When Amazon announced the upcoming release of three new Kindle Scribes back in September, one of the first things that jumped out was how much more expensive they are compared to the first two versions of the Kindle Scribe.
On top of that, the covers and accessories are going to be more expensive as well. I came across listings for the official Amazon covers for the new Kindle Scribes, along with replacement styluses, and they aren’t cheap (I hadn’t noticed the listings before, but maybe they’ve been there all along, or maybe Amazon is finally getting set to start taking orders for the new Scribes).
The Executive Folio premium leather cases are priced at a whopping $139.99. There are three colors, caramel, fig, and graphite. Interestingly, there’s a flap to secure the stylus along the side of the Scribe, but there isn’t a stylus loop like on the other covers.
There’s also another type of premium leather cover with the stylus loop on the bottom, and the cover folds into different shapes so you can also use it as a stand. These are priced at $119.99, and there are two colors, graphite and fig. The “premium leather” looks completely different than the premium leather covers for the Kindle Paperwhite and Colorsoft, so who knows what that even means anymore.
The cheapest case is the plant-based leather cover for $89.99. The colors for it are matcha and graphite. It’s weird how they’re selling a matcha-colored case but not a match-colored Scribe.
Amazon also has the new stylus listed on their website, and it’s going for $84.99. It’s available in white and fig. Luckily all Kindle Scribes come with a stylus so you don’t have to pay for one of those unless you want a backup, and other EMR styluses will work as well. But the premium stylus for the 1st Kindle Scribe was only $59.99, and the basic stylus was even cheaper than that.
The bad thing about accessories being so expensive is they don’t typically go on sale all that often, and when they do they’re usually only a few bucks off. At least Kindles regularly go on sale with significant discounts, and there’s also the 20% trade-in discount on top of that, but accessories don’t apply for that, unless you go for a bundle package.
Sometimes I think these companies are getting into the eNote business just so they can charge exorbitant prices for accessories. Remarkable has been doing it for years and it seems to be working for them.
Maybe they are not making up the cost of the deices and accessories from book sale, so they have to mark up the devices to make some sort of profit off them? They are ultimately pricing themselves out of the market. 3rd pary cases generally work just as well or better than the Amazon branded cases for a much lower price.
Glad I got the original Scribe back when it was released! Also glad I picked up my little Kindle Matcha for less than the cost of one of these covers! I don’t know what Amazon are thinking here…
I was hesitant to get the $40 Paperwhite cover but after 3 disappointing third party covers, I caved and I’m happy with my purchase. I cannot imagine the same thing would happen here. Especially since I do not desire a foldable cover, so I would be stuck with the most expensive option “just because.”
I quite like my FINTIE book-like cover for my Scribe 2 for only $30.