Who would buy a $630 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft over an iPad?

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft launched on Sept. 30 at Amazon's Devices & Services event in New York City. And while it's not even available for preorder yet, there's already buzz around the new e-reader. The new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is priced at $629.99, making it the most expensive Kindle yet.

Now, the Scribe Colorsoft can do a lot. It was already the largest Kindle, but now it's adding color and a slew of new features to the device. Zooming out, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft's $629.99 price tag is outrageous when you consider everything it can't do.

At $629.99, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is $280.99 more expensive than the most basic iPad, which costs only $349. Even when you add on the Apple Pencil Pro for $129, the combo is still $151.99 cheaper. While both devices have a similar look and can be used for reading and writing, they still have very different use cases.

An iPad is a tablet that allows you to read, write, draw, stream, and play games. And with iPadOS 26, it's even more like a laptop. Meanwhile, the new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is an e-reader that also falls into the category of an e-ink tablet. E-ink tablets are essentially digital notepads, providing you the ability to write or draw but not the ability to browse the internet or stream video.

And in terms of e-readers, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is also far more expensive than most models. However, when it comes to e-ink tablets, its $629.99 MSRP is actually on par with most other models. So why buy an e-ink tablet if it's more expensive than a standard tablet?

Who are e-ink tablets for?

Despite their price tag, e-ink tablets are extremely useful tools. If you're constantly taking notes and prefer to write by hand but need to be able to convert them digitally, e-ink tablets are the ideal device for doing just that. They come with a stylus that allows you to take handwritten notes on the digital surface. Rather than a typical tablet with a home screen of different apps, the home base of these devices will be a library of notebooks where you can keep your notes organized.

E-ink tablets are designed for the perpetual notetaker, especially those who want to easily reorganize their notes. Not to mention, since e-ink tablets don't allow for streaming or gaming, they're distraction-free.

In addition to writing in digital notebooks, e-ink tablets also allow you to annotate e-books, textbooks, and PDFs. So with the new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, users will be able to read from their Kindle library, import PDFs from Google Drive, and annotate in color.

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft also has the exact same price as another e-ink reader, the ReMarkable Paper Pro. The ReMarkable e-ink tablet is slightly larger than the Kindle Scribe, but it essentially offers the same display. So when you look at the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft's cost in context of other e-ink tablets, it's not totally ridiculous.

Still, I think most people would take the iPad.

What's so special about the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft?

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is priced similarly to other e-ink tablets, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's worth $630. Mashable's Tech Editor, Timothy Beck Werth, was in person at Amazon's event and got a brief hands-on experience with the device. The newest Scribe is extremely thin and features a new front light design supported by over 70 mini LEDs, an intriguing development. I thought this might mean that it had a higher color resolution, but it remains at 150 ppi for color displays, just like the rest of the Kindle Colorsoft line-up.

Its writing capabilities do seem to have improved. Amazon has redesigned the Kindle Scribe homescreen to put notebooks front and center, and it also features integrations with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. The redesigned stylus is reminiscent of the Apple Pencil Pro, and Amazon claims that the new custom-built oxide-based display is easy on the eyes and no longer suffers from flashing, a common problem in color e-readers and e-ink tablets.

Having tested the two previous Kindle Scribe models, I've always loved their matte screens, finding that they offer a better texture for writing and drawing compared to an iPad's glossy surface. On paper (digital, paper that is), the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft holds a lot of promise, but also a lot of questions.

We won't know for certain if it lives up to its $629.99 price or how it compares to other Kindles or the ReMarkable Paper Pro, but for now, I'm keeping an open mind.