Review: Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe (3rd Gen)

Like the Colorsoft and other similar colorful e-readers, the Scribe Colorsoft has 150 ppi (pixels per inch) of color, and 300 ppi for black-and-white. It has a new quad-core chip that promises to support both the color screen and various AI features that the Scribe has or will have soon (more on that below). You’ll get 10 colors for your pens, including black and gray, and five highlight colors. You’re able to use those colors both on the Workspace tab and on your ebooks, allowing you to highlight and underline in any color you choose.

You’ll also get a new tool for drawing. You’ll get the pen styles that we saw in the previous generation (pen, fountain, marker, and pencil), but now there’s a new shader tool that lets you layer light shades of color on top of each other for a more detailed, almost watercolor-like look. I’m not sure this is a tool I’ll use often—I wouldn’t call the Scribe Colorsoft a true drawing tablet, and would still prefer to draw with Procreate on my old iPad if I were going to work on digital art, but it’s a nice feature to have.

Bigger Brain

The Summarize tool in action

Photograph: Nena Farrell

Both new Kindle Scribes have larger storage capacity (there’s no 16 GB option anymore, just 32 GB and 64 GB) and a new quad-core chip that promises to support the various AI-powered features on the Scribe, including things like summarizing your notebook page or refining your writing, both of which you can do on the older Scribe. Newer AI-powered features like Story So Far, which summarizes books you’re reading up until the point you’ve read, and Ask This Book, which lets you ask spoiler-free questions about books you’re reading, won’t be available until next year.