Kindle Scribe
Shares rank 12 of 29 e-readers by recommenders
Praised for reading and handwritten notes on a large e-ink screen with long battery life; critics mostly say it costs too much.
Praised for reading and handwritten notes on a large e-ink screen with long battery life; critics mostly say it costs too much.
28 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 57%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 1 year
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good pen writing and drawing
“Ereaders (Kindle scribe specifically) has been a huge discovery! I cannot make any claims, but my daughter draws on it, writes on it, does homeworks on it and reads so many books on it”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom” “The writing experience on Kindle Scribe is pretty good as well.”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: Best device for reading and light writing?” “I can use the pen to add or check off items.”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: PaperMono, e-ink fridge magnet shopping list with mobile web page” Long battery life
“I can read and take notes and even web browse for hours on end and barely budge the battery percentage”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Freeink: Open Ecosystem for E-Readers” “My Kindle Paperwhite and Scribe Coloursoft go weeks between charges.”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Freeink: Open Ecosystem for E-Readers” Large screen, easy on eyes
“my kindle scribe 2022 10.3” 64 GB is bigger than a physical manga volume. I couldn’t imagine using anything smaller”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Using 2D DFT, dithering, etc. to maximize eInk manga image quality” “my poor eyesight welcomes the bigger font size”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Apple Introduces MacBook Neo” Enjoyable for reading books
“I own last years Kindle Scribe model and enjoy reading with it”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “The New Kindle Scribes Are Great, but Not Great Enough” “If you are just reading then it should be fine.”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “E Ink Kaleido 4”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Amazon restricts software and services
“it pops up a 'refreshing store experience' modal and if you clear it, the entire UI disappears except for the system menu, until you restart.”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: In your experience, what are sound conventions for e-ink UI development?” “cloud sync of reading position etc, which won't be possible after 20 may.”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore” “Because Amazon were increasingly locking-down their systems”
Comment from 19 Dec 2025 in “Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks” Limited apps, tools and automation
“but no automation or tools or apps seemed to come along”
Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “Diary of Tom Riddle, for the ReMarkable with LLM responds” “quite nice, but way too limited”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “The day Steve Jobs dissed me in a keynote (2010)”
Other e-readers people recommend
The four most recommended other e-readers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Kindle | 222 | 255 | 47% | 12 | 12 yrs37 owners | — |
| Xteink X4 | 178 | 47 | 79% | 10 | 2 mo31 owners | Approved |
| Kobo e-reader | 154 | 53 | 74% | 12 | 7 yrs14 owners | Approved |
| reMarkable 2 | 93 | 45 | 67% | 12 | 5 yrs13 owners | Approved |
| Kindle ScribeThis page | 16 | 12 | 57% | 8 | 1 yr3 owners | — |
What people said
40 of the 41 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it's just magical for me to (sometimes) lay out all of my devices”
“If you are just reading then it should be fine.”
“The kindle scribe color looks cool but needs to at least halve in price before I start really considering it.”
“I bought a Kindle Scribe thinking I was getting an Aura, but with a larger screen.”
“my kindle scribe 2022 10.3” 64 GB is bigger than a physical manga volume. I couldn’t imagine using anything smaller”
“I can use the pen to add or check off items.”
“On amazon all I do is access amazon.ca/sendtokindle”
“it pops up a 'refreshing store experience' modal and if you clear it, the entire UI disappears except for the system menu, until you restart.”
“quite nice, but way too limited”
“twice a page of text just vanished completely, in roughly 500 pages written in the past year”
“they all suffer from the same issue”
“It’s more expensive than a bunch of nice paper notebooks but it’s worked well for me.”
“I own a Remarkable 2/Kindle Scribe”
“I can read and take notes and even web browse for hours on end and barely budge the battery percentage”
“except for the Scribe, even the Kindle readers are too small!”
“My Kindle Paperwhite and Scribe Coloursoft go weeks between charges.”
“but no automation or tools or apps seemed to come along”
“I've jailbroken my Kindle Scribe and installed coreader and feed it my Calibre library and its awesome.”
“My Kindle Scribe makes me a little sad every time I use it.”
“replacing a first-gen unit”
“cloud sync of reading position etc, which won't be possible after 20 may.”
“There is no other 10” 300dpi ereader.”
“it will become possible to view Kindle Scribe notebooks in this new application as it is to view them in the Kindle App on Android”
“a recent Kindle Scribe firmware update add shape recognition”
“Ereaders (Kindle scribe specifically) has been a huge discovery! I cannot make any claims, but my daughter draws on it, writes on it, does homeworks on it and reads so many books on it”
“I need something daylight viewable, hence the Kindle Scribe”
“it can't read the guardian or anything like that unfortunately like an android tablet”
“my poor eyesight welcomes the bigger font size”
“it's a Kindle Scribe (and still ALSO has a bigger bezel than the iPad Pro.)”
“The writing experience on Kindle Scribe is pretty good as well.”
“I read all my Rustdoc and mdBook documentation this way.”
“Because Amazon were increasingly locking-down their systems”
“Maybe mine's just an older version with worse battery then!”
“I own last years Kindle Scribe model and enjoy reading with it”
“The Scribe is interesting, but it's too small.”
“Epub and kindle get the notes slapped in a box of some kind.”
“It's the "tablet" that kids could he allowed to use: slow refresh rate (no videogames), can only read books and write.”
“The previous Kindle Scribe had a slow refresh rate, and it showed every time you tried to turn a page.”
“I keep waiting for the Kindle to allow notetaking by dictation.”
“Future buyers, be aware that those are "small" margins.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.