The Kindle Scribe is nice for taking notes, but it surely must be extra moveable

Amazon has been sluggish to meaningfully change the Kindle, largely as a result of it would not need to. In the event you can learn your books and, maybe extra importantly, buy them for a less expensive worth than they’d value from a bookstore, you are in all probability pleased with the corporate’s e-reader because it exists. The largest change the corporate made to the Kindle final yr was the addition of the Kindle Colorsoft to the lineup, the primary of Amazon’s e-readers that has a colour 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 gadget, with help for a stylus, and a display sufficiently big to show paperwork correctly. Word-taking tablets just like the reMarkable 2 or Boox Note Air 3 have happy 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 gadget debuted, Amazon has continued to help the Scribe with new options, even updating its design alongside the Colorsoft. It is a strong possibility if studying and writing matter to you equally, but it surely’s additionally restricted in a single apparent approach: its measurement. You compromise on portability utilizing the Scribe and Amazon ought to think about making a smaller gadget that may do the identical factor.

The Kindle Scribe makes books document-sized

An enormous display is good for notes, however not for pockets

Regular-sized Kindles can learn PDFs and different paperwork when you’re prepared to ship them out of your laptop to your e-reader. The benefit of the Kindle Scribe over a Paperwhite or a Colorsoft is which you could 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 faculty. 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 straightforward to carry and feels good to put in writing on. Amazon offers you ample house to take notes and has give you clever software workarounds to allow you to write immediately on books with out obscuring the textual content (a collection of options the corporate calls “Lively Canvas”). The dimensions of the Kindle Scribe solely feels bizarre when you begin studying. I like giant fonts as a lot as the subsequent individual, however nothing in regards to the expertise of studying on the Scribe seems like studying a guide. If something, essentially the most comfy and best solution to truly learn on the gadget 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 simply 0.22-inches thick, and extra to do with how its display measurement makes it awkward to carry in a single hand, and a bit tougher to accommodate in a backpack or bag. It takes up extra space than a Kindle in a carry-on and once you take a look at the competitors, it is simply larger than it must be to supply all of the options that make it nice.

A extra compact note-taking gadget

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

Once 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 had been all loads smaller. The best Moleskine pocket book is pocketable, one thing you may slip right into a again pocket or inside a coat jacket with out considering twice. That is a a lot smaller measurement than a ten.2-inch Kindle Scribe. The best kind 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 are across the identical measurement as a Kindle, however help handwritten notes just like the Scribe. In order for you a colour display, you would get one thing just like the Boox Go Colour 7 Gen II or Kobo Libra Colour, for instance. Or when you’re high-quality with conventional E Ink, you would do the Ratta Supernote Nomad or Kobo Sage. All of those units provide the portability of a standard 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 instances, even transcend what Amazon’s prepared to supply (Boox’s units run Android, for instance).

Clearly, there is a marketplace for this measurement of gadget. Amazon’s simply chosen to not tackle it but. In addition to portability, studying on a Kobo Libra Color simply feels higher, too. You get precise buttons to show pages, and the gadget 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 need to strive one thing new, although, and I hope that the identical motivation exists to think about a smaller Kindle Scribe.

Within the meantime, when you’re prepared to do your studying in a Kindle app, it is perhaps value contemplating the Boox Go 7 Colour. I discovered loads to love after I went hands-on with the gadget. For one thing much more centered on studying, the Kobo Libra Color is a superb possibility, too.