If you primarily want to mark up, highlight, annotate, and even jot down notes on your e-books and documents on your tablet device, Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft may be worth the hefty investment. For others, it’s probably hard to justify the cost of an 11-inch, $630-plus e-ink tablet with a writable color display.
However, if you were already interested in the 11-inch $549.99 Kindle Scribe, which also has a paper-like display but no color – you could at that point drop the extra money and buy the Colorsoft version, which starts at $629.99.
At these price points, both Scribe and Scribe Colorsoft are unnecessary luxuries, especially when compared to the more affordable traditional Kindle ($110) and Kindle Paperwhite ($160).
The Fig color version, announced in December, just started shipping on January 28, 2026, and is available in 64GB for $679.99.
Clearly, Amazon wants to carve a niche in the tablet market with these upgraded Kindle devices that compete with e-ink tablets like the reMarkable more than other Kindles. But a high-end e-ink reader with a pen won’t bring many users to Amazon. On the other hand, the iPad’s many features, such as streaming video, drawing, writing, using productivity tools, and the thousands of native apps and games it supports, can help just about anyone justify the iPad’s cost.
Scribe Colorsoft, on the other hand, is designed to cater to a very specific type of e-reader or e-book worker. This type of device is suitable not only for students and researchers, but also for those who need to mark up files and documents on a regular basis.
Those who are particularly interested in creating to-do lists or keeping a personal diary may appreciate this device, but you’ll need to use it daily to justify the price.
The device is very easy to use, with a home screen design similar to other Kindles, with quick access to notes and libraries, and even suggestions for books you can write on, such as Sudoku and crossword puzzle books and drawing guides. Library titles and book recommendations are displayed in color, making it easy to scan and find books.
In terms of specs, Amazon says this new 2025 model is 40% faster at page turning and writing. We found the tablet to be responsive here. Page turning felt quick and writing progressed easily.
Despite its large size, the device is thin and light at 5.4 mm (0.21 inches) thick and 400 g (0.88 pounds), so it won’t weigh down your bag like an iPad or other tablets (the iPad mini, with its 8.3-inch screen, weighs slightly less). Assuming you have a bag that fits an 11-inch screen, you can easily carry Kindle Scribe in your bag or tote. I like that the Scribe Colorsoft’s bezels are the same size around the screen compared to the original Colorsoft.
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft features a glare-free, oxide-based e-ink display with a textured surface that resembles writing on paper. This will help those who are used to writing notes by hand as they transition to digital devices. It also saves battery life. The device will last up to 8 weeks between charges.
Conveniently, the display automatically adjusts its brightness to suit the current lighting conditions, and can also be adjusted to make the screen warmer when reading at night. However, while it is a touchscreen, it is less responsive than an LCD or OLED touchscreen like the iPad devices. This means there will be some lag when performing gestures such as pinching to change the size of the font.
Like any Kindle, you can read e-books and PDFs on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft tablet. You can also import Word documents and other files from Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive directly to your device, or use the (Send to Kindle) option. (Supported file types include PDF, DOC/DOCX, TXT, RTF, HTM, HTML, PNG, GIF, JPG/JPEG, BMP, and EPUB.) Notebooks on your device can also be exported to Microsoft OneNote.
There are some trade-offs with the included pen. Unlike the Apple Pencil, Kindle’s premium pen does not need to be charged. This is a bonus. It’s also designed to mimic the feel of writing on paper and glides across the screen very well. Without a flat surface to charge on, a round pen won’t have the same feel and grip as an Apple Pencil. It’s smooth, so it may slip easily into your hands.
Amazon’s design also means that the nib can wear out, so you’ll need to replace the nib from time to time depending on your usage. It’s not that expensive to do so – about $17 for a pack of 10 – but it’s another issue to maintain and manage.
It includes 10 different pen colors and 5 highlight colors, so you can make your notes and annotations quite colorful.
When writing, you can choose between pens, fountain pens, markers, and pencils with different stroke widths, depending on your preference. You can set your favorite pen tools as shortcuts, activated by long-pressing the pen’s side button. (By default, it’s set to Highlight.) If you hold your pen too tightly and accidentally press this button, know that you can turn this feature off.
The writing experience itself feels natural. Also, the colors are a bit muted on the e-ink display, which may not be to everyone’s taste, but it works well enough for its purpose. E-ink tablets aren’t ideal for creating digital art, despite the pen and new shader tools, but they’re great for writing, taking notes, and highlighting.
From your Kindle’s home screen, you can use the Quick Notes feature to jot things down, or create notebooks from the (Workspace) tab for further organization.
Notebook offers a variety of notepad templates, allowing you to choose from blank, narrow-ruled, medium-ruled, or wide-ruled documents. Templates include meeting notes, storyboards, habit trackers, monthly planners, sheet music, graph paper, checklists, daily planners, dotted sheets, and more. (New templates for this device include Meeting Notes, Cornell Notes, Legal Pad, and College Rules options.)
Just like with the No. 2 pencil, it’s fun to be able to erase by simply flipping the pen over and using a soft eraser. Of course, you can use the Precision Erase tool from the toolbar of different widths if you prefer. Thanks to the e-ink screen, you may still see faint ghosts of drawings and writing on the screen after erasing it, but this will disappear after a while (which may drive certain types of people crazy).
There’s also a lasso tool for circling things, copying and pasting, and resizing them, but this probably won’t be used much by casual note-takers.
There are some other useful features for people who annotate frequently.
For example, when you’re writing in a Word document or book, a feature called Active Canvas creates space for your notes. When you write directly on top of text in a book, the sentences move and wrap around your notes. Even if you adjust the font size of what you’re reading, your notes will remain fixed to the text you originally referenced. I prefer this method over writing directly into the e-book as it keeps things more organized, but some people disagree.
In documents with expanding margins, you can tap the expandable margin icon at the top of the left or right margin to take notes in the margins instead of on the page itself.
Kindle with AI (of course)
The new Kindle also includes a number of AI tools and features.
This device organizes doodles and automatically straightens highlights and underlines. On a few occasions, my review unit froze during highlight operations, but pressing the side button to return to the home screen fixed it.
Meanwhile, new AI features (look for the glowing icon at the top left of the screen) can help you summarize text and refine your handwriting. Oddly, the latter doesn’t allow you to switch to typed fonts, but you can choose from a small number of handwritten fonts (Cadia, Florio, Sunroom, and Nowright) using the (Customize) button.
AI tools weren’t perfect. I was able to decipher some of the worst doodles, but I was confused when there were other doodles on the page next to the text. Still, if you’ve been typing for years and can’t write well, but you like the feel of handwriting and a more analog feel, this is a good option.
The AI search feature can also traverse your entire notebook to find notes and establish connections between notes. To search, tap the on-screen keyboard or toggle the options to handwrite a search query that will be converted to text. Use the Ask Notebooks AI feature to interact with search results (AI-powered insights). This feature allows you to perform queries on your notes.
Amazon plans to add other AI features soon. These include an “Ask a Book” feature that lets you highlight a passage and get spoiler-free answers to your questions about character motivations, the importance of a scene, and other plot details. Another feature, “Stories So Far,” helps you catch up on the books you’re reading during your breaks without spoilers.
The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is available in graphite (black) with 32 GB or 64 GB of storage, priced at $629.99 or $679.99, respectively. The Fig version is only available for $679.99 with 64GB of storage. The Scribe Colorsoft case is an additional $139.99.
