ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe is out there now, beginning at $400.
- It combines the acquainted options of the Kindle e-reader with a vibrant show and a collection of premium note-taking options.
- The aforementioned options take some getting used to, and the value for the upper reminiscence fashions is not low cost.
extra shopping for decisions
Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe will be thought-about a 2-in-1, because it’s each a note-taking pill and a devoted e-reader. It does each properly, and it stands out from the gang due to the way it combines these two options.
The Scribe’s bodily kind issue is modern and lightweight, with a thick grip that permits it to be simply held by both your proper or left hand, as turning it the wrong way up realigns the angle.
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The Kindle Scribe’s standout function, nonetheless, is its “Lively Canvas,” which lets you take notes and scribble your ideas straight onto the pages of your e book — one thing that resonates with me personally as an avid note-taker.
The brand new Scribe comes with a pen that permits you to change your brush dimension and form from a pen for margin scribbling to a highlighter in the event you’d relatively emphasize sure elements of the textual content. The cool design factor right here is that the notes you draw with the pan exist on one other “layer” than the e book textual content, permitting you to edit what you write with out messing with the textual content within the e book.
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In observe, the energetic canvas seems as a clean area in between the textual content the place you may jot down your ideas. I can see this performance being helpful for sure texts, however it could be a bit distracting for others. I truly discovered that I most well-liked utilizing the sticky notes perform, which drops a tiny icon on the textual content that, when tapped, opens up a floating window along with your notes that may then be closed.
The pen is without doubt one of the Scribe’s greatest options, nonetheless. It delivers a clean and lag-free writing expertise on par with high-end pill/stylus gadgets just like the ReMarkable Paper Professional, which is certainly one of my favourite all-time gadgets.
The tip of the pen is smooth and textured, leading to a silky, silent writing expertise that feels precisely like a “actual” pencil. It is weighty, feels premium, and attaches to the aspect of the machine with a magnetic snap, though you do must align it good to get it to stay.
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Observe-takers who haven’t got essentially the most elegant penmanship can simply translate their handwriting into textual content after which edit the font and dimension additional. This can be a nice method to clear up and set up rapidly taken notes you could save for additional reference, significantly in case your writing leaves one thing to be desired.
The on-board AI is superb at parsing even essentially the most illegible hen scratch, though it does get a bit of dodgy in case your handwriting approaches full illegibility.
The show on the Kindle Scribe is sort of good, if relatively much like different Kindle fashions. It has 300 pixels per inch, which ends up in advantageous and crisp textual content, even with the tiniest fonts. The display may also get fairly vibrant, making it straightforward to see open air. You too can alter the heat of the show, going all the best way to a extra sepia-toned picture on one finish or a cool white on the opposite.
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Relating to battery life, Amazon advertises as much as 12 weeks on a single cost in the event you learn for about half-hour a day, however that quantity begins to go down in the event you use Scribe for plenty of writing and note-taking. In my testing over the course of some weeks, I solely bothered charging the machine just a few occasions, and with intermittent, common use, you will most likely get a number of weeks out of a single cost.
The machine itself comes with both 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of on-device storage, which is various area for e-books. In observe, that is sufficient area to carry 1000’s of books, sufficient for a veritable digital library.
The machine is geared to retailer extra than simply e-books, nonetheless. When you’re utilizing the Scribe, you are most likely going to be taking plenty of notes. You set up them by holding them in notebooks, which, like bodily ones, are books with a number of pages.
Notebooks are then additional organized by folders, which you’ll be able to identify and categorize, permitting you to maintain your content material streamlined. Even higher is the myriad of “paper” picks you may select to put in writing your notes on, together with checklists, day by day and weekly planners, trackers, and even storyboard templates.
This opens the machine as much as be a succesful note-taking pill in its personal proper, with simply sufficient creation instruments to permit for a strong function set with out all of the bells and whistles of different high-end tablets. In different phrases, there could also be a restricted variety of brushes and marker features, however the ones have labored easily, with zero lag or false inputs.
The Kindle Scribe additionally options some AI features, after all. The on-device AI can summarize as much as 15 pages in a pocket book, extracting key takeaways from the textual content in a neat abstract that, in my testing, is about on par with generally used AI providers discovered on different platforms. In different phrases, it is usually correct, though complicated info can produce generic-sounding outcomes.
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Apart out of your collections of notes, the Kindle retains every part you have highlighted throughout a number of texts in a “Clippings” folder, which will be tremendous useful for robotically key info at a look.
After all, the Kindle Scribe is ready as much as make shopping for e-books as seamless as doable, with Amazon’s Kindle Retailer simply accessible on the machine and plenty of methods to seek for what you need to learn. Relying on how a lot you propose on utilizing the machine, you should buy e-books individually or spring for the Kindle Limitless membership, which provides you limitless entry to (most) titles with a subscription of $11.99 monthly.
Proper now, Amazon is providing a free 30-day trial of Kindle Limitless, so it is value checking it out to see in the event you’ll get essentially the most out of it. When you’re a slower reader, you would possibly need to go for particular person purchases.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation
All in all, the Kindle Scribe is an e-reader designed for readers who like to interact with their texts, doodlers, note-takers, and list-makers preferring to “simply write it down.” At $399 for the 16GB model, the Scribe is competitively priced as a practical pill, and except you actually need a bigger machine, I would say it is definitely among the best choices on the market, bearing in mind its full suite of options.
Nonetheless, take into account that upgrading to the 32GB model raises the value to $420, and if you’d like 64GB, you will pay $450. This brings the value consistent with the ReMarkable Paper Professional, an ultra-premium machine with many extra options for note-taking (colour show, myriad of brush picks, and many others.) however much less in the best way of easy-to-access e-books.
When you’re not somebody who must scribble on the web page or take a highlighter to what you are studying, the Scribe continues to be a top-tier e-reader with a grippable, flippable kind issue and a vibrant show and nice battery.
