Amazon has released software update 5.16.1.3 for the Kindle Scribe.
As well as general performance enhancements and bug fixes, there are three new features.
Notebook Overview
The Notebook Overview means that you can now view multiple pages of your notebooks on a single screen.
Not only does this make it easier to navigate around your notebooks (particularly notebooks with lots of pages), but you can also:
- Insert new pages between existing pages
- Move pages around
- Delete multiple pages at once
The Notebook Overview shows screenshots of up to nine pages on a single screen.
Two-Column Layout in Aa Menu
In the e-reader, you can now switch to a two-column layout in landscape mode.
NOTE: Auto-orientation also works in landscape mode, so you can rotate the Scribe 180 degrees and read with the thicker bezel either at the bottom or the top depending on your preference.
Contrast Slider in Aa Menu
The Contrast Slider means that the contrast of Write-on Kindle Books or PDFs (that have been processed by Amazon through the SendtoKindle app) can now be adjusted, with a scale of four settings.
Summary
The two-column layout and contrast adjustment are nice additions to an already awesome e-reader, although not features that I will personally use all that often.
The Notebook Overview is a very welcome update for the Kindle Scribe. Now, it should be much easier to navigate around and organise notebooks. Although, whilst it is very much appreciated, I can’t help thinking that this very basic functionality should have been available from the day that the Scribe was launched.
On the one hand, I’m thinking “Great! Amazon is really making an effort with the Scribe” but on the other, I’m thinking “But really all they’ve done is provide something that other e-ink tablets have by default“!
Surely I can’t be the only one that has this internal polarisation of thought about the Scribe?!
Now, I have to go back and revise all the old posts I made where I bitched about the Scribe’s lack of a Page Overview!
About the author
Dan Dutton is passionate about E-ink writing tablets, which bring together the pleasure of writing on paper with the power of digital technology. When he bought his first tablet, he realised that there wasn't a lot of unbiased information available for people that were considering buying an E-ink tablet, and so he built eWritable.