Amazon Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: The luxury ride to digital note-taking

Quick Take

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is a new breed of e-readers from Amazon. Aside from being your reading companion, it also wants to double as your trusty note-taking device. And it does a terrific job at serving as a digital diary. The color display does a fine job of replicating the sensation of writing on paper, without any of the input lag woes you would notice on an ordinary tablet. 

It’s stunningly thin, stylish, and can go weeks without a charge. The device is interwoven deeply within Amazon’s software ecosystem, which means there are a bunch of limitations you must live with. Amazon, to its credit, has added some neat annotation features to the slate, but aggressive minimalism is the broad mantra for this one. It also costs $630, so you must really want one to get one. But once you get the hang of it, it’s hard to stop using it. 

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft design: Luxurious and sleek

I was surprised when I first took the slate out of the box. I have spent over a decade with Kindles in all shapes and forms. There is a certain expectation attached to it. Being sleek is not one of them. The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft defies all those expectations — in a welcome fashion. 

It’s just 5.4mm across, and despite its large 11-inch screen, it only weighs 400 grams. I won’t call it deceptively light, but it’s definitely not a pain to carry. Plus, the weight distribution is uniform, which, paired with the thin waistline, ensures that it isn’t going to tire your arms. 

I have the Fig colorway for review, and it is easily one of the best colors I’ve seen on a gadget in a long time. It’s not gaudy. On the contrary, it is taking after the recent winners in Pantone’s palette. The tone is understated, but it’s still fresh enough (especially for a reading device) to immediately attract attention. 

I never imagined that I would have random onlookers ask about it in cafes, but that’s exactly what happened with the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. And it happened not once, but at least four times. On two of those occasions, the strangers simply wondered, “When did Amazon start making Kindles like this?” 

Aside from the peppy paintjob, it’s the form factor that surprises. Kindles are perceived as palm-friendly, lightweight, and usually drab to look at. It’s a reading device after all, and its design has fittingly remained brutally minimalist in its styling. 

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is part of a new generation of Kindles that are built premium, and look the part, as well. It’s arresting to look at, and I got the receipts, too. I often find strangers peeking at all the review gear on my table, and they often ask, “Hey, is that the latest iPhone?” or “What kinda gadget is that?” 

That has never happened with a Kindle, until now. In a span of a month, I’ve had at least three people ask me about it. Two of them were intrigued about the color and the slim profile, remarking that it doesn’t look and feel like a typical Amazon e-reader at all. The third interested soul, a young man in his early twenties, asked if they could try the stylus and praised how natural it felt.

This Kindle wants to replace your fancy diary. And it doesn’t want to do it unabashedly. It wants to take up space in your bag, your arms, and the work desk. That also means it’s not quite the perfect size for reading during a commute, or virtually any scenario where you can’t comfortably park it on your lap. It’s more of a writing pad, with the soul of a Kindle. 

Moreover, you absolutely want a case to go with it. The coat of paint on the metallic shell is not impervious to scuffs, and they can’t be fixed. I learned it the hard way. Thankfully, the round bumpers on each corner keep the real shell from coming in direct contact with the flat surface underneath. 

A notable gripe is the somewhat weak magnetic attachment. Kindle Scribe Colorsoft has a groove alongside the right edge where the stylus comfortably docks. However, the magnetic pull isn’t strong enough. Even though it never quite fell off when I was carrying the tablet around, it does slip off when the swanky Kindle is in a bag. 

While sitting pillion on a bike taxi, the pen misaligned a few times and was on the verge of sliding off on the bumpy roads. I also wish it offered some kind of ingress protection, especially at this asking price. 

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft display: Amazon got this right

The biggest draw of this new breed of Kindles is right in the name – the Colorsoft. On the technical side of things, we are dealing with a paper-inspired panel with a color filter and light guide with nitride LEDs. Amazon says it created a rendering engine to make sure that the display interactions are fast and fluid. The 11-inch panel combines oxide-based color technology with a paper-like finish atop the glass layer.

The 11-inch panel offers a pixel density of 300ppi in monochrome mode, and drops to 150ppi in color mode. For comparison, the most affordable iPad manages 264ppi. The front light system comes with an auto-adjustment perk, and you can adjust the temperature, as well, to tweak the warmth and get a more comfortable reading experience.

The beauty of this tablet is that it doesn’t feel like a display slab. For the most part. Even with the brightness levels set to zero, the screen is lit up by ambient light. Sunlight is the best, of course, but even indoors, you won’t struggle with visibility. I love the experience of not having another screen without having my eyes singed. 

It’s just glass that feels like paper to the eyes. 

Before we dig into the fundamental Kindle parts, let’s cover the standout trick of this device, which is note-taking. It’s fantastic. I was plenty skeptical about it, but Amazon nailed the fundamentals. Before using the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft,  I extensively pushed the iPad Pro (with Apple Pencil Pro), Boox Note Max, and the Wacom Movink. The Kindle surprised me. 

There’s just the right amount of friction between the stylus tip and the glass surface to offer full control over the brush strokes. Unlike the smooth glass on the iPad, jotting down diary entries or doodling artwork on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft feels a lot more natural and realistic.

In fact, I found it more effortless than writing notes with a real pen on paper. That’s because you have to press more on the paper, and the exercise hurts my right arm right after a page, or two. On the new Kindle’s screen, the stylus glides seamlessly with tangibly lower mechanical effort.

The best part is that there is no lag between the stylus movement and the digital trail appearing on the screen. The zero-input-lag situation is perfectly complemented by accurate pressure recognition. I tried taking notes in at least five languages, including scripts that are written in the opposite direction (from right to left), and I didn’t come across any issues. 

If you are a serious note-taker, you’ll love it! 

Thankfully, the eraser and lasso tools get the basics right. The stylus is also fairly well-balanced, and it doesn’t burden you with charging hassles, either. I have half a dozen stylus pens lying around from different brands, and this one is among the best at the basics. I appreciate the fact that it has been color-matched, and it looks absolutely stunning in the fig color. Hey Apple, take some lessons, maybe? 

As far as reading color content goes, there is a tax to pay. Amazon goes for a pastel-like touch, but due to the low pixel density, zooming in often causes pixelation. And yeah, the gesture leads to color shimmer and a bit of ghosting, too. The adjustments happen within a second, but you can’t miss them. It’s not utterly jarring, but for color content that doesn’t support Amazon’s quick panel system (which works best in comics), you are left with a bit of fuzziness.

Once again, the reading experience is totally fine, and I ended my Absolute Batman catalog without any make-or-break issues. But the more pressing problem is the lack of color controls, especially if you are reading content pulled from third-party sources. You can only pick between vivid and standard color modes. I wish there were granular controls for boosting the black levels, saturation, and clarity, among others. 

The display ties into the battery life, as well. It’s a low-power screen, with barebones software and a low-end processor. In a nutshell, it’s not exactly taxing. With heavy note-taking, the tablet managed well over a week. And when used predominantly for reading, it only burned through 64% of the battery in two weeks. That’s a huge sigh of relief. 

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft software: Minimalist, at a functional cost 

Let’s move to the reading, err, note-taking part. The Scribe Colorsoft is a Kindle at heart, just with an unusually large screen and color ink support. I enjoy the zesty, colorful notes and book highlights. I love sifting through my modest digital comics selection. And thanks to the connector system, I can easily access all the stuff stored in my Google Drive. 

I am a fan of the AI-driven search experience. Even if it’s scribbled notes, you can search using a word or phrase, and the system will surface the right note or file for you. Then there’s Active Canvas, which lets you directly write on the page, while the text contents automatically adjust. I’m not a huge fan, as I prefer to jot down notes in the collapsible side panel. 

But Active Canvas works best on Kindle content. It won’t quite do its magic if you’re importing files from your local or cloud drive. Similar is the situation with the AI-powered summarization system. I would have loved this convenience for documents and reports with dozens of pages. 

From signing paperwork and skimming through a long PDF to digging into my book collection, I can do it all. But none of these experiences is nearly as feature-rich as what you would expect from an Android or iPad running tailor-made apps. Even compared to the Boox NeoReader app, the Kindle’s software feels pretty limited. 

An argument can be made here that Amazon picked simplicity over complexity. And to a certain extent, it makes sense. But once you’ve tasted something better, you start to feel the limitations. Amazon will keep you limited to its Kindle library, and you have to pass through technical hoops to enjoy content from other sources.  For example, instead of a direct transfer, you still need to go through the “Send to Kindle” bridge.

You can’t install third-party reading and file-management apps, either. The dark mode is still not here. If you intend to sketch on this slate, the lack of advanced tools such as layers emerges as a sore omission. On the positive side, not leaning too much into advanced digital tools (and multimedia support) means ghosting is minimal.  

Even though Amazon has nailed the fundamentals of note-taking, there are a few missing features that I would have loved to see here, especially given the price. For example, the color and pen choices are pretty limited. Ten in total for pens, and five for the highlighter tool. I wish there were a gradient color picker available, at least. Maybe, a transparency slider, too. 

Now, I am not someone who loves a vivid color palette in their digital notes, nor do I possess the artistic skillset to draw a hilly frame in minutes. But there are plenty of people out there who can, and for them, these are fairly crucial limitations. My sister is a fashion designer, and she quickly got frustrated at the lack of brushes and color options.  

Do you even need something like the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft? 

The status quo of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is rather peculiar. If you look at it merely as a larger tablet-wannabe Kindle, you will instantly scoff at the asking price of $629. After all, for that asking price, you can get an iPad AND a basic Kindle. And still save a few dollars. And it’s a totally fair value-first thought process. 

But the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is not targeting that audience. Instead, it’s targeting a niche that wants something specific, and they are willing to pay for it. The best analogy would be a person who is out shopping for a sedan, but instead of picking a value-for-money Toyota, they get a Lexus because it offers the extras they’re chasing as a buyer. 

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is the Lexus to the budget Toyota that is your average Kindle Paperwhite. Just as Lexus exists as a luxury offshoot of Toyota, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft exists as a luxurious sibling to the affordable Kindles, with a few special tricks of its own. You buy it for the extras, and not the mainstream e-reader facilities. 

In this case, the sleek build, stylus, the paper-like display surface, and color output are the core reasons you want to plonk cash on this one. Of course, the fact that this reader also moonlights as a fairly rewarding digital note-taker without any glaring compromises is what raises the appeal. 

Is it the best at pulling the multi-purpose trick? Not quite so. Boox offers a whole bunch of monochrome as well as color e-ink slates with a stylus slate that can do a lot more, mostly because they run Android. The OS offers nearly unlimited flexibility (in terms of apps and software), and they also offer an unprecedented level of granular control over display customizations. 

And that brings us — once again — to square one. The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft’s appeal lies in its simplicity. It is not burdened by an OS (and apps) that require powerful silicon and plenty of memory. If you look at it the other way, Amazon can keep seeding software updates on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft for years, and add new features, without ever worrying about firepower shortage. 

The underlying software on this slate is frugal, and it isn’t going to stray away from that identity anytime soon. In a nutshell, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft promises simplicity and longevity in a package that you will want to carry every day without having to worry about it going obsolete or missing out on next-gen tricks in the next few years. Simply put, it’s still very much a Kindle, albeit one that is pretty to look at and effortless to carry. 

Then there’s the note-taking aspect. There is a sizeable audience out there that still swears by physical notetaking. The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft exists to address that group with an obvious intention. That intention is the matte display, which tries to replicate the feeling of jotting down quick notes on a real diary. And it doesn’t disappoint at that. 

There is just the right amount of friction on offer that the stylus movements feel totally in control, and the digital strokes that appear on the screen are exactly what you signaled with hand movements. There is barely any delay. There are no unwanted digital artifacts. It’s just your regular pen-and-paper experience of scribbling away your thoughts and notes. 

The experience is utterly satisfying, and the fact that you can do it without even turning up the backlight gives an entirely different feel of using a digital slate. Whether it’s sunlight or indoor light sources — as long as there is ambient light —  you can use this slate without even touching the brightness slider or turning on the backlight. 

It’s a tablet in spirit, but acts more like a sleek diary that also happens to host a few hundred books and can tap into the World Wide Web from time to time. 

How I wish the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft did more 

I have been spoiled for choice, and that’s the core reason I don’t find the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft particularly appealing. In a world where you can buy ultra-thin slates in all shapes and sizes — and which offer the flexibility of Android — Amazon’s ambitious underwhelms, especially at a $600+ asking price. The luxurious Remarkable tablets also fall in the same unfortunate class. 

Take, for example, the Boox Note Air 5C. Priced at $499, this one comes equipped with a 10.3-inch Kaleido 3 ePaper screen with an anti-glare layer on top. And yeah, the quality is discernibly better, especially at color output. But that’s just half the picture. 

Boox offers the deepest level of screen color customizations of any brand out there — and by a mile. You can adjust the pace at which content is refreshed on the screen (to clean up the ghosting artifacts from the previous frame), change the refresh speed to speed up the scrolling fluidity, and, most importantly, the color output. 

Between contrast, vividness, and color brightness, you can extensively fine-tune the display output. So, whether it’s comics, or just plain text of a book, you have total control over the visual output. There are also built-in presets suited for different content consumption scenarios. 

It might sound like “doing a little too much.” But the reality is pretty different, and in a good way. You see, the Boox slate lets you experiment with not just any software of your choice, but also content format. It can handle videos just fine, while the Kindle is made strictly for reading and viewing pictures. 

And this is where controls over the screen refresh speeds, color density, and contrast come in handy. If you want the best visuals, you will see more ghosting. On the other end of the spectrum, if you can handle reduced visual fidelity on sites like YouTube, there won’t be much pixel shimmering. 

But the fact that you can still fire up YouTube and watch videos (imagine watching a retro film on a very old CRT TV), launch your favorite music streaming app, or simply dig into any multimedia content stored locally on the device is an unmissable perk. 

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft can’t even get close to that flexibility, and that’s where the unabashedly luxurious price tag really stings. That’s not the case with the Boox slate. In addition to multimedia content support, it can double as a secondary screen for your daily chores. I often used it as a dedicated surface for Teams and Slack communications, a quick peek at emails (and calendar), or simply keeping my social media indulgences away from the laptop screen. 

Even the reading experience on the Boox slate is far more mature. The built-in Boox NeoReader app is brimming with granular features, offering deep control over page layout, fonts, text styling, formatting, and more. Then there are the AI-assisted features, such as the side panel that lets you perform background research, summarize, or ask contextual questions about whatever it is that you are reading.

In particular, I love the AI-powered handwriting recognition system. Moreover, a dedicated microSD card slot further raised the bar for practical conveniences. And finally, the Boox devices offers a far more powerful silicon and more memory to handle app multi-tasking without any apparent sluggishness that would make you want to pull your hair.

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft feels comparatively tardy, which is almost criminal for this price bracket, especially for a device that is running a barebones OS where it doesn’t have to do any app-linked heavy-lifting, multitasking, or even demanding internet-connected chores. 

Should you buy the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft? 

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is an entirely different beast. It’s far ahead of your vanilla Kindle or the newer Paperwhite variants. It wants to do more than just be a portal to your library. It can handle an entirely different kind of content. It wants to read your files, annotate contracts, and offer a window into your cloud drives, too.

But above all, it wants to redefine what a Kindle is supposed to look and feel like. Amazon’s latest wants to replicate the feel of paper on a color panel, with a stylus that offers a lag-free and rewarding experience. It’s a familiar formula, but more versatile and colorful.

If that sounds like “well, that’s my dream Kindle,” go ahead and get it. But if you want a “digital note-taking slate with a pen,” the base $630 asking price is a bit ambitious. You can get a better deal elsewhere, liberated from Amazon’s ecosystem limits and offering far more versatile software. But if a turbocharged Kindle is what you want, you will love the Scribe Colorsoft and its sleek presence in your arms.

Why not try 

• Onyx Boox Note Air 5C: Beautiful build, full Android OS experience, feature-rich software, plenty of visual controls, smooth performance, and significantly cheaper at $499. 
• Kobo Libra Color: Color e-ink panel in a more portable format, plenty of note-taking tricks, waterproof build, and solid battery life. It costs $229.99, but you’ll need to fork extra cash for the stylus. 
• Remarkable Paper Pro: Lovely writing experience, less restrictive software, beautiful build, and pleasant color screen. It starts at $579, but you’ll need to shell out extra for accessories.
• Pocketbook Color Note: Matte Kaleido 3 Mobius screen, Android is the underlying software, and expandable storage, as well. Costs $599, but suffers from performance bottlenecks. 

How we tested 

I carried the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft with me every day for a month. And in that spell, I used it extensively as my primary note-taking device, especially for planning my editorial calendar and coordinating task checklists with teammates. I used a standard 20W charging brick. 

To get a better idea of the pen input and software, I used it simultaneously alongside an iPad with an Apple Pencil and a phone-sized Boox Palma reader. I had the 64GB variant for review, while the reading material was sourced from Amazon’s Kindle library and my Google Drive. 

Over the course of testing, no screen protector or body casing was applied on the device. Most of the usage was restricted to Wi-Fi usage, with intermittent spells on a mobile 5G hotspot.