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When the Amazon Kindle Scribe first launched in 2022, it was Amazon's first Kindle-branded device made as much for writing as it was for reading. With a 10.2 inch E Ink display and a digital pen, you could use it to take notes or annotate some documents.

Now Amazon is launching a new model with a "redesigned display" and an upgraded pen. The company is also introducing new software features that make it easier to add notes to eBooks, as well as a few AI tools. The new Kindle Scribe (2024) is available for pre-order for $400 and up and it should be available starting December 4, 2024.

One of the most obvious differences between the new model and its predecessor is that the screen bezels have been changed from tungsten-gray to white. This may seem like a little thing but it's a change designed to make the E Ink tablet's 10.2 inch screen feel more like a single sheet of paper rather than a screen squeezed between some borders.

Another change is that while the original Kindle Scribe was only available in a tungsten color, the new version is available in a choice tungsten or "metallic jade."

The final physical change? Amazon ships the new model with a "Premium" pen featuring a soft-touch eraser rather than the hard plastic eraser on the original. Folks who've tried it say that running the new eraser over the screen really does feel more like erasing pencil marks from paper.

Most of the other changes are software related.

For example, there's a new Active Canvas feature that allows you to write notes on any eBook or other document. Just start writing on the screen and a text box will appear. You can resize or move the box, and text will reflow around it. The notes you take are persistent, so they'll remain in place whenever you revisit that page, and will even show up if you change font sizes.

An Expandable Margin option lets you bring up a sidebar that you can use to take notes, and then hide it when you're finished. This saves space, but gives you a virtually infinite, scrollable canvas for your notes.

New AI features include a Refine Writing tool can take your awkward scribbles and convert them to a neater script-like font and straighten them up on the page so they're easier to view at a glance, and a Summarization tool that sends your notebook to the cloud to quickly generate a summary.

Amazon says any data sent to the cloud is encrypted and won't be used to train future AI models, but it's also worth noting that if you're not sold on the benefits of the available AI features, you don't have to use them.

While the new Kindle Scribe sells for $400 and up, Amazon is also continuing to sell the original Kindle Scribe for $340 for the time being. And since the new Premium Pen is backward compatible with the older model, Amazon is offering the option to pay a little extra for the new pen. The new software features for the 2024 Kindle Scribe are also expected to hit the 2022 model in a future update. So really, the key reason to splurge on the updated version at this point appears to be the updated display and/or color options. It's certainly possible that Amazon made some other under-the-hood changes, but the new Kindle Scribe is exactly the same size and weight as its predecessor, so I suspect that there have been few changes made to key features like the battery or display.

via Amazon, The Verge, and Maneetpaul Sing (YouTube)

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