My highschool English instructor drilled into my head that there was a correct technique to learn a e-book: “If you’ve learn a e-book with out taking notes, you’ve not learn it in any respect.” She had a degree — taking notes helps me have interaction with the fabric in a a lot deeper method than simply studying.
Nowadays, I’m incapable of studying something with out writing down my ideas, and my Notes app is a cluttered catastrophe consequently. But it’s distracting to tug up a separate app each time I need to jot down a observe and exhausting to search out these notes later. The Kindle Scribe guarantees to repair that with its note-taking capabilities, making it straightforward to scribble within the margins like I do on paper.
The authentic Kindle Scribe, from 2022, missed the mark for me. Here, lastly, was a Kindle you could possibly take notes with, but you couldn’t write immediately on book pages. Instead, you could possibly solely annotate disappearing sticky notes — and solely on some Kindle titles. I shortly gave up on the Scribe, and for the previous yr or so I’ve primarily used the Kobo Elipsa 2E as a substitute.
Since then, the Kindle Scribe has come a great distance. Now with the second-generation e-reader, you’ll be able to lastly jot notes immediately onto a wider vary of Kindle book pages, convert handwriting to textual content, and even summarize notes in its built-in notebooks.
But the Scribe has extra and higher competitors than ever. And with a worth bump, it must nail these new options to make it value $399.99. That’s very true given the unique Kindle Scribe remains to be out there for $60 much less, and you may obtain all of those options onto it through Amazon’s newest software program replace.
The newest Kindle Scribe is nearly similar to its predecessor save for a number of beauty variations. It now arrives in a stupendous new Metallic Jade colorway, and it has even, paper-like white trim as a substitute of the uneven black bezels on the unique mannequin.
Otherwise, the Scribe remains to be very a lot a bigger model of the Kindle Paperwhite at coronary heart, and it shares lots of the similar strengths and weaknesses as its smaller sibling. It’s nonetheless exceptionally straightforward to purchase and browse Kindle books and extra sophisticated to learn outdoors of the Amazon ecosystem. It isn’t waterproof or as snappy because the Paperwhite, nevertheless it’s quick sufficient with an adjustable heat gentle and the identical, crisp 300ppi show decision. That’s sharper than the $399.99 Kobo Elipsa 2E, and on par with the $379.99 Onyx Boox Go 10.3, which lacks a lightweight altogether.
Granted, it’s not straightforward lugging round a ten.2-inch e-reader, particularly one made out of slippery aluminum, and you may’t maintain it comfortably with one hand. But on the flip aspect, the additional display actual property makes it simpler to learn and take notes. The pill weighs barely lower than a pound, which helps with portability.
1/2
But the Kindle Scribe’s key promoting level is you can take notes on it, and in that respect, I’ve combined emotions. The basic handwriting expertise is great. As earlier than, there’s no lag, and it actually does really feel as if you happen to’re immediately writing on paper. It comes bundled with Amazon’s Premium Pen, a small inexperienced stylus that comes with a brand new rubber soft-tipped eraser that jogs my memory of an precise pencil. I cherished utilizing it, particularly because it doesn’t require charging and comes with a customizable shortcut button identical to its predecessor. (The Premium Pen is now customary, as a substitute of being a $30 improve choice, which partially accounts for the value enhance from the unique Scribe.)
While I loved writing with the pen, the Scribe’s new note-taking capabilities nonetheless fall wanting the competitors. With the brand new Active Canvas device, the corporate lastly addresses one in all my chief complaints with the Scribe: now you can write notes that stay seen immediately on book pages, relatively than on sticky notes that disappear into an icon within the margins (Amazon nonetheless affords the sticky notes characteristic if you happen to want these). The software program characteristic provides a resizable textual content field round your handwritten observe, then reflows the remainder of the web page round it. It additionally works effectively on different reflowable paperwork, together with PDFs and Word recordsdata. Amazon may even be releasing an expandable margins characteristic in early 2025, too, permitting you to scribble notes in a aspect panel you’ll be able to then cover, although that’s not but out there to check.
But Amazon nonetheless doesn’t actually perceive how individuals naturally take notes on books or what would make these notes helpful. While the previous sticky notes and highlighted passages sync with Kindle cell apps, you’ll be able to’t view the Active Canvas notes in your Kindle cell or browser app, or export them to a different app — they’re solely seen on the Scribe. You can’t add them to your on-device pocket book, both. Plus, generally the textual content field measurement messes up the web page formatting, creating additional areas between sentences. While you’ll be able to resize, there’s a lag that’ll gradual you down. A couple of instances, my notes disappeared altogether, so I needed to maintain adjusting the scale till it reappeared.
What’s extra irritating, you’ll be able to’t circle a phrase or phrase and jot down a observe proper subsequent to it. Once you write a observe, the web page robotically realigns, so lots of instances the Scribe would add my observe to the mistaken a part of a line or passage. Amazon doesn’t allow you to transfer the textual content bins round, and you may’t even draw an arrow from a line to your observe, so you’ll be able to’t manually anchor it to the right piece of textual content both. All in all, it’s a irritating, sophisticated expertise, particularly when rivals from Kobo and Onyx allow you to seamlessly annotate pages with easy-to-find notes simply as you’ll writing on a bodily e-book.
Marking up PDFs is much more intuitive and freed from Active Canvas’ limitations, so you’ll be able to take notes naturally. You also can mark up text-searchable PDFs and export them with out shedding the power to go looking inside the textual content. Unfortunately, you’ll be able to’t search inside the markups. You can also’t mark up sideloaded PDFs; you must use Amazon’s Send to Kindle characteristic. That stated, Amazon says your paperwork are encrypted, each whereas being despatched, within the cloud, and whereas on the gadget.
Amazon additionally made some enhancements to its built-in notebooks, providing a wider choice of templates than when the primary Scribe launched. There’s 18 preloaded templates starting from lined to dotted paper you need to use as weekly planners, checklists, and extra, all of which I discovered useful. You also can obtain extra templates from Amazon, or add PDF recordsdata and deal with them as templates.
1/3
The Scribe additionally will get two new AI options for its built-in notebooks that may summarize your notes and refine your handwriting. However, you’ll want an web connection to make use of them and you may’t tie notes you made within the built-in pocket book to notes inside ebooks or PDFs in anyway. The AI abstract characteristic remains to be useful, given it does an excellent job of offering a broad overview of your notes. Meanwhile, the “refine your handwriting” characteristic for probably the most half precisely transformed my handwriting into typed textual content, albeit slowly and onto a separate web page you’ll be able to solely add both to the entrance or again of your pocket book. You can’t convert Active Canvas notes into typed textual content, although, which might have been a helpful addition.
Even with these additions, the Scribe’s built-in pocket book capabilities nonetheless aren’t as wealthy as its rivals. Similar tablets from Onyx also can summarize notes and convert handwriting to textual content, whereas additionally letting you insert hyperlinks to notes, recordsdata, web sites, and attachments, document your voice, and hop right into a split-screen characteristic. The latter permits you to take notes utilizing all of the superior built-in pocket book instruments, whereas concurrently navigating apps downloaded from the Google Play Store like Kindle and Kobo but in addition the likes of The New York Times. The Kobo Elipsa 2E’s note-taking instruments aren’t as superior because the Boox and it may’t summarize notes just like the Scribe, nevertheless it a minimum of permits you to shortly convert handwriting into typed textual content within the authentic pocket book doc.
The Kindle Scribe is a greater e-reader for taking notes in comparison with when it made its debut two years in the past. Being capable of write immediately on book pages is a welcome enchancment, and changing handwriting to typed textual content is a useful addition. But although it’s beginning to fall extra in keeping with rivals from the likes of Kobo and Onyx, the Scribe’s nonetheless not the best choice for critical note-taking. It’s nonetheless too exhausting to annotate ebooks, and the brand new options simply aren’t as helpful in comparison with the competitors.
Even if you happen to’re simply on the lookout for a big Kindle with fundamental note-taking capabilities, the brand new Scribe is a tricky promote when the unique mannequin remains to be out there for $60 much less and likewise affords Active Canvas and the generative AI options if you obtain the newest software program replace (or await the over-the-air replace in 2025). I’d advocate skipping the brand new Scribe and sticking with the last-gen mannequin. Both are good e-readers for studying Kindle ebooks and informal note-taking, however they’re almost indistinguishable.
Photography by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
