The Amazon Kindle Scribe is one of the most popular e-notes in the world and is relatively new. Amazon has issued over six firmware updates, adding new functionality, and promised to support it over the long term. If you are looking to buy one, you usually have to pay full price; however, if you want some solid savings, Amazon is running a rare sale. They have the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB available for around $60 off on the main website for US users.
The Kindle Scribe has two major selling points. It is the first digital note-taking device that Amazon has ever released, and out of the box, it has tremendous functionality in this regard. The second is a large-screen e-reader capable of reading books, comics, magazines, manga, newspapers and other digital content. This is due to the 10-inch display with 300 PPI, so text and images will be of the highest quality. This is the only 10-inch E INK product in the world with a 300 PPI screen; let that sink in.
The Kindle Scribe excels at many things. It makes an excellent dedicated reader that goes beyond books and can easily handle comics, manga or magazines. The screen is large enough to fit everything in it without needing to strain your eyes. The note-taking experience for freehand drawing is excellent, and making sticky notes on books purchased from Amazon is something nobody else in the e-note world has managed to do, not even Kobo.
Speaking of note-taking, freehand drawing is the one drawback. There are no layers or support for importing anything, such as pictures, shapes, images or book cover art. You have a pen, a highlighter, and a few thin/thick settings, and that is it. It is very barebones, and even new users might find that the drawing could be more impressive. PDF files can only be edited using Send to Kindle; you can’t edit them by sideloading content. If you create sticky notes on the Scribe, they are not viewable on other Kindle e-readers.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.