Amazon’s Kindle Scribe Colorsoft won’t replace your notebook — or your Kindle

I wanted to love Amazon’s $630 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. It has everything I covet. An E Ink display with front lighting and color. A pressure-sensitive stylus. The ability to take notes and annotate my existing library of ebooks. A distinct lack of distracting apps. And, for a certain type of person, this is the sweet spot between an iPad, an analog journal, and a regular e-reader.

I’m just not that person. I thought I might be, as I’ve been searching for a gadget that lets me read books while taking handwritten, uploadable digital notes. But for a whopping $629.99, I will be sticking to my Kindle Paperwhite and Hobonichi Techo, thank you very much.

Here’s the rub: The Colorsoft’s hardware is excellent, so long as you’re cool with E Ink’s limitations. For instance, there’s always some pixelation, colors aren’t vibrant, and you’ll always see some ghosting after the page refreshes — though Amazon’s done a great job of minimizing that. Battery life is superb. I haven’t even thought about charging in the week I’ve been testing it. Using the included Premium Pen stylus is surprisingly pleasant. I say that as someone with an absurdly specific and expansive collection of pens, pencils, and markers. As a gadget nerd, a little part of me goes “Whee!” every time I use it. But as a journaling dork, hobbyist calligrapher, and bookworm, it still doesn’t quite hit the mark.

For me, the best part about e-readers is that they’re highly portable. Doesn’t matter if I’m rocking a fanny pack, purse, or backpack — my Kindle Paperwhite fits easily in all of them, so I can read my books anywhere I go. The Colorsoft is extremely light and thin, weighing 14.1 ounces and measuring 5.4mm. (That’s much thinner and a whole 1.5 ounces lighter than my Hobonichi Techo Cousin notebook.) You’d think that means it’s a great device for commutes. But with an 11-inch display, this ain’t fitting into my smaller bags. Without a case (or a Pop Socket-type grip), the thinness makes it awkward for one-handed subway or bus reading. Forget annotating. Also, good luck finding the Premium Pen if you take it on the go. It may attach magnetically to the right side, but you’ll end up rummaging around the bottom of your bag for it.

This is less of a problem if you’re curled up on a couch, Colorsoft propped up on your knees, or reviewing documents at your desk. It just means this is best as an at-home or at-office device.

A funny thing: The Colorsoft doesn’t need color unless you’re the type to color-code your notes or annotations, sketch, or read comics/graphic novels. Otherwise, the color is limited to screensavers and book covers. But if you do color-code, sketch, or read comics, then it’s a mixed bag.

On the one hand, it’s nice to read comics in color on E Ink! On the other, E Ink colors are inherently muted due to the tech’s current limitations. (You can watch our E Ink explainer for a deeper dive.) You cannot convince me that the orange highlighter on the Colorsoft isn’t brown, for example. That gives everything a newspaper-like feel, which has its own charm. But it’s less ideal for reading modern graphic novels, especially those with punchy art styles. The same goes for drawing. It’s fine if you like rough pencil sketches, charcoal, or doodling to clear your head. But if you want to do any sort of digital art, the lack of color options here makes this less versatile than an analog sketchbook and markers, or a more art-centric tablet.

Color was most useful when annotating. While reading Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall, I was ecstatic that I could use blue highlights for themes, yellow for facts I’d like to read further on, and pink for writing that made me go “Oh damn.” As an avid bullet journaler, I use bright colors to decorate, divide sections, and color-code tasks in my notebooks. It was delightful to finally replicate that in some test notes on a Kindle.

Unfortunately, I can’t confidently replace my analog notebooks with the Colorsoft. Partly because, despite Amazon’s best efforts, this really can’t compare to writing on paper. With a real pencil, brush-tip marker, or eraser, I still have much more control than I do with the stylus. The bigger reason, however, is that this is an Amazon product. At the end of the day, it prioritizes Amazon’s services.

Annotating my Kindle books was enjoyable. Documents, less so. Amazon directs you to its Send to Kindle portal. Sure, it’s fast, but it comes with Amazon’s terms and conditions. Send to Kindle documents are sent to your device with end-to-end encryption, but it’s still considered “information provided to Amazon” under its privacy policy. That means Amazon could use that data for recommendations, advertising, and personalization. You can also import and export certain files from Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Microsoft OneNote. But again, these are subject to their own terms in addition to Amazon’s. If you have a job involving classified documents, this is a security no-no. You could sideload them, but it’s another example of having to work around Amazon’s attempts to trap you in its ecosystem.

Meanwhile, importing these files is easy, but exporting them back creates another file because you’re not actually syncing over the cloud. My messy folder system can’t handle more chaos. And while Kindle books have all the bells and whistles for annotating features, the same can’t be said for all document types. Regular PDFs, for instance, don’t support Amazon’s Active Canvas feature, which allows you to write in-line with the text. There’s an AI summarization and search feature that works in your own notes, but it’s absent for documents. The AI is fine for quickly cleaning up or searching through messy handwriting, but I’d have appreciated it more when annotating a recent 48-page contract.

None of this is insurmountable. It’s just annoying enough to make the Colorsoft’s price point an even bigger hurdle.

If I were to describe the ideal Colorsoft user, they’d be a super annotator in dire need of consolidating the stack of papers littering their desk. They find E Ink’s color limitations a feature, not a bug. They’re not particular about the types of pens they use, they take relatively simple notes, they don’t mind their documents being subject to Amazon’s terms, and they’re unbothered that this isn’t the most portable e-reader. Book reading probably isn’t the main reason they want the Colorsoft, anyway. Perhaps they’re a manuscript editor, lawyer, researcher, or professor. Maybe a minimalist, bullet-journaling bookworm.

For those folks, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is the platonic ideal. But for me, the search continues.