Excellent New Device. Exceeds Expectations.
I struggled with the decision to purchase the new Kindle Scribe. I have had several kindles (going all the way back to the Kindle with a keyboard) and a few Kindle Fires. I currently have a Kindle Paperwhite and Fire 8 plus. I have always valued the reading experience on kindles along with the ability to have access to a library of books, obtain samples of books, and a convenient way to highlight and add sticky notes. I was initially excited to see the Scribe come out, but the price and some negative reviews really gave me pause. At the urging of my spouse as a Christmas present and convincing myself that I would return it if it didn’t meet my expectations I decided to take the plunge. I am so glad I did. It has exceeded my expectations in all three of my must haves. I decided to write this review in hopes of helping others going back and forth about whether to purchase it now or wait for a future update.As a little background, I am in academia. I decided that I would purchase and keep the Kindle Scribe if it did an excellent job with The following.1) Able to read textbooks and technical books with tables, charts, graphs, and math.2) Able to read pdfs.3) Able to write notes (lecture notes, answer keys, personal research notes, etc.)Based upon the previous reviews, I was not confident that the Scribe would do a great job with all three of the above must haves. However, it does. I’ll take each one separately with my pros/cons and fixes.1) With my previous kindles (including my current paperwhite and Fire), I was never able to have that wonderful reading experience when it came to textbooks and/or more technical books which included tables, charts, graphs, and math. The physical size of the previous kindles simply was never going to work well with these types of books, even with the zoom feature. The size, and perfection of the screen, of the Scribe makes reading these types of books just as enjoyable as reading a book of fiction. The technical stuff comes across wonderfully and there’s no funky formatting that the previous kindles would have when it comes to tables, charts, etc. So, the Scribe passed with flying colors when it come to this must have. In response to some other reviews, I will say that I’m actually glad that I cannot write (make notes, underline, circle) on the books themselves. I like writing a sticky note and highlighting because it keeps the pages less cluttered. Looking back at physical books that I’ve had to read many times over the years, I have written so many notes in the margins, underlined, etc. that it makes reading them again a pain. I hope that Amazon will always keep the option of sticky notes even if one day it allows writing directly on the book. Given the price, did I need the Scribe? No. I could’ve just continued to read these types of books as physical books. But, I am so glad that I can do it on the Scribe and have the wonderful kindle reading experience. My only complaint is that a few books purchased in the past don’t recognize the pen. This might just be an issue of needing to reformat all books and hopefully it will be fixed in the future. Even with those few books, I can still type sticky notes and highlight as before so it hasn’t bee a big deal.2) Given the size of previous Kindles, sending a pdf and reading it just was never going to work well. The Scribe does a near perfect job. Now, having read some reviews, I was really worried about this must have. I read lots of pdfs from my laptop for my job, and as I sit reading look over to my Paperwhite and wish that I could use it instead (the E-ink is just so much better). Here’s my take on pdfs, if the pdf is nicely formatted to begin with then it comes across on the Scribe perfectly. Yes, you can write on it which is nice (kind of wish I could use sticky notes instead though) and easily export it to your email address. On the other hand, if the pdf is not nicely formatted and/or the text is a bit blurry to begin with, then it doesn’t come to the Scribe perfectly either of course. I have played around with preparing these troublesome pdfs by cropping or simply changing the margin size before sending and it seems to help, but the text is not as crisp. Still though, I can read the pdfs on the Scribe just as easily as reading them on my laptop. So, overall, the Scribe exceeded my expectations here. One strange thing I’ve come across is that when initially opening a pdf, it opens to a cover page so you have to actually go to the beginning by opening up the toolbar at the top then you can flip the pages. This is an example of needing to play around a bit with the Scribe to figure out some of the features. The entire focus on the “cover” thing in pdfs and notes seemed to be a big thing with the tech folks, might be a privacy issue they have in mind. I realize that some folks, myself included, use Google drive and other web-based options to store documents, but Amazon has done an excellent job of allowing the user to drag and drop a document into the Send to Kindle page/app (and, I make sure to choose the option to send only to my Scribe rather than clutter up all my devices). I have only tried one Word document so far but it came across perfectly on the Scribe. If you have a book pdf, you can simply write Chapter 1, 2, etc. on the page of each chapter then go to the notes to easily move to where you want to go. So, I have been extremely happy with this feature which would’ve been a deal breaker for me.3) Others have said that writing on the Scribe feels nearly the same as writing on paper and it does. I plan to write lecture notes, answer keys, and just some notes for myself. Amazon has done a great job in allowing the notebooks to be easily sent to my email address as pdfs, and they come across on my laptop and Fire exactly has I’ve written them. I am really, really pleased with this aspect. In the past, I would scribble an answer key or some notes on a lecture (including Graphs and math) on some scrap paper then a year later when teaching the class again realize that I’d lost the notes and have to redo them. I will be doing all my writing on the Scribe and storing them for latter use. Having read some reviews, it sounded like the current software on the Scribe was not up to the competition. I have to say, however, I am very pleased with the existing software. You don’t get twenty different widths for the pen but rather five. I really don’t want to have to choose from a great many, and what they have now is just fine for my needs. It is true that you don’t have subfolders to create and a large notebook would be difficult to find things in. I get all of those issues. However, instead of writing a 100 page notebook I plan to write lecture notes in 10 notebooks of 10 pages in length saved under one folder. By using appropriate titles for each notebook I think it will actually be better than having one rather lengthy notebook. There’s not a great many templates to choose from, but I have found the ones currently available work just fine for my needs. Again, though, the Kindle Scribe exceeded my expectation for writing notes.Overall, I am thrilled with the Kindle Scribe. I really enjoy the reading and writing experience. Given the price, did I absolutely need the Scribe? Not really. I could read the physical textbooks/technical books. I could read the pdfs on my laptop. I could write notes on paper then scan them into my computer. Or, of course, I could do these things on a good tablet. However, I have always enjoyed the reading experience on a kindle and the Scribe might be the best yet. The writing experience on the Scribe is the closest digital device to paper that I have used. I am glad to have these things on one device which does not have all the distractions that come with laptops and tablets. I hope this review helps others in making their decisions. Oh, and as others have said, the battery is amazing compared to tablets and phones.