Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have been looking at e-ink writing-enabled devices since the Remarkable 1 came out and could never justify anything more expensive than the Mobiscribe. When the Scribe was announced, I pre-ordered it, canceled my order and then bought it anyway. I'm so glad I did! So why did I almost not buy it? I'm a software developer by trade as well as a voracious reader and journaler, and let's face it; any first-generation device is going to have bugs. That's just the way of it. Overall, I am very pleased with the Scribe and use it for hours every day. It has replaced paper planners and journals. The only thing that keeps it from replacing my other Kindles as a reader is that it's a bit big. However, the size is great for writing, so I'm not complaining. Let's look at it as an e-reader. It's great. It's a Kindle. Amazon has had years to perfect the e-ink reading experience and I expected no less. Because I read far more PDF's on this device than I did on earlier Kindles, I have noticed that there seems to be an inconsistency in navigation with PDF's and, more importantly, the writing experience with them. I address this later in the review. So, the Scribe as an e-writer: it's quite good! Not perfect, but very good. Let's look at the three main ways of writing on the Scribe: 1) Annotating Kindle books - to the horror of my husband who thinks paper books are sacrosanct and should never be sullied by ink, I underline, highlight and annotate books. I love buying a used book that someone before me has annotated. I was initially disappointed that the Scribe does not allow annotating in the margins. However, I quickly fell for adding handwritten notes to highlights (and the highlight can be minuscule). It does keep the page clean and the notes can be rather copious. It also creates a file of notes and their references. Finally! I can write in a library book!! 2) Using native Scribe notebooks - based on my experience with the Mobiscribe, I thought that I'd use this the most. I use it hardly at all. It works quite well, but my beef with it is that, unlike the Mobiscribe, you cannot create your own templates or change page formats in the middle of a notebook. (Ahem! Amazon developers!! I'm looking at you!) 3) Annotating PDF's - Oh boy, do I use this extensively! I buy a PDF notebook from an Etsy seller and happily scribble notes to my heart's content. Sadly, this area is where the Scribe is the most buggy. Sometimes (as mentioned above) PDF's simply can't be written on. This appears to arise from three reasons. 1) the PDF wasn't uploaded correctly, 2) the PDF is in a format that the Scribe doesn't know how to handle, 3) the Scribe locks up. So, how to fix these issues? First, just get into the habit of sending PDF's to the Scribe correctly. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this. 1) Use the Send To Kindle web link: https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle or 2) use the plug-in for Windows or Mac, a link to which can be found on the Send to Kindle page. I'm lazy and prefer the plug-in. I right-click on the file I want uploaded in Windows Explorer -> Send to -> Kindle. It opens a little dialog box which, after the initial log in and choosing Scribe, sends it right to my Scribe. Done. Send via the email address? No. Send via a USB cable? No. Either use the web link or the plug-in and be done with it. 2) PDF formatting issues. I'd love to tell you exactly what the issue is here. I've seen a couple of potential explanations on Reddit, and mistrust them. I'm not sure anyone knows for sure right now. I ran into the issue with a reading journal I bought on Etsy and the seller worked with me until he got it. I didn't ask him what he changed. I'm thinking that, at the moment, the Scribe is so new we're all rattling bones at it, hoping to stumble on the magic. I'm hoping this will be fixed in future software releases. (Yes, Amazon developers, I'm looking at you!) 3) The Scribe simply locks up. This seems to be an issue for those of us who extensively annotate PDFs. I suspect a memory leak issue in the software that gets fixed in a future software release (Yep, one more time, I'm looking at you, Amazon developers). It could be a hardware issue if the processor chip needs to be more powerful. The workarounds I've found depend on how badly the thing has locked up. If the PDF either suddenly can't be written on or if the Scribe throws an error when trying to open a PDF, what frequently works is simply opening a Kindle book and then going back to the PDF. If that doesn't work, a soft reboot from the top menu will usually clear its little brain and get things going again. I have had it lock up so hard that the screen doesn't respond to anything. That means a hard reboot with the switch on the side. It's irritating to have this happen, but again, this is a first generation device, people! I know this review had gotten to the size of a blog post, and if you've gotten to this point thank you for staying with me. There's more. There will always be people who complain that it isn't an iPad. It's not supposed to be an iPad. You want an iPad, buy an iPad. The whole point of e-ink devices is that you don't have the distractions of a young full-blown computer. You read. You write. We're done. To me, the even bigger advantage is that there isn't the eyestrain of a tablet or computer. You're not staring for hours into light emitted into your eyes. I'm not knocking tablets. I was a first generation adopter of the iPad those many years ago and use them happily still. But for reading and now writing, give me an e-ink device. So, given that I've convinced you that a dedicated reader/writer is a good thing, why the Scribe? This is trickier. There are four major brands besides the Scribe, even the cheapest of which has features the Scribe doesn't have. These four are Remarkable (now on Version2), Boox (and they have several devices to choose from), Ratta Supernote (a few devices), and MobiScribe. I'd love to say I can review all four brands and compare/contrast. I've used the Remarkable Version 1 and own both the original MobiScribe and the MobiScribe Origin. Even the MobiScribe, the cheapest of the four, can do handwriting-to-text which the Scribe can't do (ahem). So why would I go for the Scribe? The biggest reason is the Kindle reading experience. Kindle books can be read on the other devices, but with varying degrees of ease. Because the Scribe was built by the people who built the Kindle, I expected Kindle books to be far better integrated and they are. At the moment, I'd say the Scribe is a perfect device for dedicated Kindle users. If, however, you predominantly read PDFs, probably another device would be a better choice. At least for now. The other reason the Scribe may be a good choice is the power of Amazon behind it. Let's face it, if Amazon chooses to make the Scribe a success, listens to the early adopters and studies the abilities of the competition, they have the developmental horsepower to make this thing fly. If, however, this first Scribe is a one-hit-wonder and Amazon decides that the market isn't big enough to justify the development costs, this thing is going to sink like the proverbial stone and I, for one, will be mad as a wet hen. This is, unfortunately, a real possibility. The number of consumers who want a dedicated e-ink writer are never going to be as great as those who want a more all-purpose tablet. Amazon may decide that the e-ink reader market is where they're going to stay. If that's their decision, I will cry. Loudly. Really loudly. If you made it this far, thanks for staying with me. With all its quirks, I love the Scribe. I hope you will, too.