Just for the record, Kobo, reMarkable and Onyx have had similar e-readers that you can take notes on for quite a while.
For 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
I 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!
I 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.
I 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.
I was really hoping for a Kindle with USB-C and page turning buttons; inexplicably this still does not exist.
As 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 + VĂ–BB 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?
I 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.
This 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.
Ironic 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.
How 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.
It'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.
I 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.
So 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
A4 is the smallest tablet size that is practical for writing. Not sure how many people will keep using Scribe when they realize it.
I 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.
I 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.
I'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.
This is exciting news not because it's Amazon, but because this could create economies of scale and decrease the price of more flexible alternatives
I 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.
For that prices, makes little sense to me why you wouldn’t buy a Kobo Eclipse instead.
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Boox 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.