Summary
- Amazon’s Kindle Scribe is a better e-reader than it is a note-taking tool.
- What shines is handwriting-to-text conversion and the other AI-powered features Amazon introduced.
- With a few software tweaks, it could be a great productivity device.
Amazon’s largest e-reader, the Kindle Scribe, even three years in, is still better at consuming books than it is at helping you take notes. Various updates, and some new software features released alongside the company’s second-generation model have changed the Scribe for the better, but it’s still not as capable as something like the reMarkable Paper Pro or Boox Go 10.3.
Despite those limitations, after an extended period of time testing E Ink note-taking devices, I’ve been surprised to find one place where the Scribe does excel past its more focused competitors. When it comes to converting handwriting to text, the Kindle Scribe might be the top of the back, and I think it presents an opportunity for Amazon to make its e-reader even more of a productivity powerhouse.
Taking notes on the Kindle Scribe
Amazon’s tablet-sized e-reader offers a satisfying, if simple experience
The note-taking experience on the Kindle Scribe gets you all the features you’d expect. That includes things like multiple templates to write on, pens, pencils, and brushes to write with, and ways to access your notes even when you don’t have your Scribe handy through the Kindle app. At no point does this experience feel as premium as, say, using an iPad and an Apple Pencil, but it is completely serviceable.
The home screen of the Kindle Scribe is full of carousel upon carousel of book recommendations.
If there’s a problem with Amazon’s approach, it’s the limited number of options the Kindle Scribe gives you to sort and organize your notes. You can create folders for your notebooks, and access recent notebooks from the main screen of the Scribe, but your work will always be cordoned off in its own section to make more room for selling books. The home screen of the Kindle Scribe is full of carousel upon carousel of book recommendations. Each of which can be tapped, where they’ll take you directly to the store page to buy the book or its audiobook version.
Books are where Amazon eventually makes money on the Kindle, so I don’t begrudge the company’s devices for trying to sell them (it helps that the reading experience is good on the Kindle), but it’s still disappointing to constantly be advertised to. Depending on who you are and what you want to do with the Kindle Scribe, though, those trade-offs are worth it for the conveniences Amazon is able to offer.
The Kindle Scribe understands your notes
Amazon is mostly doing handwriting conversion right
With the new Al-powered features Amazon introduced on the second-generation Kindle Scribe, the e-reader’s ability to understand your writing really starts to shine. The Scribe not only lets you send a page or notebook worth of handwritten notes as a text file to whatever email you choose, it also lets you convert a page of notes into a neat page of typed text in a variety of faux-handwritten fonts. Now, would it be more convenient if you could access those newly converted notes in another way than downloading a .txt file linked to an email? Yes. But it all works remarkably well.
The Scribe doesn’t let you search inside of notes. If you want to find something in particular, you have to remember where it is.
Beyond that, having a way to make older notes easier to read so you can refer to them quickly or generate a summary of what you’ve written, seems incredibly helpful. I’ve also just found that Amazon’s software is better at understanding handwritten notes than Boox, Supernote, or reMarkable. It might just be my handwriting, but it seemed to do a much better job than the other devices I’ve used. That makes the Scribe one of the better note-taking and writing tools I own, but also one of the more inconvenient ones, too. That’s a weird place for Amazon’s device to be.
The Kindle Scribe is a few tweaks away from greatness
Software is what Amazon needs to work on
If the Kindle Scribe made it easier to access your notes, particularly once they were converted to text, it might be my ideal writing tool. It’s so close to doing everything I need, and the fact that it seems better at something I do a lot — turning my scribbles into text I can edit and use — makes me really wish it could do more.
- Resolution
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300ppi
- Storage
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16GB, 32GB, 64GB
- Brand
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Amazon
- Screen Size
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10.2-inch glare-free
Amazon’s second-generation Kindle Scribe features a new design, updated stylus, and a collection of new AI-powered software features for cleaning up and summarizing notes.
Amazon is hosting a hardware event for the press on September 30. The company’s invitation to the event seemed to suggest that a new color Kindle Scribe could make an appearance, alongside whatever Fire TV and Alexa updates Amazon has planned. It would be great if Amazon’s Kindle software got an update at the same time. The company is reportedly interested in making its Fire Tablets better productivity devices. I think the Kindle Scribe is ready to receive the same kind of attention.
