In the event you primarily desire a pill system to mark up, spotlight, and annotate your e-books and paperwork, and maybe typically scribble some notes, Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft could possibly be well worth the hefty funding. For everybody else, it’s in all probability going to be arduous to justify the price of the 11-inch, $630+ e-ink pill with a writeable shade show.
Nevertheless, should you had been already leaning towards the 11-inch $549.99 Kindle Scribe — which additionally has a paper-like show however no shade — you could as nicely throw within the further money at that time and get the Colorsoft version, which begins at $629.99.
At these value factors, each the Scribe and Scribe Colorsoft are what we’d dub pointless luxuries for many, particularly in contrast with the extra inexpensive conventional Kindle ($110) or Kindle Paperwhite ($160).
Introduced in December, the Fig color version simply started transport on January 28, 2026, and is offered for $679.99 with 64GB.
Clearly, Amazon hopes to carve out a distinct segment within the pill market with these upgraded Kindle gadgets, which compete extra with e-ink tablets like reMarkable than with different Kindles. However high-end e-ink readers with pens aren’t going to ship Amazon a big viewers. In the meantime, practically everybody can doubtlessly justify the price of an iPad due to its quite a few capabilities, together with streaming video, drawing, writing, utilizing productiveness instruments, and the 1000’s of supported native apps and video games.
The Scribe Colorsoft, in the meantime, is designed to cater to a really particular kind of e-book reader or employee. One of these system could possibly be a great match for college students and researchers, in addition to anybody else who often must mark up information or paperwork.
Somebody significantly interested by making to-do lists or preserving a private journal may additionally admire the system, nevertheless it must get each day use to justify this value.
The system is simple sufficient to make use of, with a Residence display screen design much like different Kindles, providing fast entry to your notes and library, and even options of books you may write in, like Sudoku or crossword puzzle books or drawing guides. Your Library titles and e book suggestions pop in shade, which makes it simpler to discover a e book with a fast scan.
Spec-wise, Amazon says this newer 2025 mannequin is 40% sooner when turning pages or writing. We did discover the pill responsive right here, as web page turns felt snappy and writing flowed simply.
Regardless of its bigger dimension, the system is skinny and lightweight, at 5.4 mm (0.21 inches) and 400 g (0.88 kilos), so it received’t overwhelm your bag the best way an iPad or different pill would (the iPad mini, with an 8.3-inch display screen, weighs barely much less). You would simply stand to hold the Kindle Scribe in your purse or tote, assuming you sport a bag that may match an 11-inch display screen. In contrast with the unique Colorsoft, we like that the Scribe Colorsoft’s bezel is similar dimension across the display screen.
The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft contains a glare-free, oxide-based e-ink show with a textured floor that makes it really feel lots like writing on paper. This helps with the transition to a digital system for these used to writing notes by hand. It additionally saves on battery life — the system can go as much as 8 weeks between costs.
Helpfully, the show mechanically adapts its brightness to your present lighting circumstances, and you’ll decide to regulate the display screen for extra heat when studying at evening. However though it’s a touchscreen, it’s much less responsive than an LCD or OLED touchscreen, like these on iPad gadgets. Which means whenever you carry out a gesture, like pinching to resize the font, there’s a little bit of a lag.
Like all Kindle, you may learn e-books or PDFs on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft pill. You can too import Phrase paperwork and different information from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive on to your system, or use the Send to Kindle possibility. (Supported file varieties embody PDF, DOC/DOCX, TXT, RTF, HTM, HTML, PNG, GIF, JPG/JPEG, BMP, and EPUB.) Your Notebooks on the system might be exported to Microsoft OneNote, as nicely.
The included pen comes with some tradeoffs. Not like the Apple Pencil, the Kindle’s Premium Pen doesn’t require charging, which is a perk. It has additionally been designed to imitate the texture of writing on paper, and it glides pretty nicely throughout the display screen. With no flat facet to cost, the rounded pen doesn’t have the identical really feel and grip because the Apple Pencil. It’s smoother, so it may slip in your hand.
Amazon’s design additionally requires you to exchange the pen ideas every so often, relying in your use, as they will put on down. It’s not terribly costly to take action — a 10-pack is round $17 — nevertheless it’s one other factor to maintain up with and handle.
There are 10 totally different pen colours and 5 spotlight colours included, so your notes and annotations might be pretty colourful.
When writing, you may select between a pen, a fountain pen, a marker, or a pencil with totally different stroke widths relying in your preferences. You possibly can set your favourite pen instrument as a shortcut, which is enabled with a press and maintain on the pen’s facet button. (By default, it’s set to focus on.) In the event you grip your pen tightly and by chance set off this button, you’ll be glad to know you may shut this function off.
The writing expertise itself feels pure. And whereas the e-ink show means the colours are considerably muted, which not everybody likes, it really works nicely sufficient for its objective. An e-ink pill isn’t actually the most effective for making digital artwork, regardless of its pens and new shader instrument, however it’s good for writing, taking notes, and highlighting.
From the Kindle’s Residence display screen, you may both bounce straight into writing one thing down via the Fast Notes function, or you will get extra organized by making a Pocket book from the Workspace tab.
The Pocket book affords all kinds of notepad templates, permitting you to decide on between clean, slender, medium, or wide-ruled paperwork, and in addition all kinds of different choices. There are templates for assembly notes, storyboards, behavior trackers, month-to-month planners, music sheets, graph paper, checklists, each day planners, dotted sheets, and far more. (New templates with this system embody Assembly Notes, Cornell Notes, Authorized Pad, and Faculty Rule choices.)
It’s enjoyable that you could erase issues simply by flipping the pen over to make use of the soft-tipped eraser, as you’d with a No. 2 pencil. After all, a precision erasing instrument is offered from the toolbar with totally different widths, if wanted. Because of the e-ink display screen, you may typically nonetheless see a faint ghost of your drawing or writing on the display screen after erasing, however this fades after a bit. (It might, nevertheless, drive you loopy, we must always warn the extra explicit varieties.)
There’s a Lasso instrument to circle issues and transfer them round, copy or paste, or resize, however this in all probability received’t be used as a lot by extra informal notetakers.
There are another useful options for many who do lots of annotating, too.
As an illustration, whenever you’re writing in a Phrase doc or e book, a function known as Lively Canvas creates house in your notes. As you write straight within the e book on prime of the textual content, the sentence will transfer and wrap round your be aware. Even should you regulate the font dimension of what you’re studying, the be aware stays anchored to the textual content it initially referenced. I desire this to writing straight in e-books as issues keep extra organized, however others disagree.
In paperwork the place margins broaden, you may faucet the expandable margin icon on the prime of the left or proper margin to take your notes within the margin, as an alternative of on the web page itself.
A Kindle with AI (after all)
The brand new Kindle additionally contains quite a lot of AI instruments and options.
The system will neaten up your scribbles, and mechanically straighten your highlighting and underlining. A few instances, the highlighting motion triggered our evaluation unit to freeze, nevertheless it recovered after returning to the Residence display screen with a press of the facet button.
In the meantime, a brand new AI function (search for the glint icon on the prime left of the display screen) permits you to each summarize textual content and refine your handwriting. The latter, oddly, doesn’t allow you to swap to a typed font, however will allow you to choose between a small handful of handwritten fonts (Cadia, Florio, Sunroom, and Notewright) by way of the Customise button.
The AI instrument was not excellent. It may decipher some horrible scrawls, nevertheless it did get stumped when there was one other scribble on the web page alongside the textual content. Nonetheless, it’s a pleasant choice to have should you can’t write nicely after years of typing, however like the texture of handwriting issues and the extra analog vibe that entails.
The AI search function can even look throughout your notebooks to seek out notes or make connections between them. To look, you both faucet the on-screen keyboard or toggle the choice to handwrite your search question, which is transformed to textual content. You possibly can work together with the search outcomes (the AI-powered insights) by means of the Ask Notebooks AI function, which helps you to question in opposition to your notes.
Quickly, Amazon will add different AI features, too, together with an “Ask this E-book” function which helps you to spotlight a passage after which get spoiler-free solutions to a query you will have — like a personality’s motive, scene significance, or different plot element. One other function, “Story So Far,” will enable you to make amends for the e book you’re studying should you’ve taken a break, however once more with none spoilers.
The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is available in Graphite (Black) with both 32GB or 64GB of storage for $629.99 or $679.99, respectively. The Fig model is simply accessible at $679.99 with 64GB of storage. Cases for the Scribe Colorsoft are an extra $139.99.
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