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

Amazon has been sluggish to meaningfully change the Kindle, largely as a result of it does not need to. When you can learn your books and, maybe extra importantly, buy them for a less expensive value than they’d value from a bookstore, you are in all probability 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 colour display.

Shade 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 machine, with assist for a stylus, and a display large enough to show paperwork correctly. Be aware-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, while not 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 assist the Scribe with new options, even updating its design alongside the Colorsoft. It is a stable possibility if studying and writing matter to you equally, but it surely’s additionally restricted in a single apparent method: its measurement. You compromise on portability utilizing the Scribe and Amazon ought to contemplate making a smaller machine that may do the identical factor.

The Kindle Scribe makes books document-sized

A giant display is good 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 pc to your e-reader. The benefit of the Kindle Scribe over a Paperwhite or a Colorsoft is that you would be able to view these paperwork at one thing near the dimensions 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 gentle 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 provide you with clever software workarounds to allow you to write instantly 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 following particular person, however nothing concerning the expertise of studying on the Scribe appears like studying a e-book. If something, essentially the most snug and best technique to really 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 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 while 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 lots 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 type issue for certainly one 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 supply a number of gadgets which can be across the identical measurement as a Kindle, however assist handwritten notes just like the Scribe. If you would like a colour display, you would get one thing just like the Boox Go Shade 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 gadgets supply the portability of a standard e-reader, round a 7-inch display, and assist for stylus enter. They match the Kindle Scribe by way of options, and in some instances, even transcend what Amazon’s keen to supply (Boox’s gadgets run Android, for instance).

Clearly, there is a marketplace for this measurement of machine. 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 machine 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 unique 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 attempt 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 likely to be price contemplating the Boox Go 7 Shade. I discovered lots to love after I went hands-on with the machine. For one thing much more centered on studying, the Kobo Libra Color is a superb possibility, too.