It’s an understatement that Amazon’s Kindle Scribe failed to meet our expectations at its launch, but there may still be hope for Amazon’s 10.2-inch eReader and Writing Device.
The company has launched four new Kindle Scribe features today, primarily aimed at improving the note-taking experience. They’re minor changes, but every change is welcome.
Amazon has introduced a new “Bird’s Eye View”, which is accessible from the top menu of the Kindle Scribe Notebook application when you’re viewing a notebook. By clicking on the button, you can see a preview of 9 notebook pages. You can also quickly delete or move them. You can swipe through the nine pages to navigate faster.
There are other features as well. Amazon has also added a PDF contrast slider that should theoretically make some PDFs easier to read. Microsoft 365 users will be able read and annotate Microsoft Word files on the Kindle Scribe using the new Microsoft “Send To Kindle” button.
Amazon has also addressed a major issue on the reading side: You can now view content in two columns if you are reading in landscape orientation. This feature was already available in the iPad Kindle app but, for some reason the Kindle Scribe lacked this at launch.
The new features are , two months after Amazon introduced subfolders for notebooks and the “go to page option”. The same update from February 2023 also added more types of fountain pen, pencil, and marker brushes with five different thickness levels. All of these changes together make note-taking more flexible, organized and efficient.
They have not addressed some of the major complaints that my colleague Alex Cranz made in her review. For example, you can’t sync notes that you take while reading a Kindle Scribe book to your Kindle app or browser. You can sync notebooks, but not type any notes from another device. Neither can you convert handwriting into text, as you can with Kobo’s brand new Elipsa 2E.
These small changes are a step in the right directions. Amazon should make further progress in the future with its software updates.
