Kindle Scribe Review

Design & Build

The design of the Kindle Scribe resembles a glass screen inserted into a metal tray or bucket. The corners and edges are nicely rounded and although the aluminium rear is smooth, it is not slippery and there is some grip for the hand. Also on the rear panel are four rubber feet (one in each corner) which prevents the tablet from sliding around on the desk.

The metal casing adds to the Kindle Scribe’s robustness. I can attest to its durability because it has been traveling with me in my rucksack to and from my office for over 2 years (without a case/cover) and other than some greasy fingermarks and a couple of almost imperceptible superficial scratches, it still looks and works exactly the same as the day I bought it.

The drawback of the metal chassis is that the Kindle Scribe is rather heavy (433g), which means it is not really comfortable to hold for long periods – as one of its main functions is as an e-reading device, this is not ideal. If you rest it on your lap or a desk, it is fine, but if (like me) you prefer to read lying on your back with the tablet raised above your head, your arms will start to ache quite quickly. There is also the hazard of dropping it onto your face (and I talk from experience when i say that this is very painful!) Another drawback of the metal casing (for me, anyway) is that it is cold to the touch – personally, I prefer plastic because it is lighter and warmer.

The left edge houses the USB-C socket (for charging and file transfer). For some tablets, the positioning of the USB port on the left edge means that the device cannot be charged with the cover closed – unfortunately I did not purchase a folio with my Scribe, so am unable to say if this is the case (but it is perhaps something to be aware of). The USB socket is located centrally and just a little higher is the power button. An issue I had with the power button is that it is positioned in the same area that I hold the tablet, and sometimes I would inadvertently push it and knock the Scribe into sleep mode whilst I was reading.

The build quality of the Scribe is very good. It is durable and robust, however it is also heavy and a little cumbersome. In terms of aesthetics, it’s not bad. There are plenty of e-ink tablets that are much less visually appealing, but there are also several that are more stylish as well.

Hardware Specs

Amazon does not publicly reveal the processor speed and memory of their Kindles, however, it is likely to have around a 1GHz CPU and around 1Gb of RAM. Whilst these specs are quite low in comparison to other e-ink tablets, this does not really impact the performance of the Scribe because it is limited by its software. The hardware is more than capable of carrying out the tasks that the Scribe was designed for (essentially, reading e-books and note-taking) because these tasks do not require a vast amount of power.

When you buy the Kindle Scribe, there are three options for the amount of storage capacity; 16Gb, 32Gb, and 64Gb. I would argue that the least expensive 16Gb version will be plenty of space for the average user. This is because the majority of e-books are under 2Mb in size, so a library of 5000 e-books will only take up about 10Gb of space. In addition, your full Kindle library is stored on the Amazon cloud and only downloaded to the Scribe when you want to read it (and can be deleted locally again afterwards). So, unless you plan on reading lots of large and complex PDFs or will be taking thousands of pages of notes, I think 16Gb would be sufficient.

For e-ink tablets that do have the capability of running third-party apps (primarily Android tablets), I usually provide CPU benchmarks in this section so that users have an idea of how more CPU-intensive apps might behave. However, because the Scribe can only run its own native apps (no third-party apps), these are not provided.

Overall, the Kindle Scribe is not endowed with a vast amount of processing power, but for the simple features it offers (reading and note-taking), the specs are sufficient.

Screen

The screen is 300PPI monochrome (black-and-white) Carta, and honestly, it looks really rich and crisp when compared with the previous generation of e-ink screens that had a screen density of 227PPI. However, I also have to say that the difference is very slight, and only really noticeable if you have both e-ink screens laid side-by-side or zoom in on some text. Essentially, I feel that there is some perceivable difference between the two screen densities, bit not an awful lot – 227PPI is perfectly adequate but you do appreciate how much clearer 300PPI is after seeing the difference.

When the Scribe first hit the market, it was the only e-ink tablet that used e-ink’s latest 300PPI Carta panel, and for a while it appeared that Amazon had exclusive access to this technology. Around a year later, more devices became available with 300PPI, and the Scribe no longer had an edge in this regard.

Around the screen are three thin bezels and a thicker fourth bezel (3-4 times wider) on the left-hand side. This thicker bezel is useful for placing your thumb without obscuring the screen (or getting greasy fingermarks on it). As a sidenote, the Kindle Scribe has a g-sensor, which means that the screen will auto-orientate depending on which way up it is, so you can have the thicker bezel on the right-hand side if you prefer.

The viewable screen size of the Kindle Scribe (measured diagonally) is 10.2″. This is slightly smaller than the industry standard of 10.3″ but is not really all that noticeable – it is still around the size of an A5 sheet of paper.

To the touch, the screen feels smooth but not slippy, a bit like a matte finish. This creates a satisfying scratching sound when you write on it (which I’ll talk more about later).

The Scribe has a really good frontlight (but this does come with some drawbacks). It has capacitive (touchscreen) capabilities and a Wacom-EMR layer (which is, in my experience, simply the best technology for stylus input).

Overall, the screen is really good quality, and great for both reading and writing tasks.

Writing Experience

The tactile writing experience on the Kindle Scribe is one of the best I have experienced, particularly for a tablet with a frontlight. Frontlit tablets tend to have a tiny gap between the surface of the screen and the point where your handwriting is displayed, which makes it feel a little unnatural. You can definitely observe this nuance on the Scribe however, it appears to have been reduced as much as possible.

The audible feedback from the scratching of the nib on the grainy screen gives me a lot of satisfaction. The screen is quite rigid, but has some flexibility, and the nibs are soft, which eliminates any kind of harsh tapping sound. In addition, it has very low latency (each stroke appears almost immediately after you make it) and for some brushes/pen types, both the pressure you apply and the tilt of the pen affect how the strokes are displayed.

Overall, the writing experience is really, really nice.

Hardware features

Like most e-ink tablets, the Scribe supports both Wifi and Bluetooth, however, the Bluetooth is really only limited to audio output, such as headphones or speakers. It may be possible to hook up a Bluetooth keyboard but I’ve not tried because the software does not really have any features whereby typed input would be particularly useful.

It has a G-Sensor, for auto-orienting the screen between landscape and portait. And, of course, the USB port supports the transfer of files (ebooks) to/from other devices.

But, apart from this, there are no other hardware features (no speakers, microphone, fingerprint scanner, MicroSD slot etc.).

Battery

The Kindle Scribe has a 3000mAh battery.

The table below shows how much battery is depleted by performing certain operations for an hour.

Test (1hr)	Scribe (% battery used)
Note-taking	2%
Reading	1%
Wifi On	+1%
Frontlight (medium)	+1%
Frontlight (Full)	+5%

So, you could expect to drain about 2% of the battery per hour when note-taking, and 1% per hour when reading. With Wifi turned on, the battery will drain an additional 1% per hour, with the frontlight on medium an additional 1% per hour, and with the frontlight on full brightness, around 5% per hour.

I calculate typical battery life from these figures by assuming 3 hours of note-taking and 2 hours of reading each day, with the Wifi turned on for 3 hours. For tablets that have a frontlight, I also factor in 2 hours on a medium setting and 2 hours on a full setting.

For the Scribe, this works out at about 23% of battery use per day, which would give you 4.3 days of use before it needed to be recharged (although this could be improved by not having the frontlight on full).

This is around average for the e-ink tablets I’ve tested – you can see how it compares to other tablets here.

Stylus/Pen

The Kindle Scribe Pen is one of my favourite e-ink Styluses to use. It is almost perfectly weighted and has a comfortable grip. It is almost cylindrical, with one edge flattened to house the button (on the Premium Pen) and prevent it rolling across the desk. This flat edge is also used to snap the stylus to the right-hand edge of the Kindle Scribe – the magnets keep it in place fairly securely but it will fall off if you give the tablet a shake. For context, the magnetic hold is slightly better than Boox tablets, but not as strong as the reMarkable 2.

There are two versions of the Kindle Pen; standard and premium. The standard Pen is more minimalistic and can only be used for writing. The Premium Pen is slightly more expensive but has an eraser at the top and customizable button on the shaft. There are several options for this button, including switching between different pen types, the eraser or the selection tool in the note-taking app.

Many people prefer the additional functionality of the Premium Pen, but personally, I prefer the standard pen for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I find that I sometimes accidentally trigger the customizable button as I write. And, secondly, the spring-loaded eraser at the top makes a slight (and it is very slight) rattling sound that irritates me. As I don’t tend to use the eraser or button functions all that much, the basic simplicity of the Standard Pen suits me better.

Software

My review of this tablet should be read in conjunction with my review of the current firmware (see table below), which includes aspects such as the Operating System, User Interface, and Native Apps.

The hardware and software reviews have been separated because the firmware used at the time that this review was written may not be the same firmware being used currently. This could result in the review quickly becoming outdated. Also, as several tablets may use the same firmware, this would mean going back and updating every single tablet review from a particular manufacturer to account for the new firmware. By splitting them up, if there is a firmware update, I am able to make the updates on a single page.

Current versions of this brand’s firmware are shown in the table below, along with the tablets running them.

My rating	Firmware version	Tablets using this firmware
	5.18 (current version) Apr 2025	Kindle Scribe 2024 Kindle Scribe Kindle Scribe Colorsoft 2025 Kindle Scribe 2025
Older amazon kindle firmware versions may be found here

Brand

For some people, it is also worth considering the brand as whole, including aspects like customer service, ecosystem, values, and criticisms.

Final Verdict

The Kindle Scribe is well-build, has a nice screen, and a very pleasant tactile writing feel.

However, it is rather heavy and bulky, and the software is very limited compared to other products on the market – you are essentially limited to e-reading and note-taking, and the note-taking app is comparatively feature-poor.

Having said this, I still recommend the Kindle Scribe because of it’s price – particularly since the release of the new Kindle (2024). And if you buy a 2022 Kindle Scribe in an Amazon sale (Prime Day, Black Friday etc.) you can often get additional discounts.

I don’t know of a better 10″ e-ink tablet available at the same price as the Scribe (or lower).

The Kindle Scribe is an affordable alternative to those working within a smaller budget, and that are happy to trade power and versatility for simplicity. It’s great for reading, and okay for note-taking (as long as you don’t expect to create structured and organised long-form notebooks).

Tablet Overview