Has my opinion on the Kindle Scribe changed? (6 Month Review)

when the Kindle scribe was released in November of 2022 there was a ton of excitement for Amazon entering the Inc tablet space But at the time of release its software was not on par with the competitors now six months later Amazon has released their first update for the device and I think now it's time to finally give it a proper review how does it stack up against books remarkable and super note and who might get value from the device stick around starting with Hardware the physical presence of the device is excellent it has an aluminum construction with a glass screen and it feels Hefty and durable in hand significantly beefier than its smaller brother the Kindle Oasis but if you've held that device then the metal finish will feel very familiar they also have these little rubber feet on the back of the device that prevent it from sliding around on your desk the remarkable also has these but I wish these became standard for all ink tablets from here on out here's looking at u-books at 10.2 inches diagonally it's a very safe size matching that of the remarkable 2 and the books note air 2. the super node is also the same diagonally but it's a bit thicker speaking of the competitors The Scribe is unique in that it and only the books liner devices have a backlight the obvious use for this is that you can read and write in the dark in a place like your bed but it also comes in surprisingly handy in other places like your desk if it doesn't have the best of overhead lighting ultimately I have no real complaints on the hardware side the team over at Amazon really knocked it out of the park from a physical design perspective well done moving on to the pen the premium pen feels good the build construction is great and the inclusion of both an eraser and an eraser button is a nice touch that allows for both highlighting and erasing without having to open any menus or switch tools which is excellent it would be great if someone would bring back that old intuo style pen that had the two buttons one for highlighting and one for erasing I just find myself preferring buttons over flipping the pen around when it comes to erasing if I'm going to critique it I'd say it's a bit long for me and I find it a bit fatiguing over long writing sessions but I think most people will really enjoy it and if for some reason you don't end up loving it there are a multitude of styluses that you can use with this device because it uses Wacom EMR technology I'll have a list of all of my favorites over here on the top jumping to writing look and feel the Kindle scribe has a 300 pixel per inch panel with extremely low latency and it's really good so good in fact that it's the only 300 pixel per inch ink panel that you can currently buy as a consumer for comparison the remarkable 2 books and supernote devices all share a 226 pixel per inch display the Kindle scribes is slightly sharper than the devices I just mentioned but not significantly so I am someone who's sensitive to pixel density but I wouldn't say that the 74 pixels per inch difference is enough of a reason alone to buy the Kindle scribe writing on the Scribe is Snappy and responsive and I think it's technically slightly lower latency than the remarkable 2 which had been the most responsive feeling device that I had used prior to this while using both devices side by side I would say they feel extremely similar moving on to the brushes and pens available on the device I think most of what you expect is here now with the latest update if you like a digital fine liner then you'll like the pen brush I personally find that I don't like this style of pen digitally despite liking them in real life but every device I've used implements it the same so maybe it's just something that's off for me I do however really enjoy using the marker on its thinnest setting this feels similar to the ballpoint pen on the remarkable 2 or the fountain pen on the books line of devices the other standout option is the graphite pencil which feels incredibly realistic especially with the included stylus which has a relatively flat nib that feels pencil-like to begin with the combination of the two is incredibly predictable and the angle control is excellent really well done here moving on to the reading experience at the end of the day it's a Kindle so if you have a Kindle you know what to expect here an excellent paid ebook Market that has great support for highlighting saved progress and looking up words it has the typical group of features that you would expect there plus the ability to add sticky notes to your Kindle books you can't see the contents of those sticky notes that you write while reading you first have to tap on the sticky note and then you can see the note it works but it doesn't feel quite as fully baked as it could the other and obvious thing as of the time of this recording which is April of 2023 is your written sticky notes don't show up in the Kindle highlights webpage and also aren't available to external services like read wise which is a real bummer but I'm hoping that they'll get there with time the other thing to consider is the device in my opinion is a bit too big and heavy for bedtime reading you can certainly use it for that in a pinch but it's not replacing my Kindle Oasis anytime soon for that use case the bones of the kindlescribe are excellent but they're unfortunately a bit bare the good news is due to the bare bone software it's actually a pretty good Focus device grab your scribe go find a desk and just go right the only other thing you can really do with it is read and I don't usually worry about that too much as a compelling distraction there is a web browser but it's so simple that it may as well not exist I don't think it actually even runs JavaScript which is pretty necessary in 2023 The Bare Bones nature is not a complete positive despite the excellent core writing experience many of the things that you would expect to find on a tablet in 2023 are missing there's no lasso tool you can't move pages around within a notebook you definitely can't move Pages between notebooks and there are no undo gestures and probably most frustratingly of all you can't actually move the on-screen toolbar around it either goes to the left or the right and that's about it if you're a professional you will immediately notice the omissions of screen share the ability to convert handwriting to text and any real backup support that I can tell the core Kindle software will feel familiar but it's not necessarily a benefit when it comes to writing writing is not something that Kindles have done in the past and so much of the navigation feels good while reading feels a bit clunky and out of place when writing for example tapping the top of the screen and waiting for the header to appear to do common actions feels clunky and slow it's especially frustrating if you're a user like me that rests their Palm near the top of the screen where it can trigger accidentally if you've seen one of my reviews before you'll know that I also cover areas where the tablet can be improved in the future after having spent significant time with the remarkable 2 and the books devices I find it hard to go back to devices that lack landscape mode and scrollable paper it's frustrating having to split an idea or a drawing across two sheets of paper just because I ran out of room on a theoretical sheet you should have the option to have your notebooks and PDF annotations sync back to the cloud for backup purposes currently your PDFs are linked to your account but the notes you make on them aren't visible from the other Kindle apps and the same is true for your notebooks let's round it out with value and who the device is good for with the Scribe I don't have a lot to critique on what they have done but it's unfortunately what they haven't done that makes the Scribe feel incomplete and not quite ready to compete with the remarkable two books and super note devices at 369 dollars for the most basic model it's a tale of two halves it has Best in Class Hardware but is paired with incomplete software that relegates it to only the simplest of use cases if you're looking for a more full-featured writing experience I would recommend you check out the remarkable 2 with a referral discount you can get a remarkable two for 259 dollars and then pair it with a 59 Kindle scribe premium pen for a total of 318 dollars that saves you about fifty dollars on the price of the Kindle scribe and you'll also get a much more complete experience with that said there is an audience for this device I think it can be perfect for someone who's looking for a larger Kindle with a backlight but would like the option of maintaining a basic notebook or PDF planner the only previous option was the books node Air 2 plus and that starts at 479 dollars it can do a ton more than the Kindle scribe but if all you're looking for is basic writing a backlight in Kindle support the Scribe does all of that not to mention you won't get distracted with the Allure of trying to use all the Android apps that are available on the books to give you an example my wife daily drives the Kindle scribe using hyperpaper which is an excellent PDF planner that includes many well thought out sections and in-app navigation and that level of structure makes up for the scribe's very basic navigation and organizational tools by baking them into the PDF planner itself this video is not sponsored by hyperpaper but I do think it or a planner like it significantly makes up for many of the shortcomings that you'll likely feel with the Kindle scribe thank you so much for sticking around to the end of the video do hit subscribe for more eating content like this in the future and you can help me out a ton by liking and sharing this video if you're still undecided on which ink tablet to choose I have a playlist of reviews of all the competitors to the Kindle scribe and I'll have that linked over here on the side thank you again for watching and until next time I'll see you in the next video thank you

Channel: Brandon Boswell

Views: 84,691

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Length: 9min 42sec (582 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2023