After 15 years, Amazon finally lets you take notes on your Kindle. That’s right, the outfit’s newest E-ink device, the Amazon Kindle Scribe, comes with a stylus that lets you scribble notes on the reader, essentially turning it into a reading and writing device. .
Of course, it’s not the first e-paper device to offer this feature. We’ve seen many releases in this vein over the years, including Remarkable, Sony Digital Paper, and Kobo Elipsa, among others. However, if you’ve been stuck on Amazon’s eBook platform and have no interest in moving elsewhere, being able to scribble notes on the same device you read books on never has been an option so far.
The Amazon Kindle Scribe is larger than your typical Kindle, sporting a 10.2-inch Paperwhite display with a large bezel on one side, which should make it easy to hold while you read or write on the screen, with an ambidextrous support (it works with both the scope on the left or right side). The 16-level grayscale display boasts a pixel density of 300ppi, which depending on the outfit allows it to deliver a satisfying experience for both reading and writing, as it’s capable of retain the contrast and clarity of previous Kindles while offering a larger screen. . The display also has an anti-glare coating and adjustable front lighting, both of which should make it easier to use regardless of the ambient lighting in your environment.
Of course, the big selling point here is the writing function, which is done using an included stylus that attaches magnetically to the edge of the device. With the stylus, you can use it as a free-form notepad, creating note pages to your liking with a selection of pre-loaded templates like lined paper, grid paper, checklists, and more. You can also scribble notes directly on Kindle AZW and AZW3 format books, as well as PDF files, though you can only add sticky notes on other supported file formats. Depending on the outfit, however, note writing is not available for manga books, magazines, and newspapers.
Amazon Kindle Scribe also supports popular e-book formats such as ePub and unprotected MOBI for reading and writing sticky notes, as well as document formats such as DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF , JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP. It also supports AAX audibles for those who prefer audiobooks. For better accessibility, it has a VoiceView screen reader that provides text-to-speech functionality (only available in English, though), in case you prefer to have your books narrated while busy with other things.
It comes with three storage options, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB so you can keep plenty of reading material and personal notes on this thing. The built-in battery is rated at around 12 weeks, although actual usage time will vary depending on how often you read or write on the device. Suffice it to say, it will likely take weeks between charges, even for the heaviest users. Other features include dual-band Wi-Fi, five replacement pen nibs, and a 9W USB-C power adapter that lets you fully charge it in just 2.5 hours.
Amazon’s Kindle Scribe is available now.
