Amazon Kindle Scribe review: supersized e-reader aims to replace paper

It has the same E-ink paper-like screen technology as its smaller siblings, which is sharper than rivals, and an LED frontlight that automatically adjusts brightness and colour tone to suit the time of day, making it readable in any light.

The touchscreen feels smooth like silk, rather than traditional glass, and is as responsive as a phone to your taps and swipes. The 5.8mm-thick recycled aluminium body feels slim, solid and premium. There are little rubber feet in the corners, which keep it from sliding around on a table.

One side of the screen has larger bezels that make for a good handle. The display automatically rotates so you can hold it either way but it lacks the page-turn buttons of the Oasis, so you must swipe or tap instead. The included stylus clips to the thin side of the Scribe with strong magnets for storage.

The reading experience is similar to other recent Kindles. It has access to a vast ebook and audiobook library, each of which can be bought on the device or from the Amazon site. It syncs via wifi, downloads text, graphic and audiobooks to its internal storage and keeps itself updated.

The writing experience on the Scribe is shockingly good. The surface of the screen actually feels like paper as the tip of the pen-like stylus glides across it, providing the right amount of friction unlike the glass of a tablet or phone.

You can annotate books with either typed or handwritten sticky notes. Documents sent to the Scribe via the Kindle app or website can be marked up, either directly on the page for PDFs or via sticky notes for other file types.

Finally, the notebooks feature essentially replaces the paper journal. You can have as many notebooks as you like and arrange them in folders. There are 18 different templates from which to choose, including blank and line pages, grids, check-box to- do lists, schedules and calendars, and even sheet music.

Documents sent to the Scribe for markup are treated like books and so end up cluttering your reading library, not grouped in with your notebooks. The Scribe has so much potential as a paper replacement but everything other than the actual writing experience is terribly basic.

The Scribe will receive software and security updates for at least four years after it is last available new from Amazon. The company does not provide an expected lifespan for the battery but it should last in excess of 500 full charge cycles with at least 80% of its original capacity. Access to first-party repair options varies by country. The device contains 100% recycled aluminium and 48% recycled plastic.

The company offers trade-in and recycling schemes and publishes information on its various sustainability efforts.

For comparison, the basic Kindle costs £84.99, the Paperwhite £104.99, the Oasis £194.99, the ReMarkable 2 £358 with pen and the Kobo Elipsa £349.99.

The Scribe is a great, giant-sized premium e-reader. But its enormous potential as a digital writing device has yet to be realised.