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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Amazon unveiled a new Kindle Scribe and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.
- The e-readers are thin and mimic writing on paper.
- Prices range from $500 to $679.
Amazon unveiled two new e-readers, the Kindle Scribe and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, at its fall hardware launch on Tuesday.
Of course, the two e-readers are meant for reading, writing, and note-taking. The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is the first full-color note-taking e-reader Kindle has unveiled. The Kindle Scribe and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft start at $500 and $630 and will be available later this year.
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Students looking to mark up their textbooks or PDFs all in one accessible and lightweight package will get a lot out of this Scribe lineup, as well as desk-side workers looking to read their favorite books and mark up documents on their morning commute to the office.
The Kindle Scribe (left) next to the iPhone Air (right).
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
The Scribes are 5.4mm thick (or thin), which Amazon describes as “ultra-thin,” and weigh 400g for a light, portable feel. They have an 11-inch display, the same dimensions as a sheet of paper.
With its two new Scribes, Kindle tries to mimic writing on paper as closely as possible. It achieves this paper-like feel through a texture-molded glass that improves the pen’s friction, a minimized parallax to emulate writing on a page, and more memory for added efficiency. The new specs create a writing and reading experience that’s faster than last year’s Scribe model.
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When I demoed the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, I noticed how responsive my pen was on the display. Unlike other color tablets I’ve tested, the Scribe Colorsoft’s lag time while drawing was minimal.
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft comes with ten drawing colors and five highlight colors. However, I’d still like to see more than ten color options available since there are only so many aesthetic flourishes one can add to one’s notes with a limited color variety.
Amazon overemphasized the shading feature on the Scribe Colorsoft, which is intended to provide layers of color to drawings and achieve the same effect as watercolor painting. This felt a bit like a stretch or a gimmick, or both. Maybe someone with advanced digital drawing skills could make the layering feature sing, but not me. It seemed like a feature the average person might not use.
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Other new features, however, seemed more useful. Users can touch the Home page’s Quick Notes tab to easily open up a new note page. They can import and export documents from both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, a great addition that will make the e-reader and notetaker newly useful to students and office workers.
Users can use AI to search through their notes, access information, and summarize notes taken. Later this year, users will be able to send notes to and converse with Alexa+ about them.
Amazon made no mention of battery life, but if it’s anything like last year’s Kindle Scribe, reading on the device should last the battery for about a month, and writing should last a few weeks in between charges.
