From left to right: the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, the updated Kindle Scribe, and the low-end Scribe without a front-lit display.
Credit: Amazon
Our review of the standard Kindle Colorsoft was less than impressive, because there was only so much you could do with color on a small-screen e-reader that didn’t support pen input, and because it made monochrome text a little worse than on the regular Kindle Paperwhite. The new Scribe Colorsoft may have some of the same problems, most of which are inherent to color e-ink technology as it exists today, but a larger screen will also be better for reading comics and graphic novels, as well as reading and annotating color documents. There might be a bigger benefit, even if the technology trade-offs are similar.
Amazon has still been slower to introduce color to its e-readers than its competitors, like last year’s reMarkable Paper Pro ($579 then, $629 now). The Scribe’s software also seems a bit rudimentary – the writing tools seem tacked on to the more mature reading experience offered by the Kindle’s operating system – but this is gradually improving. All new Scribes support importing and exporting files to and from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive (but not Dropbox or other services), and devices can export notebooks to Microsoft’s OneNote app so you can pick up where you left off on a PC or Mac.
Other software enhancements include a redesigned home screen, “AI-powered search,” and a new shading tool that can be used to add shading or gradients to drawings and sketches; Amazon says many of these software improvements will come to older Kindle Scribe models via software updates next year.
This article was updated at 4:30 p.m. on December 10 to add a response from Amazon regarding software updates for older Kindle Scribe models.
