awarded the Kindle Scribe an Editors’ Choice due to how properly it balances a twin use-case as an e-reader and note-taking pill. There are loads of e-paper tablets in the marketplace, however the Kindle Scribe is the very best for everybody from critical be aware takers to doodlers, with entry to Kindle’s already-massive library of e-books.
Even higher is the Kindle Scribe’s compact type issue and implausible writing expertise to rival high-end e-paper gadgets. For all these causes, we have referred to as it out as a standout in its class.
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