Amazon hosted a hardware event in New York City this morning where they announced several new electronic gadgets, including three new variations of the Kindle Scribe with crazy high prices.
There’s a new version with a color E Ink screen called the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, and there are two new black and white versions of the Kindle Scribe, one with a frontlight and one without a frontlight. All have 11-inch E Ink screens now, up from 10.2-inches on previous models. They’re still 300 ppi like before, with 150 ppi for color content on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.
The new Kindle Scribes have a sleeker, more tablet-like design with smaller borders, and the weight is down to 400 grams from 433 grams, despite being larger, so they’re a bit lighter as well.
Amazon claims the new Kindle Scribe is 40% faster, and the writing latency is under 12 milliseconds. They say they redesigned the LED frontlight system, while reducing the gap between the screen and front layer. They also say they improved the texture on the screen to make it feel more paper-like.
There are several new software features too, some you wouldn’t expect, including integration with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, and there’s a new home screen layout with a Quick Notes box to write notes in. There are some new AI features as well for searching notebooks and providing overviews of notebooks. You can also get spoiler-free recaps of books up to the point where you’ve read.
New Kindle Scribe Prices
This is where things get crazy. Amazon is raising the price of the Kindle Scribe significantly. The old Kindle Scribe starts at $399, and it’s currently on sale for $299, but the new Kindle Scribe starts at $429, and that’s for the model without a frontlight. The frontlit version starts at $499, and the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is $629.
Oddly, they aren’t available to pre-order yet, but you can sign up to get notified when they become available. The links to the product pages are below. Amazon says the new BW Kindle Scribe and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft will be available in the US “later this year”, and the Kindle Scribe without a frontlight will become available early next year. They also said that all three products will be available in the UK and Germany early next year.
Kindle Scribe – $429.99 16GB
Kindle Scribe with Frontlight – $499.99 32GB – $549.99 64GB
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft – $629.99 32GB – $679.99 64GB
I hope the new AI features and the ability to import Google Docs comes as an update to older Scribes sometime next year. I’m happy with the writing ability of my Scribe 2. The new hardware features sound nice, but the price, yikes. I bought my Scribe 2 during a severe sale this past January. If a Scribe 3 ever has a similar sale, I’ll consider it.
Well Nathan! 🙂 Just for you …2 black and white versions., and a color variant. Just makes sense as all they had to do is a a color film layer for one model. If Kobo is smart they will do something similar. Black and white is not dead yet.
Don’t quite get the one lacking a frontlight…but I guess it’s a step up story that makes sense. Crazy prices.
Yeah, I’m glad to see they aren’t giving up on black and white E Ink. When they started the presentation by saying that over 60% of Kindle device sales are to new customers I was a bit worried things wouldn’t go that way, but it’s good to see they aren’t going the Kobo route. Good thing too, because they aren’t going to be selling a lot of color units at that price.
No doubt about that price Barrier. A qualitative bar seems have been raised. It will be hard for companies to put outdated tech out there.
11 inch screen, sorta IPad symmetrical look. Honestly, I’m impressed…even though I am drawing away from Amazon over content incompatibilities. I also have a bunch of e pubs.
I was interested in the color Kindle Scribe until I saw the price and mentally choked.
I wonder how many people will spring for something more than the entry-level iPad. I’m not knocking eReaders, mind you. I’m just saying that it’s hard to rationalize purchasing something that expensive.
In principle, the only one that might interest me (and not very much) is the Colorsoft, perhaps if I could take advantage of a special offer. But I think that this time around, these devices are not for me.
If they accept trade-ins for the 20% discount, which they probably will, that could get the price of the Colorsoft version down to $504, which is pretty reasonable considering Onyx’s Note Air Color sells for $529.
Otro dispositivo a color con Kaleido3? Paso…
According to Amazon’s website the old model is 5.8 mm thin, not 8.4. So the difference is actually just 0.4 mm.
The whole thing is just ridiculous. 100 % price of Remarkable but with 10 % of functionality. I honestly don’t see who this is for.
Also the model without front light… Remarkable has one because it’s an old model. Why make this in 2025?
And last but not least… For years all I hear everywhere is people complaining about Scribe being too big and they make it even bigger and don’t introduce smaller version?
This whole upgrade sucks.
You’re right, I was looking at the thickness of the stylus that they list in the specs for the Scribe for some reason. I can’t believe they’re bragging about it being 0.3mm thinner like it’s some major achievement; it’s among their top 3 marketing points for crying out loud. 😀
The price is pretty much what I expected (I am actually surprised that people thought it would me cheaper), but it‘s getting too big.
At this point, what I really want is a 8 or 9 inch colour Oasis.
I would really like 9 for an e reader. A lot of information on each page without being too hard to handle for long periods.
However, 11 seems to be fantastic as a note device. Don’t be surprised if the prolific Onyx puts out something similar.
I probably won’t get it, but, I expect high quantity. A premium reader …super premium price. Definitely a trade-in, sale type of thing.
I wonder if the cheapest Scribe will end up having the best pure contrast, as removing the front lights might reduce the layers on top of the e-ink display.
It is starting to look like Amazon is trying to shove the Scribe down our throats. I could care less about note taking. What I would like to see is a ColorSoft screen in the 7 inch Kindle that my old eyes can comfortably see.