Amazon Announces Kindle Scribe and New Echo Devices

Amazon introduced several new products today including the Kindle Scribe and updates to the Echo Dot and Echo Studio. The Kindle Scribe is a new 10.2-inch e-reader designed for reading and writing with an included pen.

This is the biggest Kindle yet with a 10.2-inch 300 PPI Paperwhite display with an auto-adjusting front light. Customers will get to choose between a Basic or Premium pen option, with the latter including an eraser on top and a customizable shortcut button.

“Kindle Scribe is the best Kindle we’ve ever built, creating a reading and writing experience that feels like real paper,” said Kevin Keith, vice president of Amazon Devices. “It’s inspired by the Kindle customers who have added billions of notes and highlights to books over the years, and it’s also ideal for reviewing and marking up documents, managing your to-do list, or doodling over a big idea.

Amazon promises “months” of battery life on the Kindle Scribe, and the included Basic pen also doesn’t need charging. The Kindle Scribe is available for pre-order starting today and it will start shipping later this year. Pricing starts at $339 for the model with 16 GB of RAM, but 32 GB and 64 GB models are also available. The device also comes with a free 4-month Kindle Unlimited membership providing access to over 3 million eBooks.

Amazon also unveiled several new Echo devices today. The new Echo Dot and Echo Dot with Clock keep the same spherical design but deliver improved audio with double the bass compared to the previous generation.

The new Echo Dot and Echo Dot with Clock also come with a new temperature sensor and tap gesture controls to pause and resume music or dismiss timers. The model with a clock now uses a new high-density dot technology and can now display information about the current weather, calendar events, or the name of a song that’s currently playing.

Last but not least, these new Echo Dot and Echo Dot with Clock can now be used as eero mesh WiFi extenders. “After account linking, eero Built-in can add up to 1,000 square feet of coverage to your existing eero mesh wifi network,” Amazon said today. This built-in eero capability will also come to the 4th Gen Echo Dot models via a software update in the coming months.

The new Echo Dot and Echo Dot with Clock are available for pre-order starting today and they will start shipping next month. The new Echo Dot is priced at $49.99 and the Echo Dot with Clock will cost $10 more. Amazon also announced today a new $199 Echo studio with new spatial audio processing technology, as well as a slimmer Echo Auto with flexible mounting options.

In addition to these new Echo devices, Amazon also announced the Halo Rise, a new $139.99 bedside sleep tracker that will start shipping later this year. There is also a 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube that adds a 20% faster processor, an HDMI input port to connect your cable box, as well as Wi-Fi 6E support for $139.99.