Kindle Scribe is much more than an e-reader. You can also draw on it – CNET

When Amazon informed me that it was announcing a new Kindle, the Scribe Kindle was not what I expected. But lo and behold, Amazon has released a full-size 10.2-inch E Ink eReader that includes a stylus. You could say it’s the spiritual successor to the defunct Kindle DX, which had a 9.7-inch screen. It’s available now for pre-order for $340 with a standard stylus or $370 with a premium stylus and “will arrive before the holidays,” Amazon says.

A handful of competitors touch screen equipped with an E-readers E Ink stylus that double as digital notebooks are available from other companies, including Kobo and ReMarkable. But Amazon says the Kindle Scribe is the only front-lit 10.2-inch e-reader with a high-resolution 300 ppi (pixels per inch) E-ink display.

The device is only 5.8 mm thick (0.22 inches) and weighs 433 grams. For comparison, the Kindle Paperwhite weighs 205 grams and the new improved baseline Kindle (2022) is 158 grams. The Kindle Scribe’s front lighting system is made up of 35 LEDs. That compares to 25 LEDs for the Kindle Oasis, 17 LEDs for the Kindle Paperwhite, and four LEDs for the entry-level 2022 Kindle.

I haven’t played around with the Kindle Scribe yet, but Kevin Keith, Amazon’s VP of Devices, showed me some of its key features over a video call, showing how little there’s latency with note taking. Both the standard stylus and the premium stylus do not require power or Bluetooth connectivity and use electromagnetic resonance technology. The premium stylus has an erase function and a programmable button for an additional $30. Both magnetically adhere to the side of the eReader.

The Kindle Scribe is built from recycled aluminum and charges via USB-C (a cable but no power adapter is included, and using a 9-watt or higher adapter will speed up charging). Similar to the Oasis, it can be used left or right – you just need to flip it 180 degrees either way – and Amazon will sell a few different folio covers that convert into a kickstand and allow you to stall the device.

You can get up to three months of battery life if you just use the Scribe as an e-reader (based on 30 minutes of reading per day), but note taking consumes more power and significantly reduces the duration battery life. However, depending on usage, you can still get weeks of battery life while taking notes and doodling.

You can import a variety of file formats and document types to annotate if desired. They include Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively and HTML DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, PMP by conversion. As with other recent Kindles, you can also listen to Audible audio format (AAX) or text-to-speech audio with Bluetooth headphones or speakers. Additionally, Amazon says it’s working with Microsoft to let you export a Word document directly from a computer to your Kindle Scribe in that Word document. This feature will arrive in 2023, Amazon says.

The Scribe runs on the same Mediatek on-chip system that runs the Paperwhite. It’s capable of operating at up to 2 GHz, but only does so for certain applications that require higher performance, according to Amazon. As for storage, the base model has 16GB, but 32GB and 64GB configurations are available for more money. The Scribe is a Wi-Fi only Kindle, with no cellular option.

I asked Keith why Amazon decided to make a 10.2-inch e-reader right now after moving away from large e-readers several years ago, discontinuing the Kindle DX in 2014. This model had a limited audience but faithful who particularly enjoyed having a large-screen e-reader that could display characters in larger font sizes with enough words per line. Keith said technology — especially screen technology — has finally advanced to the point where the user experience lives up to Amazon’s high standards. Amazon could have released a similar product a few years without front lighting, he explained, but that didn’t make sense.

Amazon hasn’t said exactly when the Kindle Scribe will ship, but the product page says it will be “released” on November 30. We can’t wait to test it out and will post a full review shortly before it ships.