The Kindle Scribe is nice for taking notes, however it must be extra transportable

Amazon has been sluggish to meaningfully change the Kindle, largely as a result of it would not need to. Should you can learn your books and, maybe extra importantly, buy them for a less expensive worth than they might price from a bookstore, you are most likely pleased with 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 development. 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 system, with help for a stylus, and a display large enough to show paperwork correctly. Observe-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, with no need to obtain a separate app or side-load EPUB recordsdata.

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

The Kindle Scribe makes books document-sized

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

Regular-sized Kindles can learn PDFs and different paperwork when you’re keen to ship them out of your laptop to your e-reader. The benefit of the Kindle Scribe over a Paperwhite or a Colorsoft is 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 simple to carry and feels good to write down on. Amazon offers you ample area to take notes and has give you 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 subsequent individual, however nothing concerning the expertise of studying on the Scribe looks like studying a e-book. If something, probably the most comfy and best solution to really learn on the system 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 barely 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 whenever you have 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 system

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 have been all so much smaller. The perfect Moleskine pocket book is pocketable, one thing you may slip right into a again pocket or inside a coat jacket with out pondering twice. That is a a lot smaller measurement than a ten.2-inch Kindle Scribe. The perfect type issue for one in all these note-taking tablets or e-readers is one thing smaller, much less like a college-ruled pocket book and extra like a Moleskine.

Opponents to Amazon provide a number of units which can be across the similar measurement as a Kindle, however help handwritten notes just like the Scribe. If you would like a shade display, you might get one thing just like the Boox Go Colour 7 Gen II or Kobo Libra Colour, for instance. Or when you’re nice with conventional E Ink, you might 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 instances, even transcend what Amazon’s keen to supply (Boox’s units run Android, for instance).

Clearly, there is a marketplace for this measurement of system. 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 system is sufficiently small to carry in a single hand and use, one thing not as simply stated concerning 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 keen to do your studying in a Kindle app, it is perhaps price contemplating the Boox Go 7 Colour. I discovered so much to love after I went hands-on with the system. For one thing much more centered on studying, the Kobo Libra Color is a superb choice, too.