The PROBLEM With The Kindle SCRIBE | My Thoughts

The Kindle Scribe will be released very soon and on paper it actually isn’t a huge upgrade from existing Kindles like the Paperwhite or Oasis. In this video I break down what I see as three obvious problems with the Kindle Scribe and why it might not be worth buying.

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[DerBunny]

The reasons I am really interested in the Kindle Scribe are:
-Distraction free.
-Of course, writing in my books and documents.
-Will not make my eyes cry, like regular tablets do.
-The price. I actually think the price is very good. Compared to similar devices, like reMarkable for example.
-I dont want a tablet, I just want an electronic notebook.

Yes, tablets have more features and do what the Kindle Scribe does, but that is the point. I want my reading and studying device to be completely distraction free and also to not hurt my eyes.

[adnananwar]

When you compared PDF note taking on IPad vs Kindle, you completely ignored that is not an eink screen and not that comfortable for eyes.

[macjim]

It’s early days to be making any decisions on how good, or bad, the Scribe will be as nobody has had a chance to use one.
For me, I’m just looking forward to being able to read books on a larger screen.
Another reason for preordering the Scribe is it’s distracting free unlike the iPad I have now, there’s no video, emails and notifications to distract me from reading my books.
But also, the ability to deal with PDF such as my timesheets, purchase order forms and expenses forms on the Scribe, will be, I’m expecting, a much more natural feel than writing on my iPad.

[TonyonTech]

To me, the real value of the Scribe is that it's a 10 inch Kindle reader with a pen that allows yoy to do more precisely do what you already did with your fingers.

[sumanthchannapatna]

The reviewer misses the point here, people want to write notes in meetings and class room not just annotate an existing PDF or some other document. Remarkable 2 is very popular for note taking but you cant read Kindle books on it, But with Scribe you have access to all your Kindle library and simultaneously be able to write notes (not just annotate). This combination is attracting me to it. The price should definitely come down, currently too pricey.

[xuefeili]

For me, I really enjoy marking a pdf while reading it. The notes marking there are not necessarily needed to be searchable, they are just taking down to enhance my memorization of the contents I’m reading. And my eyes won’t be hurt as much as reading on iPad and I won’t easily get distracted. These are reasons why I have high expectations for this new kindle scribe, hopefully I won’t be disappointed 😂

[annvoy]

As an owner of a Boox Note Air 1 for a couple of years and a Kindle reader sort of from the beginning, I doubt that the Scribe will bring really more to the table than what I already have. Like you the one drawback for me is the lack of synchronicity, which is one reason why I returned the reMarkable 2. I do love Amazon's concept of quick notes if they are truly integrated (and exportable) within their Kindle books, otherwise I can have a note open in split screen on the Note Air. 300 PPI would be a vast improvement, funnily enough, on the Booxes, reMarkables, SuperNotes etc. Why an e-ink tablet? For the backlight-free screen, pdf-reading, the handwriting feel, the long battery life and the distraction-free environment at a slower pace. Any of these points justify an e-ink device. None of these though will replace an LED-device but may rather complement them. They can replace paper though.

[autocross]

I don't own an iPad but use a paperwhite for both reading books and crochet pattern pdfs. I'm looking at the scribe for writing on the pdfs as I sometimes find errors in the pdfs of make changes to the pattern. Being about to write the changes right on the pdf will be much more efficient. I also like the notebook feature that is supposed to be searchable. This is something that hasn't been commented on much yet. Since I don't want to buy an iPad and carry around tablets and e-readers, this looks promising.

[marksulkanon]

These all sound like reasonable observations. Would definitely be interested in what you think after actually using one rather than speculating.

I already have a reMarkable and an iPad, but I far prefer the “paperlike” feel of the writing experience on the reMarkable. Perhaps the tactile/ergonomic difference doesn’t matter to you, but I find I much more satisfying to use. I’m assuming that the Scribe writing/drawing experience would be the same/similar

[mopnem]

From what it looks like, the scribe is literally the perfect next step for the kindle line-up & it already looks like it'll be better than it's competition being the remarkable, note air & Supernote. As for the ipad comparisons, because the ipad isn't e-ink it really can't compete in the e-ink category. But I agree that hopefully with kindle being part of a large company will be able to implement many useful features.

[stevenc]

There is obviously a market for this, there’s a whole industry of writable e-ink devices that have come up. It’s obvious amazon just wants to enter and dominate that market too.

[EnjiGold]

The thing I'm most excited for is being able to use it for sheet music. I am in several ensembles and have so many pieces of sheet music that I hand write on and this would eliminate all paper AND squish my entire music library into the size of a few sheets of paper

[PriyanujKashyap]

I would actually love to have the kindle scribe for reading pdf textbooks and research papers with the bigger display it would be just amazing for studying. I wouldn't really write notes there because I have an iPad but the iPad screen just fatigues my eyes so its not really good for long textbook reading sessions. I have a eye problem when if I look at screen for long durations my eyes starts twitching involuntarily. So it would be perfect for my use case and as we can make notes on pdfs I am fine with it.

[iliavolodin]

I do not care about the pen or the ability to write my notes on a book. I just want a big enough Kindle to read PDFs easily and to enjoy (hopefully) the quality of their device.

[mstamper]

I'd buy it just for the bigger size. The most useful kindle feature that no one ever talks about is the ability to search INSIDE the text of EVERY book on the device in a single search. I have hundreds of cook books and other non-fiction books, and there is nothing better than to be able to issue a search that will bring up every reference to the search term in EVERY book on the device. Yes, you can do this on the smaller screens as well, but having that huge screen and not having to do so much paging through search results seems awesome. Now, if that cross-book search capability existed on the iPad kindle app, I would not need or want the new kindle scribe. But alas, it doesn't. And interestingly enough, the Kindle Fire tablets do not have this capability either. It is only available on kindle devices.

[elisemisuraca]

I couldn't agree with you more. I truthfully don't care for the size, it's an e-reader trying to become a tablet. Amazon needs to update the Kindle Oasis.

[MymilanitalyBlogspot]

If I correctly understood what you said, the Scribe doesn't have an OCR capability for transforming handwritten characters into typeface (which, as I recall, the ReMarkable does), which answers my question by cutting it off at the pass: can it transform handwritten non-Roman character systems into their type fonts (Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, ...)? As I recall, a rep of ReMarkable said that theirs could. Do you have any insights about this?

[airixxxx]

I just want a color Kindle with the screen size and design of the Scribe. That would be perfect for reading books and comic books. Like you said, adding a pen needs a complete overhaul of the software and cloud features to work.

[shanghaichica]

I’ve never liked writing on any of my iPads. It doesn’t feel natural with the Apple Pencil on glass. I’m hoping that it will feel more natural on the scribe. That aside the main reason I’m buying it is for the larger display.

[ahawk]

Talk about missing the forest from the trees.

eInk isn't about being an iPad. It's about creating an environment for creative process. Writing on glass with blue light blasting your eyes to powder is the problem.

Maybe next time you should understand the tech before comparing apples and oranges.