The ability to scribble notes while reading a book is a nice bonus, although not without its shortcomings (see below). The customizable button, which defaults to the highlighter, is a nice addition but the killer app is the eraser.Į-book integration: Although it’s not the primary reason I’m trying the device, Amazon’s main competitive advantage in this market is its long history in e-books. Pen hardware: The premium pen seems worth it, primarily for the built-in eraser, which means you can just flip the pen over to erase something rather than manually selecting the eraser mode from the on-screen menu. Menu providing different options for the thickness of Kindle Scribe virtual ink.

For reference, that’s what I used to write the document above. I settled on “thin” as my preferred pen weight. Virtual pen options: Amazon offers a nice variety of virtual ink thicknesses. Especially compared with an LCD screen on a standard tablet, this feels almost like the real thing. Any lag in the ink is so small that it’s barely noticeable. There is just enough friction on the e-ink screen to create the feeling that you’re scribbling. Writing: The writing experience feels almost as satisfying as writing on paper.

A page of notes about Kindle Scribe, exported from Kindle Scribe. Here’s a page of Kindle Scribe notes summarizing my experience (and other random observations), which I’ll elaborate on below (in typewritten text for anyone unable to decipher my scribbles). It didn’t arrive on release day as promised (it was a couple days late) but I’ve now spent several days using the Scribe to decide whether to keep or return it. To find out, I pre-ordered a 32GB Kindle Scribe (Amazon’s first e-reader that you can write on), choosing the premium pen option, for a total of $390, or almost $430 with tax.

Kindle book notes export