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Amazon’s Kindle Scribe is an E Ink tablet for reading and writing
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jelliclesfarm 4y agoI will wait for 2-3rd generation before buying it. I bought kindle early at $400 before it became a brick and I can just use my tablet/phone anyways. Remarkable has failed me twice. I am on fence with e Ink tablets. Perhaps it’s not for me.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago> Remarkable has failed me twice How so? I have a Remarkable 2 (pre-cloud subscription) and really like it. What happened for you?
- m463 4y agoI have a remarkable 2 and like it quite a bit. Only thing I don't like is swipe to turn page is not great.
- criddell 4y agoBoth the Remarkable and the Scribe are only 10" devices. If you are going to read and markup PDFs, a 13" screen makes so much more sense because it's very close to letter/A4 size.
- radicaldreamer 4y agoSony Digital Paper was such a product but very few outside of Academia and some Japanese business customers bought it.
- criddell 4y agoFujitsu Quaderno is one you can still get and is supposedly pretty good.
- AlanYx 4y agoThe current (gen 2) Quaderno A4 is really excellent and pretty inexpensive ordered from Amazon JP given current exchange rates.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4y agoI tried to look it up - https://www.amazon.co.jp/s?k=fujitsu+quaderno+a4 https://www.amazon.co.jp/s?k=fujitsu+quaderno+a4 - and only the smaller A5 seems to be available
- AlanYx 4y agoThe A4 goes in and out of stock. It’s a popular product in Japan and it seems like demand is higher than supply.
- radicaldreamer 4y agoThe retail channel is probably constrained as this seems mostly marketed toward businesses which might purchase along with a support contract. The retail market for these devices seems strictly supplementary to the main market (at least for Japanese brands).
- fomine3 4y agoSome say Papyr is same device as Quaderno (and Sony's one), let's check out
- AlanYx 4y agoPapyr is based on the same hardware as the Quaderno Gen 1. The hardware platform is licensed from a company called Linfiny. It's been rumored for a while that Quirklogic will release a Papyr based on the Gen 2 hardware, but it hasn't materialized yet. The Gen 2 hardware is worth it if you're doing a lot of handwriting because the Wacom digitizer is way, way better, but Papyr does have some additional software that could tip the scales in its direction.
- meltyness 4y agoremarkable has very capable software, as such the "microfaiche / pinch-to-zoom" style operation is pretty effective. It can compensate somewhat without too much hassle for reading and annotating double-column works without eye strain.
- rvz 4y ago> I will wait for 2-3rd generation before buying it. Smart strategy. I waited for the reMarkable 2 to get better, but it just gotten worse and all it offered was an under powered and non-upgradeable and laughable 8GB of maximum storage + a cloud storage subscription for more storage. The Kindle Scribe already starts with 16GB and is cheaper than the reMarkable 2 with the equivalent accessories coming with it. I guess the one that can actually deliver a proper e-ink tablet that just works, it would be unsurprisingly Amazon, hence why it is already an immediate best seller. I'll wait until whoever releases a color E-ink tablet, something that the reMarkable 2 has failed to deliver on, despite some early competitors already selling them but support and features from them isn't going to be as good as Amazon's.
- drewzero1 4y agoI've been looking into the Boox Nova Air C, which seems like a pretty promising color e-ink tablet, depending on your screen size requirements (7.8"). It runs Android though which may be a good or bad thing depending on one's needs.
- outcoldman 4y agoI guess it is time for me to upgrade my Kindle Oasis (1st gen I assume), which I never use to this Kindle Scribe, which I also probably never going to use. But the main issue with the Kindles was not being able to read PDF (technical books, technical articles), and I dreamed about the DX when it was available only in US, and I also did not have money to buy one. After I moved to US 13 years ago, the DX version was out of shelves. So, pretty excited to give Scribe a try!
- Aromasin 4y agoWait... you can't read PDF's? This seems like insanity to me? Why would they not enable such a basic and fundamental feature?
- jljljl 4y agoYou can, but it's a very unpleasant experience on the Kindle's small screen. The DX was much better at this because it could comfortably display a full page of a PDF without needing to scroll
- datalopers 4y agoIt’s about as pleasant as reading a pdf on a phone. Yes, supports it, but you’re either constantly panning your viewframe or have superhuman vision.
- Marazan 4y agoI'd actually prefer reading a PDF on a phone over a standard sized kindle. All I ask for is a A4 sized e-reader that doesn't cost five million pounds to buy.
- clint 4y agoEveryone thinks they want to read a PDF on something that isn't a desktop or an A4 sheet of paper, and then they try it and realize that there are basically no PDFs that are laid-out in a way that could be feasibly consumed on such a device. In addition to that, writing heuristics to try and make it possible to unify the experience of reading any arbitrary PDF is such a quagmire/shitshow that basically no one is willing to step up and try to make it possible.
- aaroninsf 4y ago
- turtlebits 4y agoIMO, color eink isn't worth it right now, especially for the difference in price. Unless you really want that faded color newspaper look, it's not appealing at all.
- rospaya 4y agoYet they're gonna sell millions of these as they did with any other Kindle. For a lot of people that's not a dealbreaker.
- aaroninsf 4y agoPrediction: they won't. The Fire phone and their conventional cheap tablets have been a fail, also.
- w0m 4y agoi haven't used my kindle since (kids); but used my old one daily for years and lack of color was a huge win. If you want color; you want an iPad.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smilekzs 4y agoCounterpoint: even if they only give you 4 colors (red, dark green, dark blue, black), it'd be already immensely useful for note-taking. This is one of the reasons I'm still not using my Remarkable 2 much.
- dividedbyzero 4y agoI read lots of popular science and I'd love to have colored illustrations or the occasional photograph rendered in color.
- 4y ago
- rchaud 4y agoBoox e-ink tabs do the same thing, but they're Android underneath so it's not locked down to Amazon and dependent on partnerships with Microsoft to add an export button.
- metadat 4y agoNever heard of boox. They have a wide array of product offerings. https://shop.boox.com/collections/eink-tablet https://shop.boox.com/collections/eink-tablet?
- nickspacek 4y agoI have a Boox that I'm quite happy with. It's quite pleasant to write on, and the battery lasts a considerable amount of time. The calibration seems to sometimes go off slightly, but I'm still not sure if that is the device's issue, the pen, or myself.
- e-_pusher 4y agoWhat do you mean by the calibration? Like the pen doesn't ink where you touch the screen? Which Boox model does this affect?
- andrei_says_ 4y agoI also own a boox - a four year old device. Supports epub, pdf etc. out of the box. The Kindle app works flawlessly. The O’Reilly learning app works great, too. Drawing functionality is as good as the current state of eink screens. Pretty sure I wouldn’t want to lock myself into the Amazon content ecosystem ever again.
- neves 4y agoWhat is the device's DPI?
- andrei_says_ 4y ago300dpi. Screen looks great. There’s a new version which uses a color eink screen. I’m speaking of the greyscale one.
- donkarma 4y ago
- jmcphers 4y agoI was really hoping for a Kindle with USB-C and page turning buttons; inexplicably this still does not exist.
- kabdib 4y agoThe Kindle Paperwhite uses a USB-C connector. (It probably still uses USB 2.x for data transfer, though -- I'm not sure why that would matter to anyone).
- hwbehrens 4y agoI believe only the Kindle Oasis has physical page-turning buttons, and it (inexplicably) still uses Micro-USB. I suspect this situation is what the parent is referring to.
- schwartzworld 4y agoIs that really a big deal? Micro USB is a perfectly cromulent technology and cords cost a fraction of their usbc counterparts (plus everybody has a million of them)
- neur4lnet 4y agoIts not a huge deal, but I certainly strongly prefer to have USB C nowadays. I travel a lot and having a single type of cable is a real convenience. I tend to take an octopus cable (with type C, Micro and lighting) to fill the gaps, but when laptop, headphones, phone, tablet, power bank, gps; all use one type and Kindle uses another... Suffice it to say I'm looking forward to the time when USB C is ubiquitous, even though it has some short comings. I wouldn't buy another Kindle just for USB C though.
- themadturk 4y agoThe Oasis, with page-turn buttons, hasn't been refreshed since mid-2019; the latest Paperwhite, with USB-C port, was released two years later. I expect the next Oasis will have USB-C.
- syntaxing 4y agoFor that prices, makes little sense to me why you wouldn’t buy a Kobo Eclipse instead.
- FalconSensei 4y agoLooking at it, seems like Scribe is $339 and Elipsa is $399. Also, if you already have a huge Kindle library, makes little sense to change reader and lose it
- tjoff 4y agoIt never made any sense to have a huge library locked to a vendor. And there are ways to convert your library so you don't have to make the same mistake twice.
- FalconSensei 4y agoUnless you pirate, for most publishers, there's no way to buy books without DRM. If you buy books for Kobo, you are locked on Kobo. Also, last time I tried, Kobo's phone app was just not good. There was no vertical scroll like Kindle, the animations were not smooth. The online store is also a bit weirder for me to navigate - but that might be just me. And last, if it was not bought at their online store, it won't have sync between devices, AFAIK
- ranger_danger 4y agoIronic that the original Kindle was already e-ink and had more features, like hardware page-turning buttons and "free for life" (yes I know) cellular connectivity.
- themadturk 4y agoI am displeased by Amazon removing the cellular connectivity, and was always willing to pay the premium to get it on new devices. Of course, on the Kindle 1 (which had page-turn buttons and a removable battery) 3G was the only means of connectivity (along with USB, if I remember correctly); wifi didn't come until later.
- Tagbert 4y agoYes, though that original Kindle was an ergonomic nightmare in other ways. It was difficult to hold without triggering those buttons because they were right on the edge of the device. The silver scroll thingy was kind of fun until it stopped working and then the device was toast. The asymmetric wedge shape was a cute reference to some kind of notebook but didn’t work well in the hand. I went through a succession of Kindles and the recent ones have not buttons but I find that I don’t really miss them. A simple tap of my thumb on the nearest edge of the screen works just as well.
- gadders 4y agoI really want one of these, but not for $400-ish. I think the sweetspot for me would be around $150-ish. Fully understand if it's not achievable.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sylens 4y agoI have been trying to figure out a better workflow for grabbing websites or PDFs, marking them up, and storing them as notes, either by themselves or in something like Craft or Obsidian to reference later. I'm not sure this really moves the needle as I can't imagine moving stuff to the Kindle and then back again will be frictionless.
- barefoot 4y agoI’ve had some luck with Remarkable. Remarkable has a reasonably good experience for getting a PDF to the device, working with it, and then getting it back to the source as a seemingly plain PDF.
- yamtaddle 4y agoThis made it occur to me that a tablet that mimics the form of electric typewriters—a fixed-width LCD screen, a bit akin to those on simple calculators, with the full page above it, and text from the LCD appended to the "page" when you move to the next line—might actually be awesome for writing, coupled with an external keyboard. Potentially-very-low input latency while typing, and no page-flickering except when changing lines. You could even scroll back to edit.
- digdugdirk 4y agoCould I interest you by chance in an Alphasmart word processor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart
- yamtaddle 4y agoRight—that, but stick a big e-ink display above it. USB port and bluetooth so you can use an external keyboard (though a compact attached keyboard/stand isn't a bad idea, even if it's kinda a shitty keyboard). Like this, but instead of printing your finished line to paper it "prints" to e-ink: https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzY1WDEwMjQ=/z/IA8AAOSwQ59ZZBmO/$_86.JPG https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzY1WDEwMjQ=/z/IA8AAOSwQ59ZZBmO/$... But, you know, not huge.
- cstross 4y agoThe Freewrite folks are currently doing a fundraiser on Indiegogo for Freewrite Alpha, their take on the Alphasmart concept, only using e-ink: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/freewrite-alpha-distraction-free-writing-anywhere/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/freewrite-alpha-distracti... (I personally wouldn't touch one -- I need multiple lines of text in order to frame my thoughts in context, never mind that I like being able to dive online to do impromptu research as I write -- but I can see it appealing to some folks. 100 hour battery life is the obvious draw.)
- jawon 4y ago
- djhworld 4y agoFor me all the drawing features etc. are kinda useless if it becomes a pain to export them to other things. The Amazon blurb around this > Get access to your notebooks through the Kindle app sync feature (coming early 2023). Suggests some kindle app will be required, I just hope you can do stuff like export to images/svgs or PDF
- ajsnigrutin 4y agohttps://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ This seems like a better option to me.... stll not "user ready", but shows promise, and not a lot more expensive. (not affiliated, just really like the idea)
- mikestew 4y agoI'm confident that Amazon will get sync working long before the PineNote becomes a daily driver for most folks. I love fiddling with my PineTime, but the key word is "fiddling", and I don't see that the PineNote is any further along than the watch is.
- HuwFulcher 4y ago$399 for an experimental device when companies like Boox and Kobo have more stable devices at similar price points? It’s a real shame that the e-ink tablet space is so pricey at the moment. I’m in the UK so recent events haven’t helped.
- kixiQu 4y agoI'm curious how the performance / writing experience is relative to the high-end e-ink tablets people are falling in love with these days (remarkable etc.). I don't feel the need to write on my kindle enough to justify it unless it's properly pleasant.
- wellthisisgreat 4y agoSo with 300 PPI it’s the highest PPI eink notebook on the market? I wonder what’s the response rate for the pen as it ultimately decides the utility of this device as a notebook
- azinman2 4y agoYa I’m wondering what ppi competitors are, and latency wasn’t mentioned. Would also be good to know latency and ppi compared to an iPad Pro.
- wellthisisgreat 4y agoI have a Ratta Supernote and used iPad Pro and for writing Supernote blows iPad out of the water. If Scribe is 70ppi sharper and is as fast as Supernote, it’s a very compelling device. If it allows to annotate PDF and has decent OCR without some cloud/SaaS bs (or it’s baked into Amazon Prime), then it’s a no-brainer for me.
- nottorp 4y agoJust for the record, Kobo, reMarkable and Onyx have had similar e-readers that you can take notes on for quite a while.
- eli 4y agoI can only speak to the reMarkable. I like it, but it's definitely a note taking device that also has some basic support for reading documents. As an e-reader it's not anywhere close to a Kindle.
- goosedragons 4y agoKobo is also an e-reader company like Amazon and so their ePub support is fantastic. Boox's is OK but since it's Android you can literally use any ebook app you want including Kobo and Kindle so it's not a huge deal. The PDF reader on Boox devices is very good too with features like autocroping of margins.
- anonporridge 4y agoThe reMarkable would have been lovely to have during my university days. A laptop can be a source of distraction during lectures, and paper isn't as easily searchable.
- benji_is_me 4y agoI used my reMarkable 2 tablet all throughout university (I only recently graduated). Searchability is an area that e-ink tablets can surely solve, although the reMarkable's software wasn't particularly helpful in this regard (perhaps it has improved now). You can only convert 1 page at a time using their OCR and they only recently added the ability to tag documents. My favorite feature was actually simple: I don't have to erase everything to rearrange the layout of my notes. Being able to simply select a portion of the page, resize, and move it was killer. Another great feature is simply not having to lug separate notebooks around. The ability to organize and sort documents was very helpful.
- 4y ago
- layer8 4y agoI love the concept of those e-ink devices, but what kills them for me is the poor contrast (something like 10:1), much worse than writing with a black pen on actual white paper. Due to poor eyesight, e-ink is unusable for me without strong built-in light to boost contrast, and then I might as well use an LCD/OLED tablet with better capabilities.
- bArray 4y agoHow I hope it works is that the "PDF mark-up" can be exported as a PDF. This would allow me to insert papers/reports, comment on them and then send them back to students. What I can't do is upload these documents to the cloud - so I hope this is addressed. In terms of cost, I was hoping for something maybe $200. At $400 it's getting close to a relatively good tablet or even a usable laptop.
- Tagbert 4y agoClose in price but lighter, longer battery life, and less distractions.
- MerelyMortal 4y agoIt's not waterproof‽ The design is reminiscent of the Kindle Oasis which is IPX8, their other premium offering is the Paperwhite which is also IPX8. The Scribe costs more and isn't water proof. I can't imagine what about the digitzer makes it unable to be waterproof, unless Amazon just thought it wasn't worth it.
- _virtu 4y agoI hope this puts remarkable in their place after gibbing their loyal early adopters with a subscription model. I am aware they’ve reverted it but at this point I have no sympathy for them.
- HuwFulcher 4y agoI hope the price of the Scribe actually includes the stylus unlike ReMarkable. It seems pretty sleazy that you big an e-ink tablet that needs a stylus and it isn’t included in the price.
- filmgirlcw 4y agoI have a Remarkable 2 and a Boox Note Air (the first one), so I’m definitely going to get the Scribe. I love my Oasis but this will really seal things. I love my Boox so much. And the Remarkable has a lot of potential and is a beautifully designed device. But if anyone is going to be able to make this category more mainstream, it is Amazon. Also looking forward to the hacks that will come to it if there are enough users.
- bitL 4y agoA4 is the smallest tablet size that is practical for writing. Not sure how many people will keep using Scribe when they realize it.
- WillAdams 4y agoI've done fine writing on a lot of tablets, all of which are smaller than A4 (or letter) --- I'd love to see a device that size, but thus far have managed on what has been affordably available.
- bern4444 4y agoI was just looking at the eink device market a few days ago. I have a dream e-ink product in mind. It's really just an iPad with a color e ink screen. Boox seems to be the leader with tons of different products (looked at remarkable, supernote, kobo, Boox). I wish apple would make an e ink tablet - I would buy that in an instant. I want to be able to mark up anything and share it - epub, pdf, mobi, etc. I'd also love a large, high refresh rate, color e ink monitor for coding.
- WillAdams 4y agoI wish someone would make a tablet w/ a transflective display to replace my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4110 --- currently rocking a Samsung Galaxy Book 12, but I've had to roll back to Windows build 1703 twice now, and it's simply not usable in bright, direct sunlight. Pre-ordered a Kindle Scribe, so I'll have 3 devices w/ Wacom styluses (also a Galaxy Note 10+ and the afore-mentioned Galaxy Book 12), one of which will work in direct sunlight. Surprised that there wasn't any mention of the availability of maps for the Kindle Scribe. While I'd like to see nifty features such as: - use as a second display - use as a graphics tablet (while being used as a second display) so long as it works as: - an ebook reader - one can take notes - one can write out documents and transfer them (and notes) to a desktop (w/ or w/o handwriting recognition, hopefully w/) I should be fine. That said, I'd like to see Nebo.app or some equivalent for the Kindle Scribe.
- stefandesu 4y agoHow long do you think is it until high refresh rate, color e-ink displays become a thing? What is a "high" refresh rate when it comes to e-ink? I'm very curious about this technology, but haven't looked into it much.
- bern4444 4y agoI think it's in the order of magnitude of ~5 years until the refresh rate is good enough. I meant high refresh rate in context of eink screens today. I want a refresh rate nearly as good as a normal monitor (~120) but I'd be happy ~100 too. EInk seems to be anywhere from 15-70 (hard to pin this down) so still some work is needed.
- FlyingSnake 4y agoAs a long time user of Boox Note Air, I would like to add my 2¢ Pros: + Excellent note taking with tons of cool features. I can also sync with Dropbox etc. + Great to write notes on book margins. PDFs + notations are great as well. + Libby + VÖBB library card is awesome. I can get tons of free eBooks and audiobooks from any library for which I've a card. + It's basically an Android tablet and I can do a lot of things like use KoReader or Bitwarden. + Great eReader as well. It's great to read books on a large eInk pad. + Kindle is just another app, turns it into a Kindle right away. + I can use it as drawing board and doodle on it during zoom meetings. + I can use it in split mode. like read a book and open notes on the side. Don't use it that often though. Cons: - Refresh rate is slow, non-reading activities are hard like YT - Internet browsing exp is subpar, so I keep going back to my phone for doomscrolling. - Chinese company that doesn't respect GPL. - Weird navigation patterns, like swipe up on the bottom right to go back, WTF?
- Bakary 4y agoThis is exciting news not because it's Amazon, but because this could create economies of scale and decrease the price of more flexible alternatives