It is safe to say Amazon has dominated the e-reader sector. The Kindle has become synonymous with ebooks since its launch in 2007, selling out on launch and earning itself comparisons with the iPod.
Sixteen years on, the Kindle has changed. Not content with replacing your paperbacks on holiday, the device also wants to put an end to your paper notebooks.
It has a 10.2-inch display that uses the same tech as the Kindle Paperwhite, so you get a backlit display that you can use even in low light, but not enough of a glare to have you reaching for the blue light glasses. It has density of 300 pixels per inch, which is enough to give you sharp text, and a frame on one side that is handy for holding it without accidentally skipping forward a page.
As a Kindle, it works as you would expect, although the Scribe is bigger than any of the Kindles that have gone before, and heavier. While it’s not exactly a hefty device, it will eventually start to weigh you down if you are planning on reading it one-handed, as you would with a book.
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But the real value in the Kindle Scribe is its note-taking features. I am a fan of digital notebooks. It has been a while since I carried a paper version around with me, preferring instead to use an iPad and Apple Pencil to take notes day to day. Finding the right notebook is simple; archiving is even easier.
The screen feels more like paper than any digital device I’ve used. It feels more natural and less glassy
So the Scribe is an easy sell here when it comes to that particular feature. You’ll need the compatible pen to use this feature, but it comes with at least the basic pen so you can take notes straight away. The version reviewed here is the premium pen, which has a dedicated eraser and a shortcut button; you can upgrade later if you want for just under £50.
It works well, with the screen feeling more like paper than any digital device I’ve used. It feels more natural and less glassy, and the premium pen glides over the screen.
Creating notebooks is also easy. A couple of taps on the screen, a few folders created, and you have an organised archive to choose from. There are plenty of options for notebook types, from lined and ruled notebooks to grids and sheet music, if you are feeling creative. You can also use the feature to add handwritten notes to Kindle books, through annotations and post-it style sticky notes.
The functions are fairly basic – no handwriting recognition here, although its usefulness with my scrawl is often limited, so it is no real loss.
You can have lots of them, too, depending on how much storage you have paid for. The Scribe starts at 16GB, but even at that, you will have plenty of space to keep your notebook and your ebook library side by side. On the Scribe, the books and notebooks are mixed together in your library, but on the Kindle app, they are separated, with notebooks shunted into the “more” menu.
That demarcation is a good thing, because where the Scribe falls down is in wider access to the notebooks. While you can get open and read your notes through the Kindle app on a smartphone, for example, you can’t edit the notebooks anywhere but the Scribe. That is more limiting than a lack of handwriting recognition.
Good
This is as good a Kindle as Amazon has produced before. The screen is sharp, responsive and easy to use as an e-reader. As a notebook, the screen shines – although not literally.
Battery life is excellent, too, with the screen showing its worth here. You’ll get days out of it rather than hours, so you can read, take notes and come back to it in a few days without having to remember to charge it.
Bad
The device is monochrome, which means any books that you would prefer in colour – children’s books, graphic novels – are flat.
The screen can be a bit too responsive at times, which can lead to accidental palm presses when you are taking notes.
If you want to access your notes on another device, you can, but only to read rather than edit. And you can’t sync your notes with a third-party app.
Everything else
Storage ranges from 16GB to 64GB, with the higher-capacity versions including the premium pen in the price as a sweetener.
The pen can be attached magnetically to the side of the Kindle Scribe, but having knocked it off several times, I would recommend getting hold of a case with the pen holder. Unless you have €50+ to burn on a regular basis, that is.
The verdict
A good test of the waters for digital notebooks, but at the price, it may lose out to a multifunction tablet despite its merits.
