I tested the Kindle Scribe for two weeks, and its best feature isn’t what I expected

can be considered a 2-in-1, as it’s both a note-taking tablet and a dedicated e-reader. It does both well, and it stands out from the crowd because of how it combines these two features. 

The Scribe’s physical form factor is sleek and light, with a thick grip that allows it to be easily held by either your right or left hand, as turning it upside down realigns the perspective. 

Also: Amazon just launched four new Kindles, including a full-color model. Here’s what’s new

The Kindle Scribe’s standout feature, however, is its “Active Canvas,” which allows you to take notes and scribble your thoughts directly onto the pages of your book — something that resonates with me personally as an avid note-taker. 

The new Scribe comes with a pen that allows you to change your brush size and shape from a pen for margin scribbling to a highlighter if you’d rather emphasize certain parts of the text. The cool design element here is that the notes you draw with the pan exist on another “layer” than the book text, allowing you to edit what you write without messing with the text in the book. 

Also: The best Kindles of 2024: Expert tested and reviewed

In practice, the active canvas appears as a blank space in between the text where you can jot down your thoughts. I can see this functionality being useful for certain texts, but it might be a bit distracting for others. I actually found that I preferred using the sticky notes function, which drops a tiny icon on the text that, when tapped, opens up a floating window with your notes that can then be closed. 

The on-board AI is very good at parsing even the most illegible chicken scratch, although it does get a little dodgy if your handwriting approaches complete illegibility. 

The display on the Kindle Scribe is quite nice, if rather similar to other Kindle models. It has 300 pixels per inch, which results in fine and crisp text, even with the tiniest fonts. The screen can also get quite bright, making it easy to see outdoors. You can also adjust the warmth of the display, going all the way to a more sepia-toned image on one end or a cool white on the other.

Also: The best reading tablets of 2024: Expert tested and recommended

Regarding battery life, Amazon advertises up to 12 weeks on a single charge if you read for about 30 minutes a day, but that number starts to go down if you use Scribe for lots of writing and note-taking. In my testing over the course of a few weeks, I only bothered charging the device a few times, and with intermittent, average use, you’ll probably get multiple weeks out of a single charge. 

The device itself comes with either 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of on-device storage, which is quite a lot of space for e-books. In practice, this is enough space to hold thousands of books, enough for a veritable digital library.

The device is geared to store more than just e-books, however. If you’re using the Scribe, you’re probably going to be taking lots of notes. You organize them by keeping them in notebooks, which, like physical ones, are books with multiple pages.