E Ink note taking devices have started becoming more and more popular in recent years, and there are companies like Onyx and Kobo that offer several devices that double as ereaders and E Ink note taking tablets.
So far Amazon has yet to show any interest in the E Ink note taking market, but could that change in 2022? What if Amazon were to release a Kindle with stylus support for marking up ebooks and taking notes?
Kobo released two new ereaders with note taking capabilities in 2021, the 10.3-inch Kobo Elipsa and the 8-inch Kobo Sage.
What’s nice about the Kobo Sage is you can use it solely as an ereader if you want to; the stylus is sold separately so they’re not forcing people to pay extra for a stylus if they don’t want to use it.
Amazon could offer a similar device and it would help differentiate it from the Kindle Paperwhite line. They need to add more functionality to the higher-priced model instead of expecting people to pay $100 more just for page buttons and a metal back.
Either way something needs to change with the Kindle Oasis or whatever Amazon wants to call the premium Kindle moving forward. Right now it’s considerably more expensive than the new Kindle Paperwhite and if offers less features (no wireless charging, no USB-C, no support for 5GHz WiFi, worse battery life). That can’t go on much longer.
The last Kindle Oasis release was just a token upgrade that only changed the color of the frontlight—the design has remained unchanged since 2017. It’s time for something new.
Amazon has a better infrastructure in place for things like syncing notes, cloud storage, and collaboration than their competitors so they could have a big advantage there.
Is it asking too much for Amazon to release a new 8-inch Kindle Oasis with note taking capability later this year?
Rod says
It’s obvious that there is no way for us to know what Amazon is planning to do. No one saw the new paperwhites coming and how they upgraded them. If asking if we would be interested in getting one? I would certainly consider getting one if it works very well. I wanted to get the Kobo notetaking devices but they were a bit overpriced for what they offered. And I tend to prefer the Amazon Eco system. I would be interested in getting all the benefits of the new paperwhites with note taking would be great. For now I’ll stick with my Basic kindle and my Likebook P10.
fixaman says
I don’t think note taking will be important to Amazon. Color e-ink will be. It would open their way to pepople who read comics and manga, but also to people who need to study colourful ebooks like medicine students etc… I believe that’s their next step. Because that means more costumers buying books from them. Notws won’t make them richer, sales will 😉
Nathan says
I was making the same argument before Kobo released the Kobo Elipsa because they can make more money off selling color content than selling a note taking device, but they decided not to go in that direction. I strongly believe Amazon won’t release a color Kindle because color E Ink simply isn’t very good. They would have to charge more for it too and it has worse contrast and major ghosting issues so I just don’t see it happening. Current color models aren’t very popular at all.
Also, sorry I deleted your other comment but I don’t believe that is true—they got their facts wrong like usual.
Sportbike Mike says
I have to agree. This far the Kindle has been a quality product. Consider all the Kindle Keyboards still in use.
I don’t think Amazon will want the Kindle name associated with reader with washed out color and poor black and white contrast. When the tech improves they’ll probably get it.
As for enotes, I don’t think the market is big enough for people who take digital notes. Amazon has been selling their own brand of tablets for a decade, as far as I known none take notes organically.
Chris says
I agree with you that Amazon won’t release a color e-ink device. You’re right that color e-ink isn’t very good, and Amazon already has an “answer’ for people who want to read comics and manga. The Fire tablet.
Charlie Lyons says
I don’t think color ink is coming anytime soon, those who read comics aren’t the same readers who read books every day and subscribe to Kindle Unlimited; I think they’re different customers. The comic/manga reader typically read on iPads, or other LCD/OLED screens. I don’t think they would rush out to buy an e-ink device. I think Amazon has figured that out.
Bob Merlin says
Exactly! I read books on my Kindle and toons on a tablet.
As for e-ink color, it isn’t ready for prime time yet.
Jay Allen says
I’m not sure either, that note taking will be of interest to Amazon, the previous post re: colour eink is probably a good point. I think they’ll probably eventually do a larger device for reading/audible.
Anyone have a Kobo Elipsa with the latest firmware? – I’m interested in what the note taking features with the latest firmware are like. I know Kobo licensed Myscript Nebo features. I think Onyx Boox needs to work with someone like Myscript, Noteability, Goodnotes etc.
The Onyx UI although very feature rich needs a bit of ltc/humanistic design. Latest iteration has some great features and note taking latency is def better on Note Air 2, but I still experience intermittent lags when writing especially if I write extremely quickly.
I use Note Air 2 for work saves me shredding multiple notebooks every few months (GDPR adherence). I just don’t enjoy using it. The UI, well, it’s just not very user friendly, and the manual, frankly it’s pointless. I’ve setup language as UK/Eng but I still get Chinese showing on some parts?!?
All that being said, I love the hardware design, it’s actually a beautiful piece of tech, up there with Apple.
Is it worth £450? – I’m not sure. If it had searchable handwriting in exported pdfs (old hat now), cut/paste (bizarre, I know can’t do this), ironed out the odd latency issue while writing, I’d be ok with the price. Tbh, the UI still very much feels like a work in progress, not a polished product ready for market. I’m sure Onyx will get there in the end, but maybe by then a company like Apple will realise the value of e ink in education and the like, and make it far more polished and accessible…
Josh says
It’s neither something they can monetize nor something that makes Kindles look vastly inferior to other e-readers. Note-taking is still half niche, half fun-but-forgettable curiosity. So nah.
Rick says
I don’t think they’ll do it but I do expect they’ll release an 8 inch Oasis around Oct-Nov of this year.
Lou Sevens says
Lou Sevens here- happy new year everyone. I would at least like them to come out with a 10″ model with the larger screen. I am currently on my 3rd paperwhite 11 (first two froze; 3rd one ok so far but I am not downloading entire library at once). i also did get a 2019 Oasis (BF special)- and am thiinking of sending back my 2017 Oasis for trade in credit towards another 6.8″ 11. (sending back probably the 2018 PW as well).
I went off topic a little- but it seems to me (and I hope I am wrong) that with the 6.8″ they would likely phase out the Oasis. A larger Oasis would take up more space.
I don’t even know if I would care about note taking as much as a larger screen.
Gianna says
I do not care about a note-taking Kindle device. I take notes but not on an e-reader. Like other commenters, I would like to see a large-screen device with buttons (a large Voyage or a larger Oasis).
Kayla says
I have read hundreds of books and while I do highlight in books I never write notes in books, Physical or Kindle. In fact, I didn’t even highlight in books until I had a Kindle. I definitely would not buy an overpriced Kindle just just note taking, buttons and, a metal back 🙂
DracoSentien says
Maybe ,most people who us kindles mostly read fiction for pleasure ? It seems people who are more inclined to higher level reading of non-fiction books gravitate to other brands such as Kobo. Why else would Kobo offer both the scrubber and the note-taking functionality which is ideal for non-fiction ?
Any serious reader of non-fiction is going to want to markup the book with a stylus :
https://stevenson.ucsc.edu/academics/stevenson-college-core-courses/how-to-mark-a-book-1.pdf
^ at the risk of sounding offensive if you are not marking a book while reading it then you are probably reading at the elementary level (low level). One can afford to read fiction this way but not non-fiction and underliininng and taking notes in the ereader can only go so far.
Dan says
How is the new paperwhite since it’s larger? I like the last generation because it fit perfectly in my back pocket. I prefer hardware buttons on the Oasis, but it hasn’t fit in any pocket since the first generation, and mine doesn’t hold a charge anymore, so I use the paperwhite when I’m out, and the current generation oassis when I’m at home. I’d rather just have one, the original Oasis was the perfect device size to me.
JD says
I think including a notebook would be huge. I google-search ‘kindle with notebook’ from time to time just to see if anything new has come out.
It would be great to be able to read when you want – and switch to a notebook for journaling, brainstorming, drawing, etc. Plus, if there’d be an option to allow the book and notetaking on the same screen (perhaps in landscape mode?) that would be huge for those in classes, etc.! Maybe even a way to *pin* the page from the notebook to the page of the book (vs. notes in margins).