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Amazon Kindle Scribe
Kindle’s first e-writerThe Kindle Scribe is Amazon’s first note-taking e-reader, and it comes with some premium hardware you won’t find anywhere else. Amazon makes four versions of the Scribe, so there’s probably one that’s right for you.
Pros- Big 300ppi screen
- Lots of price points to choose from
Cons- Half baked writing experience
- Poorly thought-out port placement
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Kobo Elipsa 2E
Kobo’s biggest e-readerThe Kobo Elipsa 2E is the pinnacle of Rakuten’s note-taking e-reader lineup. It has all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a premium e-reader, and the magnetic pen is even included.
Pros- Big 10.3 inch screen
- Weeks-long battery life
Cons- All plastic construction
- Weak audiobook support
E-readers dominate the E Ink device consumer market, but the e-writer has emerged in the last few years. The e-writer is an e-reader that lets you use a stylus to jot down ideas, annotate text, and mark electronic documents. Boox, who offers a lot of nice e-readers, has been making devices with styli since at least 2011 with the M92, but the biggest names in the game — Kindle and Kobo — didn’t throw their hats into the ring until 2022 and 2021, respectively.
So, how do these e-reading titans stack up to each other when their latest and greatest devices — both of which happen to be note-taking e-readers — are pitted head-to-head? Amazon has the money and the reach to put the Scribe in more hands, but Kobo is the tenacious competitor that just keeps getting better, nibbling away at the Kindle’s market share. Only one device can emerge victorious, which will it be?
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Price, availability, and specs
The Kindle Scribe is cheaper and more expensive than the Kobo Elipsa 2E because there are four versions to choose from. The $340 Scribe is the lowest on the price spectrum with 16GB of internal storage and a no-frills stylus. And if you want to go all in, you can get 64GB of internal storage with a premium stylus for $420. The Kobo Elipsa 2E sells for $400 and there’s just one to choose from. Both devices are available on Amazon.
When it comes to raw specs, there’s no clear winner between these two contenders. Internal storage aside, both have dual-core 2GHz processors with 1GB of RAM. They both use Carta 1200 displays. But the Scribe has a bespoke version from E Ink that sports 300ppi on a marginally smaller 10.2-inch screen, whereas the Elipsa has 217ppi on a 10.3-inch screen. The Scribe has a 3000mAh battery compared to the Elipsa 2E’s 2400mAh battery, but the Elipsa weighs in at 390g compared to 430g for the Scribe.
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Amazon Kindle Scribe Kobo Elipsa 2E Screen 10.2″ Carta 1200 E Ink 10.3″ Carta 1200 E Ink Resolution 2480 × 1860 1872 x 1404 Storage 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB 32GB Connectivity Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Battery 3,000mAh 2,400mAh Buttons Power button Power button Dimensions 196 x 230 x 5.8mm 193 x 227 x 7.5mm Format Support Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion; Audible audio format (AAX) EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, CBR
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Design and accessories
At a glance, the Scribe and Elipsa are very similar. Both are around the same dimensions and have a large bezel on one side to make holding it more comfortable. Oddly, both opt to put the charging port (USB-C) on this side, making it awkward to hold while it’s plugged in. Neither device does anything with the extra bezel space either. The Kobo Libra 2 and the Kindle Oasis both took advantage of the bezel space with page-turn buttons. Additionally, the Libra 2’s added a flare to its bezeled edge to make holding it more natural, and the Oasis made the bezel thicker than the rest of the device for the same reason. On the Scribe and Elipsa, it’s just a bit of extra plastic.
When it comes to first-party accessories, Kobo and Kindle are in a dead heat, but I think the Scribe comes out ahead by just a nose. Both offer bespoke covers with sleep and wake functions that activate or deactivate properly and a place to magnetically store the pen. But Scribe’s cover is made of leather and doubles as a stand, giving it the edge. The Elipsa 2E cover is made of plastic and doesn’t function as a stand, but it does cost $10 less ($70 vs $80).
Display and performance
Despite being marginally smaller than the Elipsa 2E’s screen, the Scribe’s 10.2-inch screen is the clear winner when you consider that it’s 300ppi versus 227ppi, and it’s the only 10.2-inch screen on the market because Amazon had it manufactured exclusively. Both screens are made with E Ink’s Carta 1200 technology, which has faster response times and sharper contrast, but in terms of numbers, the Scribe wins. In real life, however, most people won’t notice much of a difference.
When it comes to front lighting, there’s no clear winner. The e-readers have solid screen coverage that doesn’t leave any gaps in lighting and lets you adjust the lighting warmth from cool and blue to warm and orange. The Elipsa might have the edge here since its front light has a bedtime mode that will gradually tint the screen as it approaches your preset bedtime.
Performance-wise, the two e-readers have nearly identical numbers. They come with 1GB of RAM and run on the MediaTek MT8113 chip, which clocks in at 2GHz with two cores. Neither device is really capable of pushing it to its limit, so they don’t have any bottlenecks to speak of, although the Elipsa would occasionally lag when navigating through system menus or accessing Kobo’s online bookstore. The Scribe, on the other hand, didn’t have these issues.
Reading on either device is trouble-free. The devices have a large enough screen to enjoy anything from novels to comic books without worrying about it being too small to read. Neither device has page-turn buttons, which we think is a missed opportunity, especially considering that the device makers have used them in the past.
Software
When it comes to reading books, neither Kindle nor Kobo has done anything revolutionary with their writing tablets, and that’s probably a good thing. Both reading apps have been refined for years, and neither lacks any essential functionality. Still, some might give the Kindle the edge here just because more people are using it, and it’s nice to see the highlights left by other readers.
Where the Elipsa pulls ahead is with its pen integration. The Scribe has a Wacom layer for pen input, which means it uses an electromagnetic resonance (EMR) stylus that doesn’t require any charging. The Elipsa 2E uses an active stylus that does require charging via a USB-C port. Both have pretty much the same capabilities, but handwriting recognition makes the Elipsa 2E superior in terms of writing. Where the Scribe will let you take notes and save them as reference images, the Elipsa can convert your scrawls into text that you can search later, adding a much-needed layer of functionality.
Perhaps because the Scribe is Kindle’s first note-taking e-reader, there are many things it handles oddly. Any doodles or notes you make are stored in the cloud and available across all devices with Kindle app access. But, any notes or markup you leave in your books are stuck on your Scribe and unviewable on your phone or desktop.
Annotations made with the Elipsa 2E are viewable on other devices, but not in an integrated manner. For instance, if you make an annotation in a book on your Elipsa and view that book on your smartphone or tablet, you won’t see that annotation. Rather, you’ll see an icon in the margins next to where the annotation was originally made, and clicking or tapping it will reveal a text image with the original annotation. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s still better than the Scribe’s half-baked functionality.
Battery life and charging
There’s no question that the Kindle Scribe soundly defeats the Kobo Elipsa 2E in terms of battery life. The Scribe’s 3000mAh battery is the largest available on a non-Android e-reader and will provide weeks of life with moderate use and aggressive power-saving features enabled. The Elipsa’s battery comes in at 2400mAh, which is still quite respectable, but where it truly loses the battery battle is with its active stylus, which requires charging, whereas the Scribe’s EMR stylus just works.
Both devices (and the Elipsa pen) rely on USB-C to get their juice. The Elipsa is a bit better at charging, requiring only an hour or so to fill up its tanks (same for the pen), whereas the Scribe will need at least two hours. Both can also be fine-tuned to extend battery life depending on how you like to use it.
Which is right for you?
The simple truth is, even though the Kindle Scribe wins when you look at just the numbers, the Elipsa 2E is better at being a note-taking e-reader. So, if that’s your priority, get the Kobo. Even though you have to charge the stylus, the functionality available makes it the obvious choice.
Kobo Elipsa 2E
Bring on the notes
The Elipsa 2E is Kobo’s third e-reader with stylus support, so the kinks have all been ironed out when it comes to writing on the e-reader. It’s more expensive than your average e-reader, but still cheaper than most at this size.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for a reading-first device with a screen larger than 10 inches, the Scribe might come out ahead in your calculations. This is especially true if you want to read comic books, because the 300ppi screen will make the images sharper and smaller details more legible. The Scribe also has four different price points to choose from, and Amazon frequently discounts them below $300.
To summarize, if you want to take notes, pick the Elipsa 2E. If you just want a big e-reader, get a Kindle.
Amazon Kindle Scribe
Great for readers who take notes
Although the pen functionality isn’t all it should be from a manufacturer like Kindle, the Scribe is still a great e-reader. There’s lots of good tech in here (we love the Wacom layer and the EMR pen) but the writing experience isn’t ready for the big leagues.
