Ever since Amazon launched the Kindle Scribe in 2022, the corporate has been noticing some uncommon methods individuals are utilizing the system. Scribe customers learn extra nonfiction than regular Kindle house owners; a full 60 % of Scribe patrons use the system at work. That’s perhaps not stunning, on condition that the Scribe is the biggest Kindle and the one with an included stylus for taking notes.
However nonetheless: that is perhaps the primary Kindle ever to not be largely a studying system, however slightly equal elements guide and pocket book. With the brand new Scribe, which the corporate introduced on Wednesday (and leaked on Tuesday evening), Amazon is leaning into the pocket book aspect of issues in an enormous approach.
The brand new Scribe, which can price $399.99 for a 16GB model (a 32GB is $419.99, whereas the 64GB is $449.99) and can ship beginning on December 4th, is a modest design enchancment over the earlier mannequin. Probably the most noticeable change is the bezels, which are actually white and the identical measurement on all 4 sides. The purpose is evidently to make the Scribe feel and look extra like a chunk of paper — each if you have a look at it and if you write on it. Amazon has additionally up to date the included stylus, the feel and coloration masks of the ten.2-inch E Ink display screen, and the Scribe’s inner software program to make it really feel extra paper-y. Even the stylus’s eraser is supposedly higher: Amazon executives raved about how many individuals attempt to brush mud off the system after they work the eraser.
(When you’re questioning why the brand new Scribe doesn’t have a coloration display screen like the brand new Colorsoft, by the best way, I couldn’t get a straight reply, however the reason being virtually actually worth. The Outstanding Paper Professional does coloration fairly properly, however it’s virtually $600, and Amazon is much extra price-conscious with the Kindle line.)
“We’ve been intentional with interested by the metaphor of a pocket book,” says Kevin Keith, the VP of product on the Kindle workforce. “We wish it to really feel like a pocket book in your hand.” Amazon continues to see the Kindle as a distraction-free system, free from all of the chaos and enticements of your telephone and laptop computer — now it’s attempting to use the identical vibes to your writing because it has to your studying.
I bought a short demo of the brand new Scribe at an Amazon launch occasion in New York Metropolis, and the Scribe does certainly really feel good to jot down on. Particularly it appears to have achieved away with a few of the delay you may need felt within the earlier mannequin; the hole between glass and E Ink floor felt smaller to me, which makes every part really feel extra instant and tactile. It didn’t essentially really feel higher that what I’m used to from Outstanding and others, however it felt simply pretty much as good. However that’s one quick demo. We’ll must see how this factor holds up below actual testing.
Both approach, the Scribe’s software program updates are its most enjoyable new options. Most of them are designed to make the system extra helpful for writing. A brand new function referred to as Energetic Canvas, for example, helps you to write notes on books or PDFs which can be truly anchored in-line with the textual content you’re studying.
The impact is fairly cool: if you begin to write a word, the textual content beneath it fades beneath your markups, and if you’re achieved writing the textual content mechanically flows round your word. When you change the font or margins, the word stays within the right spot within the textual content. You can even write notes in a margin that expands to take over a part of the display screen, if you happen to’d slightly write subsequent to textual content and never straight on it. Or if all you need to do is spotlight or underline some textual content, the Scribe will snap your traces to the textual content and make every part look neater. I’m barely skeptical of Amazon’s skill to do that properly with all paperwork, particularly the sophisticated PDFs that Kindles have lengthy had bother reflowing in any respect, however the thought right here could be very cool.
The opposite factor the Scribe can do now’s convert your handwriting into textual content. And as soon as it does so, it may possibly ship your notes to one in all Amazon’s massive language fashions to be able to do one in all two issues: summarize both a single web page or a whole pocket book; or mechanically “refine” your handwritten notes by translating them right into a of handwriting-style fonts and formatting them extra cleanly. Finally you’ll additionally be capable of search your handwritten notes, too.
Considered one of our gripes with the unique Scribe was that your Kindle notes are in a closed ecosystem. It’s a pleasant solution to take notes, however there’s not a lot to do with them — they’re similar to paper notes, simply sitting there in notebooks. That’s nonetheless at the very least partially true, however Amazon’s beginning to make these notes extra accessible and extra helpful. The Scribe should be a Kindle, however it’s more and more greater than only a studying system.
