- Amazon’s next-generation Kindle Scribe comes in three models
- All of these boast an even thinner profile at 5.4-millimeters
- There’s now a Colorsoft edition in an 11-inch size
Less than a year after revamping its Kindle lineup with the debut of the Colorsoft and a new Paperwhite, Amazon is giving the Kindle Scribe a proper, major refresh.
Just unveiled at the company’s September 30, 2025 Devices Event – the first major hardware showcase under Panos Panay – the new Scribe introduces a slimmer design, updated display tech, and three distinct models, including one with full color.
At 5.4 millimeters thick and weighing 400 grams, the third-generation Kindle Scribe is thinner than the iPad Air but slightly thicker than Apple’s latest iPad Pro with M4. The lineup includes an entry-level model without a front light, the standard Scribe with front lighting, and the all-new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, which adds full-color reading and writing capabilities. The Colorsoft also debuts in a new finish called Fig, a deep red-berry tone, while the others only come in Graphite.
The refreshed Scribe features symmetrical bezels around its 11-inch screen, making it more comfortable for both right- and left-handed use. Amazon has also rebalanced the internals so the device no longer feels top- or side-heavy.
The USB-C charging port remains on the bottom, while the Premium Pen now attaches magnetically to the right-hand side with stronger magnets. The power button has moved to the same side – a change long requested by Kindle users.
Amazon achieved the slimmer design by reworking the display stack. The anti-glare film has been removed in favor of textured glass, which the company says still delivers a paper-like writing feel. From a brief hands-on, writing with the Premium Pen on the Kindle Scribe is still a smooth experience, but we’ll need to put all three of the Scribes through their paces.
While the Scribe, Scribe with a front light, and Scribe Colorsoft all boast 11-inch screens, the differences lie in the technology underneath. The entry-level model features an 11-inch glare-free display with 300ppi resolution and 16 levels of grayscale.
The standard model is an 11-inch Paperwhite display at the same resolution, but it adds a redesigned front light. The LEDs here have been shrunk down on the left-hand side to fit in the thinner overall build, but Amazon actually doubled the number by using smaller-sized individual LEDs for the front light.
Like the latest Kindle Paperwhite, all models now include Amazon’s Oxide display technology for faster page turns and greater responsiveness, powered by a new quad-core processor.
The headline upgrade, however, is the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. Amazon VP of Kindle, Kevin Keith, said the company felt it was time to bring color to the Scribe lineup, aiming for “color without compromise.” Essentially, the tech has caught up here in terms of the display coating and the LEDs underneath.
The 11-inch Colorsoft display uses nitrided LEDs and a custom light guide that reflects light at the pixel level, preventing colors from appearing washed out – this is pretty similar to how the standard Kindle Colorsoft works. It matches the monochrome resolution at 300ppi for grayscale and delivers 150ppi for color.
A new rendering engine reduces flashing and maintains a smooth writing experience, whether in black and white or color. At launch, the Colorsoft will support ten colors, five highlight options, and five brush types.
These tools will be found in a refreshed software experience that’s arriving across this lineup of Kindle Scribes, and Amazon hopes to bring most, if not all of it, to the existing second-generation Kindle Scribe models. There are still bottom and top bars for easy navigation, but the new organization system, dubbed “Workspaces,” has piqued our interest.
Here, you can group downloaded books, notes, PDFs, and other documents into distinct folders. This can be helpful for organizing content on your Scribe for students, individuals using it at the office, and avid readers alike. Much like quickly jotting a note down with a gesture on an iPad, there is a new Quick Notes functionality here that can instantly pull up a page for you to write on.
While there was already a “Send to Kindle” feature for transferring documents to the device, the Kindle Scribe will soon integrate more seamlessly with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, allowing for easy import of documents for signatures, redlining, and annotations. You can even send them back to the respective service as a PDF document.
Even more useful is a smarter search feature that blends LLM-style intelligence with your stored documents. For example, say you’ve been taking notes in weekly one-on-ones and you’re preparing for an end-of-year recap. You can type into the search bar – or handwrite a query with the pen and have it converted – something like “What were the major points I raised each week?” or “What themes came up most often?” The Scribe will scan your notebooks, whether stored locally or in the cloud, and return summarized results with sources. It’s the kind of tool that could prove genuinely helpful.
And that about sums up what’s new with the three new Kindle Scribes – the United States will get the Kindle Scribe and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft first, later in 2025, and as of now, Amazon isn’t opening up preorders, but you can mark your interest. These two models will begin an international launch in 2026, and the base Kindle Scribe without a front light will also make its debut in the United States at the same time.
It’s also safe to say these new Kindle Scribes don’t exactly come cheap – with the starting price in the US going up from $399.99 for the current 16GB Kindle Scribe to $429.99 for the 16GB Kindle Scribe without Front Light – with the most expensive Kindle now starting at $699.99.
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jacob.krol@futurenet.com (Jacob Krol)
