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Amazon Kindle Scribe: Here comes the first Kindle you can write and sketch on
The Kindle Scribe is the first of Amazon's Kindle e-readers that can be used for writing as well as reading, with a pen that lets you add handwritten notes onscreen.
Amazon announced Wednesday that the Kindle Scribe will be available globally starting at $339.99 with a pen included and is available for preorder now.
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The Kindle Scribe has a 10.2-inch, 300-ppi display that adjusts to its surroundings during both night and day. Amazon said the screen has a paperlike feel that enhances the writing experience, bringing note-taking and annotating to a new level.
The larger display allows you to get more text and images, minimizing how often you have to turn the page.
Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon's Devices and Services business, said during the announcement that the reduced page turning allowed him to finish a book at a quicker rate.
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When reading on the Kindle Scribe you can now add "sticky notes" on book pages as you read. All of your sticky notes are organized in one place, avoiding the mess that cluttered sticky notes can have in real life.
In addition to taking reading notes, you can use the Kindle Scribe as a portable notebook, and it comes with templates for different needs such as sketching, journaling, and to-do lists.
You can also send documents from your phone or computer to the Scribe so you can mark up PDFs and sign documents electronically. Early next year, you will also be able to send documents to the Scribe straight from Microsoft Word, Amazon said.
When you purchase the Kindle Scribe it will come with a pen that attaches to the e-reader magnetically, but requires no charging.
Like the other Kindles in the Amazon lineup, the Kindle Scribe will connect to the Kindle Store and give consumers access to over 13 million titles globally. With purchase of the Kindle Scribe, US customers get a free four-month subscription to Kindle Unlimited giving access to a wide selection of over 3 million e-books.
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The Kindle Scribe combines the capabilities of an e-reader and a writing pad in one device, for less than it would cost to purchase a competing writing tablet and Kindle separately. By comparison, ReMarkable makes an electronic writing pad with a paperlike feel that retails for $299 without a pen and without Amazon's Kindle features. We've compared the Kindle Scribe versus the ReMarkable 2 Tablet to see which device is better for different uses.