How to Choose Between the Kindle Scribe and the ReMarkable 2

While you can take down notes on your phone, sometimes being able to pick up a pen and jot something down just makes more sense. You have a couple of choices for portable note-taking, including going old school and carrying around a notebook all the time—but if you want something a little bit lighter and with some additional functionality, consider a tablet device. The Kindle Scribe and reMarkable 2 are two options designed with note-taking in mind, but choosing between them requires a bit of thought.

Spec sheets

Credit: Amazon

On paper (pun intended), neither the reMarkable 2 nor the Kindle Scribe are particularly exciting to look at. That’s because both of these tablets rock e-ink displays, which means you won’t be doing any kind of gaming or running any intensive apps on them. Here’s what you’re looking at for each tablet:

reMarkable 2 specs:

• Display: 10.3-inch e-ink touchscreen
• OS: Codex (based on Linux)
• RAM: 1 GB
• Storage: Up to 8GB
• Processor: ARM 1.2 GHz dual-core
• Backlit: No

Kindle Scribe specs:

• Display: 10.2-inch e-ink Cart 1200 touchscreen
• OS: Linux-based
• RAM: 1 GB
• Storage: Up to 32 GB
• Processor: 1 GHz
• Backlit: Yes

Functionality

Credit: reMarkable

Both the reMarkable 2 and Kindle Scribe offer great-looking e-ink displays and easy-to-use pen styluses, but the similarities end there. Despite both offering touchscreens you can write on, the reMarkable 2 is more of a note-taking tablet than the Kindle Scribe is.

For starters, the reMarkable 2 supports a full suite of functions like integrations with Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive. It’s really easy to set up your Google account on the reMarkable 2, which makes it simple to keep your work synced across multiple devices. You also get unlimited cloud storage, as well as mobile and desktop note-taking, so long as you’re subscribed to reMarkable’s Connect subscription. That subscription costs around $US36 per year or $US3 per month, and you’ll get a year free when you purchase the tablet. What it doesn’t do well, though, is allow you to read books with DRM. You’ll need to rely on DRM-free books, which locks out a lot of books published on Amazon’s Kindle service.

The Kindle Scribe, on the other hand, is more of an e-reader than a note-taking tablet. Sure, it has the ability to take notes, but it’s severely limited, and you can’t take notes in every book. Even the books that allow for note-taking don’t allow you to just write on the book itself. You’re relegated to a text box that you have to activate. The notebook features are nice, but they’re extremely limited and you can’t integrate your notes with outside cloud services, making it more difficult to sync files up across multiple platforms as you’ll have to email them to yourself instead.

Both the reMarkable 2 and the Kindle Scribe come with styluses. ReMarkable offers two types of pens: the Marker and Marker Plus. The Marker Plus offers a built-in eraser, which makes it easy to remove mistakes from your notes. Similarly, the Kindle Scribe comes with a Basic or Premium Pen. The Premium Pen offers a shortcut button, which you can customize in your tablet’s settings to allow for quick access to various functions, like pen sizes, the eraser, etc.

It’s also important to note that the reMarkable 2 does not feature any kind of backlight. That means you’ll need to rely on your environment’s lighting to be able to see anything on screen. The Scribe, however, does have a backlight.

Choosing between the two

Ultimately, there is no clear winner between these two e-ink tablets, as they both offer distinct functionality and features. If you’re looking for a great tablet that can take notes and has a lot of integrations to work with, then the reMarkable 2 is the only option here.

On the other hand, if you want a larger e-reader that offers some limited note-taking functionality and features, then the Kindle Scribe is going to be your best choice. No matter which choice you make, you’ll also want to keep the price in mind. The Kindle Scribe typically retails for $US339.99 for the base 16GB model, while the reMarkable 2 retails for $US549. If you just want a great e-reader, then you can always check out our list of the best Kindle e-readers or even the best non-Kindle e-readers for some ideas.