My hand is cramping. It’s not carpal tunnel or another doubtful motive that’s inflicting the ache. It’s an analog ache that’s oddly satisfying in a nostalgic manner. In the previous couple of days, I’ve held a pen and written extra phrases for a for much longer time than I’ve ever carried out in years. As I pushed myself to handwrite massive elements of this assessment to spend extra time with the 2024 Kindle Scribe’s stylus and note-taking instruments, I began to really feel a sensation I hadn’t remembered since my teenagers.
I usually really feel the urge to jot down ideas and lists, however I by no means actually needed to spend longer than quarter-hour writing. And but, Amazon’s new AI features for the Kindle Scribe appear to cater extra to those that labor over essays or missives that they finally have to share with others. The Summarize and Refine instruments on your notebooks, for instance, can shorten and neaten up your scrawl so, I assume, you may ship it to a different particular person to learn. That’s it, actually. The opposite enhancements to the Scribe’s writing expertise are for scribbling on books, which I’ll get to in a bit.
Editor’s notice: As a result of Thanksgiving holidays within the US, we have not had the time to check each component of the Kindle Scribe 2, so we cannot be assigning a assessment rating. With that stated, the product is already on sale, so we needed to offer our preliminary impressions and are publishing a assessment in progress. We’ll replace the story with a rating and extra impressions as soon as we’re happy that we have understood all of its strengths and weaknesses.
Amazon
To this point, the Kindle Scribe 2 is an effective ereader and competent writing pill with functioning AI-powered abstract and refinement options. However we’re undecided if its worth is justified.
- Easy studying and writing expertise
- Svelte design
What’s modified on the brand new Kindle Scribe
As I stated earlier, most of what’s new on the Kindle Scribe is inside. On the skin, Amazon did tweak the bezels not in precise dimension however in colours, in order that there’s a white rectangle surrounding the display, inside a teal inexperienced column on the facet. In case you opted for the “tungsten” model, then as an alternative of teal inexperienced you’ll see darkish grey. I like the brand new coloration, however it’s a bit complicated and makes me assume the grippable space is narrower than earlier than when actually, it’s about the identical. Nonetheless, it is a small grievance, if that, and one that’s principally mitigated by how contemporary the brand new model seems to be.
The opposite essential change is on the Premium Pen, which now has a rubberized prime for its fake eraser. I’ve at all times appreciated how simple this was to make use of on the original Kindle Scribe, and I’m completely happy to report that the up to date texture doesn’t get in the best way of responsiveness. It actually feels sufficient like erasers of my youth that once in a while I discover myself subconsciously swiping away phantom mud. I’ll level out, although, that I needed to remind myself to make use of the eraser on a couple of events, since I used to be extra accustomed to easily putting out a mistake with the pen. The brand new Premium Pen additionally has a customizable shortcut button so long-pressing it may well activate the highlighter, pen, marker, pencil, eraser, canvas or sticky notice.
Drawing on books on the brand new Kindle Scribe
Lastly, along with the 2 AI-related instruments I already talked about, Amazon additionally up to date how one can write on ebooks. As I described in my hands-on in October, the brand new Lively Canvas characteristic makes it so that after you place your pen on the web page, a field will seem to comprise your writing. In comparison with the clunky implementation on the older mannequin, which required you to first go to the floating toolbar on the left of each web page, choose the sticky notice characteristic after which write in it, this appeared an enormous enchancment.
In my testing thus far, although, this was much less spectacular. The software program was buggy in my expertise. On one event, I drew a spiral over the phrases “We had yarn about outdated instances” in an Agatha Christie novel. A translucent field appeared, containing my drawing in a layer above the textual content, with a verify mark and cross on the prime. You’re speculated to faucet the verify, which can trigger the field to completely solidify and the remainder of the web page’s phrases will rearrange themselves to make room. Nonetheless, after I hit X accidentally, the field didn’t go away, and I used to be capable of proceed so as to add doodles all around the display. After I flipped to a special a part of the guide and got here again, although, it disappeared, solely to reappear later after I was attempting to underline one thing.
That’s clearly only a bug, and when executed as meant, Lively Canvas does work. You possibly can resize the field, and contours will proceed to reflow to make room or snap again into place. The containers will keep the place you left them, as an alternative of disappearing below somewhat tag the best way they did with the unique Scribe. It’s a slight enchancment, and although I can’t but think about how I’d use it in actual life, it’s good to understand it’s there.
I do need to level out a few caveats, although. This doesn’t work on samples — you may inform whether or not the Lively Canvas is supported by checking if the floating toolbox is current. The opposite situation, which is an even bigger one, is that Lively Canvas can typically be triggered even while you’re simply attempting to underline one thing. Drawing traces below or on textual content will generate underlines, which shall be listed by Amazon the identical manner highlights are, so you may simply discover them once more in a while.
It’s fairly annoying while you’re attempting to underline some textual content and the phrases bounce away to make room for a field you by no means needed to seem. It will get much more irritating when, because of the lag, it’s important to look forward to seconds for the field to go away after you faucet the X on prime of it. Worse, that bug I discussed earlier prompted the spiral and different doodles I had drawn to point out up the place I used to be attempting to underline phrases. Fortunately, I used to be capable of delete that when it reappeared and had no extra phantom containers.
These little hiccups could be much less of an issue if Amazon weren’t already behind its rivals. Related merchandise from firms like Kobo already supply higher help for writing on books, the place you may circle particular phrases and the drawing will keep in place (although that is wonky in case you resize the textual content afterwards). I perceive that Amazon has to handle the resizability of its content material, to help individuals who usually change up font sizes whereas studying. There must be a greater manner.
One may be coming. On the Kindle’s launch occasion, the corporate did preview a collapsible margins characteristic, which helps you to scribble within the column on both facet of each guide. Importantly, you’ll have the ability to resize these columns and the area in them can scroll vertically, supplying you with loads of room to cram in your musings. Sadly, this characteristic is simply going to be out there in early 2025, so I wasn’t capable of check it out. It’s additionally value noting that the unique Kindle Scribe, which continues to retail for $340, shall be getting the Lively Canvas and generative AI options, in addition to the collapsible margin when that arrives.
Generative AI options on the brand new Kindle Scribe
The place issues really feel extra completed is in Notebooks, the place Amazon has needed to take care of fewer limitations. This part incorporates your lists, jotpads and artworks. Like you might on the unique, you may choose from quite a lot of backgrounds like traces, a dot grid and even planner or calendar views.
It’s right here that you simply’ll discover the brand new Summarize and Refine instruments, by tapping on the sparkles icon on the highest menu bar. Choosing both “Summarize” or “Refine writing” will deliver up the choice to work Amazon’s magic on the web page you’re on or your complete pocket book. After you resolve, the Kindle will get to work, utilizing cloud-based processing to generate both a abstract of your phrases or a tidied up model of your rooster scratch. This normally took about 10 to fifteen seconds, relying on the size of the supply materials. As soon as a result’s returned, you’ll additionally get the choice to customise the font and line spacing, in addition to the flexibility so as to add it to the top or starting of your pocket book.
I used to be stunned to see the Scribe make sense of a disorganized plan I made for opinions protection that concerned some lists with three in a row up prime, two on the backside and three lining the proper facet. The Refine instrument precisely laid them out in sequential order, giving me an inventory of lists beginning with the one I had within the prime left place and ending with the tiny one titled “OSes” that I had squeezed in under “iPads” on the backside proper.
The abstract it returned for this instance was additionally respectable, and in all the opposite notes I examined I noticed largely correct outcomes. Any mistake the system made felt cheap, since I’ve horrible handwriting. It’s probably not the Scribe’s fault that it thought I wrote “Addly” when actually I simply had a particularly malformed “n” and a barely legible “g” on the finish of “Including.”
After I did make an effort to jot down extra neatly, the Scribe was extra correct, however that nearly feels prefer it defeats the aim. If I’m going to attempt to write higher for the AI so it may well make my handwriting neater for others to learn, then how is that completely different from making a better effort for people?
As competent because the generative AI options right here have been, I nonetheless stay hesitant to name them helpful. I’m not the form of person who likes writing lengthy sufficient to want AI summarization (to that finish, you’ll have to have at the least 25 phrases on a web page to qualify for Summarize). I additionally don’t usually share my handwritten ideas with different folks, although on the extraordinarily uncommon event that I do, I may see Refine being begin.
The issue is that Refine isn’t at all times correct, and its generated outcome isn’t editable. If I may go in and proper “Addly,” then I may not thoughts sending that doc to my crew. Or if that had been the one mistake within the refined writing, I may share the notice and inform my associates to disregard the one error. However I’d have to jot down an entire new appendix simply to make clear the errors, at which level I would as properly kind up my authentic ideas.
Neither Refine nor Summarize are groundbreaking new options in generative AI and even note-taking, both. Apple provides a model of Refine on the brand new iPadOS, whereas Summarize is one thing we’ve seen throughout merchandise from Google, Apple, OpenAI, Samsung and extra. Whereas I respect that Amazon has largely averted chasing hype with its adoption of generative AI on the Kindle Scribe, I want extra time and testing to raised perceive how helpful it may be in the long term.
What I like concerning the Kindle Scribe 2 thus far
As I did with the unique, I do just like the Scribe loads. It provides a easy, handy writing expertise in a svelte, comparatively mild bundle that’s simply 0.22 inches thick and weighs 433 grams (0.95 kilos). None of these dimensions have modified within the second-gen mannequin, although the ten.2-inch display someway appeared sharper to me, regardless of having the identical brightness and pixel density.
Studying on such a roomy canvas is a pleasure, though I want to take the Paperwhite on the go because it’s loads simpler on my wrist. That expanse might be useful for these with visible impairments that may want a a lot bigger font, for instance.
I’ve additionally favored doodling on PDFs and “write-on books.” The latter is a class of titles within the Kindle retailer which might be formatted so you may doodle straight on them. I borrowed a few these by my Kindle Limitless subscription, and had a blast fixing cryptography and Sudoku puzzles. I did see some promising books on this class, like interactive or hyperlinked planners, however the buyer opinions for these put me off.
There may be a whole lot of potential in that area, although, that would make the Kindle Scribe much more helpful. I simply want Amazon would make investments extra within the format and make a pocket book you may write on that will additionally work along with your telephone’s calendar or reminders app and seamlessly combine what you write in your planner into your digital universe.
What I don’t like concerning the Kindle Scribe 2
Alas, that isn’t a actuality. And the truth is that there are numerous issues Amazon may stand to enhance. Whereas I can perceive that discovering a approach to hold a unfastened stylus hooked up to a pill is difficult, the magnetic edge that the Premium Pen can latch onto is only a precarious strategy. I used to be strolling into my house with the Kindle Scribe in my hand and jostled the door accidentally. Two seconds later, I used to be questioning the place the stylus had gone. It was on the ground, and after I picked it up, I seen the nib was slanted.
I didn’t know if I had broken it, and although it nonetheless labored properly, I ultimately noticed some scratches on the Scribe’s display that I think may not have been there had the pen not dropped as a consequence of a lightweight knock in opposition to a doorframe. The corporate does embody some alternative nibs within the field, so fixing that is pretty simple.
I additionally actually want Amazon’s Notebooks had been extra versatile. They’re higher than they had been with the unique Scribe, however you continue to can’t edit them within the cell Kindle app. You possibly can view your Notebooks there, which is good, however it’s barely annoying that they’re listed in alphabetical order as an alternative of based mostly on what’s not too long ago been opened like they’re on the Kindle.
Amazon charges the brand new and authentic Scribes as having the identical battery life — that’s, as much as three weeks in case you write for about half an hour a day, and as much as 12 weeks in case you learn for that very same period of time. In my assessment of the older mannequin, I noticed battery numbers drop 35 p.c in a couple of week with a lot of writing and testing. With the brand new Kindle Scribe, the facility degree is at the moment at 21 p.c after popping out of the field at 50 p.c simply a few days in the past. I’ve been testing its AI, writing and annotating options fairly relentlessly in that point, and normally see the share fall one or two factors every time I generate an AI abstract or refinement, too.
I’ll want way more time to get a greater sense of how the brand new Kindle Scribe’s battery holds up below extra normalized use, but when it behaves like its predecessor, I shouldn’t have to cost it greater than as soon as each couple of months.
Wrap-up
Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe has a whole lot of competitors from firms like Kobo, Boox and reMarkable. And with a worth of $399, the brand new Scribe is a whopping $60 costlier than its predecessor, which can even get a whole lot of the brand new software program updates. To be truthful, the brand new Scribe comes with a Premium Pen for the worth, whereas the cheaper mannequin solely features a Primary Pen, so that you’re partially paying extra for a greater stylus.
Whereas I do like the brand new coloration choice and barely improved annotation capabilities, I’m undecided Amazon has carried out sufficient to justify the extra value right here. I’d a lot slightly see the corporate focus its efforts on bettering its Pocket book syncing and cell enhancing software program, in addition to investing in innovating on the write-on guide format, than chase the generative AI pattern. Irrespective of how a lot restraint it’s exercised in doing so.
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