At its product launch event in Autumn 2022, Amazon unveiled a new kind of Kindle. It’s called the Kindle Scribe and – as the name suggests – you can write on it as well as read all of the company’s e-books.
It’s the first E Ink tablet, or paper tablet, from the company but it’s certainly not the first to market. ReMarkable has made a bit of a name for itself in this space, offering its own digital notebook. So how does Amazon’s compare?
Design
- Kindle Scribe: 196 x 229 x 5.8 mm – 433g
- ReMarkable 2: 187 x 246 x 4.7 mm – 403g
There are similarities and differences between both of these devices. The main takeaway is that their different sizes will make them slightly different experiences.
Amazon’s Kindle Scribe is a little wider, but shorter than the ReMarkable, giving it a wider aspect.
From looking at it front-on, you can see that where the ReMarkable 2 has a chunkier ‘chin’ beneath the display, Amazon’s has an even bezel around three sides and – instead – there’s a thicker bezel on the left side of the screen, ideal for gripping on to with a thumb, or resting the side of your palm on when writing. And since it rotates the interface automatically, you can have it on the left or the right.
What’s interesting about the bezel – or frame – is that Amazon went with its iconic black frame, marking a clear contrast between the display area and the frame, where ReMarkable has made the front the same colour as the display, so that it blends in a little more.
It is worth noting that ReMarkable’s tablet is more than 1mm thinner, and is 30 grams lighter, which makes it feel a little more nimble in the hand. Both devices have four small rubber feet on the rear to stop them sliding around when placed face-up on a surface for writing or drawing.
Both devices are primarily designed to be controlled using the touchscreen on the front, and so only have their respective power/wake buttons. Both also have USB-C ports for charging and file transfer.
Display
- Kindle Scribe: 10.2-inch monochrome – 300ppi
- ReMarkable 2: 10.3-inch monochrome – 226ppi
- Both: Paper-like writing and reading experience
- Kindle Scribe: LED front light – auto brightness – adjustable warmth
- ReMarkable 2: No front light
Both devices are similar on the display front. The two offer a large E Ink display with a paper-like texture on the surface so that when you’re writing on it, it feels like writing on paper. It’s not rough, but it’s not shiny either, so you get that little bit of friction.
There are some differences, however. The key one being that ReMarkable’s tablet doesn’t feature any LEDs for front lighting whatsoever. That limits when and how you can use it. Or rather, means you need to have some light in the room in order to see the display.
The Kindle Scribe has 35 LEDs, designed to illuminate the display when light levels drop. Plus, like the Kindle Oasis and Paperwhite, you can adjust the warmth to make it more comfortable to read at night. You can schedule this warm light to come on at set times or automatically at sunset. It has auto-brightness too, so can adapt the brightness of the display to match your environment.
Of course, both devices still have their transflective properties, so if you’re in a room or area with lots of light, it will look great. But in dimmer light conditions, there’s no competition. Kindle is the one.
The other advantage of the Kindle’s display is that it’s sharper. At 300 pixels per inch – compared to Remarkables 226ppi – it means crisper text and visuals with smoother lines. With that, combined with the lighting, it’s a better all-round experience from Amazon’s device.
Software, hardware and features
- Kindle Scribe: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB options
- ReMarkable 2: 8GB storage
- Kindle Scribe: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
- ReMarkable 2: Wi-Fi
- Kindle Scribe: 12-week battery (reading only) – 3 weeks battery with writing
- ReMarkable 2: 2/3 week battery
What’s interesting about these two devices is that – while technology and hardware is similar – the software means they’re targeted at slightly different buyers. ReMarkable’s paper tablet is designed to replace all of your notebooks, journals, written to-do’s and anything else you typically use paper for.
That means when you first boot it up you’re guided through how to create a new notebook, and you can choose from any number of templates designed to mimic page formats you’d find in any number of different books. You can have a daily to-do agenda template, regular lined and ruled pages, grids, and dotted pages, as well as more niche formats like guitar tablature and blank sheet music templates. There’s a lot of flexibility.
You can also sign into your OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive accounts if you have a Connect subscription and get immediate access to your supported documents on those services. Since ReMarkable’s tablet has Wi-Fi, it connects directly to those cloud services. And – with the ReMarkable app for desktop – you can drag and drop compatible files into your tablet directly.
You can read e-books on it, but it means dragging and dropping EPUB files manually.
In contrast, Amazon’s device is built on the Kindle platform, and so is already primed and ready for easy access to lots of books. It works just like any other Kindle, with access to millions of titles through Amazon’s own store. That ease of access is a key part of the reading experience and much simpler than Remarkable for reading.
The Kindle Scribe also offers templates for checklists, lined paper, grid paper and others. It offers a handful of different ruled paper and lines paper templates, plus to-do lists, daily planner formats as well as blank, dotted and grid paper. You even get sheet music. It’ll need a lot more additions in software updates to approach ReMarkable’s offering here.
Like the ReMarkable, it also offers support for reading PDFs, Word files and other documents. You can use the Kindle phone app or the ‘Send to Kindle’ web browser tool to send any documents to your library and read them or annotate them on the Kindle Scribe.
Plus, you can add sticky notes in any books that you’re reading, and either handwrite or create text notes. Sadly, there’s no handwriting recognition or conversion to text on the Kindle Scribe. With the Remarkable, you do get that feature and the option to convert a written page into text.
With Kindle, however, You get audiobook support through Audible, as well as VoiceView screen reading – both of which work over Bluetooth using a pair of connected headphones. Kindle also has more storage, so you can download a lot more to the device.
One advantage of Remarkable is that – using a cloud service and desktop or mobile app – you can access all of your ReMarkable notebooks and documents from pretty much any other device. To get unlimited cloud storage, there’s a subscription involved but it’s very affordable and comes with a 3-year protection plan for their tablet too.
Price
- Kindle Scribe: $339/£329 (includes pen)
- ReMarkable 2: $299/£299 (Marker not included)
On the surface, it may seem the ReMarkable 2 is more affordable, but when you factor in that you will need to buy either the standard Marker ($79/£59) or Marker Plus with built-in eraser ($99/£109), you’re realistically going to be spending a minimum of $378/£358 on the ReMarkable tablet.
Amazon’s entry-level option includes the Basic Pen for the $339/£329 starting price point. You can pay extra if you want more storage or the Premium Pen which – like ReMarkable’s Marker Plus – has a built-in eraser on the back.
Verdict
If what you’re after primarily is a tool to get you access to Drive and Dropbox files, and something designed to replace your many different journals, to-do lists, diaries and notebooks, the ReMarkable is a great option. It’s also lighter and thinner than the Kindle Scribe.
Amazon’s big advantages are the tie-in to the Kindle e-book store, support for audio and the LED front-lit screen which means you can use it even when you’re not in a bright environment. ReMarkable’s device requires light around you in order to be easily visible. Plus, you get a lot more storage space on the Amazon device.
We suspect the Kindle will be the one that makes the most sense to most buyers, but there’s definitely appeal to ReMarkable’s minimalist approach.