I’ve been looking into e-ink writing tablets, mainly to save space on notebooks when on the go and for ease of organization.

Picked up the Kindle Scribe (1st Gen) on Prime Day, and it arrived this morning.

Preliminary thoughts:

  • Truly this could be a game changer for me in terms of handling notebooks and PDFs with ease in one smaller, portable, and eye friendly device.

  • I loved the 10 minutes or so I spent writing on it. Felt like magic.

  • I’m glad to report most of software issues reported at launch have fixed

  • There’s still room for improvement, of course. Already I wish there was on-device handwriting-to-type conversion.

  • Quality control, especially, needs to be improved. While this has the look, feel, and features of premium device (and sold with the corresponding price), mine came with 1-2mm physical gap between edge of screen and metal frame/back. What a bummer!

Internet research reveals this is a common issue that probably doesn’t impact device performance too much.

Nevertheless I’m exchanging for a replacement in hopes I’ll get a unit with less potential to take on dust and moisture. This means I won’t get my hands back on one till Friday!

I hate to wait, because I am so stoked for this device will mean for my daily reading, writing, and notetaking habits!

2023-07-14 UPDATE: My replacement unit arrived, exact same build with the slight gap. I’m keeping it, after being assured that this is not uncommon and generally doesn’t affect performance. Overall customer service with Amazon has been good and I registered feedback on this, as I generally expect screen/bezel to connect seamlessly to the side of a device.