Amazon has added another Kindle deal to their Prime Day offerings, and as far as “deals” go, this is a really good one.
Amazon Prime members can now get the Kindle Scribe for $199 in brand new condition. That’s with the basic pen; you can get one with the premium stylus for $219. Considering that version of the Scribe originally sold for $339 ($369 with the premium pen) that’s a pretty steep discount.
This deal is for the 1st Kindle Scribe that Amazon released in 2022. The newer version that they released in 2024 is so similar they are both considered the same generation. They just changed the color of the bezel to white on the 2024 model, and they changed the texture on the screen slightly and did away with the basic stylus, but otherwise they’re virtually identical and share the same exact hardware and software features.
Unfortunately only the 16GB version of Kindle Scribe 1 is on sale, but that’s more than enough space for a Kindle unless you have a massive selection of audiobooks and comics and PDFs that you absolutely insist on having downloaded all at the same time.
People get mad when I say 64GB (even 32GB) is an absurd amount of storage space for a Kindle, but it’s true. Kindles have a very basic user interface with very few sorting and organizing options. Trying to navigate 50GB+ of content, or even 20GB of content on a Kindle would be a total nightmare.
In the library view everything is displayed in one long list. Even with a few hundred ebooks it’s difficult to find anything without running a search. Kindles don’t support true folders and their collections are awkward to setup and use. And collections are going to be especially difficult to setup for sideloaded content having to do everything from the Kindle’s limited UI selecting each book/document individually to add to a collection while having to scroll through an endless list with few sorting options.
Anyway, $199 is a great price for an eNote with a 300 ppi screen, even if it is the 16GB model. You won’t find anything else with a 10″ E Ink screen close to that cheap, except maybe the other Kindle Scribe. The newer Scribe is still marked down to $259 for Prime Day, but the Essentials Bundle is the better deal at $269 with the added cover and wall charger.
I’d say the Essentials Bundle is the better overall deal at $270 with the added cover and wall charger even against the $220 Scribe 1 without a cover.
I’d say the Essentials Bundle is the better overall deal at $270 with the added cover and wall charger even against the $220 Scribe 1 without a cover.
I’d also say one of the leather covers is a better one versus the fabric one.