Kindle Scribe questions

[HarryT]

I’ve rather lost track of Amazon’s Kindle offerings, and just noticed the existence of the Kindle Scribe . A couple of questions:

1. I’ve no interest in annotating documents or books. Does the Scribe still make sense simply as a large-screen Kindle?

2. I side-load all my content from Calibre via USB. I notice that the Scribe uses an MTP connection rather than mounting as a drive. Is it still feasible to have a large side-loaded book collection on the Scribe? I currently have about 9400 books on my 32GB Paperwhite. I’ve used MTP devices in the past and there have been major speed issues with Calibre.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I’ve rather lost track of Amazon’s Kindle offerings, and just noticed the existence of the Kindle Scribe . A couple of questions:

1. I’ve no interest in annotating documents or books. Does the Scribe still make sense simply as a large-screen Kindle?

2. I side-load all my content from Calibre via USB. I notice that the Scribe uses an MTP connection rather than mounting as a drive. Is it still feasible to have a large side-loaded book collection on the Scribe? I currently have about 9400 books on my 32GB Paperwhite. I’ve used MTP devices in the past and there have been major speed issues with Calibre.

1 - yes, it is more versatile as it is better for fixed layout content (converted PDFs, B&W comics and manga, etc.) and some people like using 2-column mode in landscape. Fewer page turns, ability to use larger fonts and have good number of words per line etc. Some people like to make handwritten notes in their books, so you can do that as well. I pretty much stick to text notes, at least until there is more platform support for handwritten notes.

2 - If you think it is 'feasible' to have 9400 books on your present Kindle, then I don't think Scribe will be much different, and the newest one might even 'mount' faster as /system folder is not visible (calibre would otherwise collect a list of cover thumbnails which can run into several thousands of files). Data transfer rates are about the same or better on MTP as far as my informal benchmarks suggest.

FWIW my Colorsoft (MTP) mounts much faster than Paperwhite SE (USB mass storage), mostly because calibre has to wait for macOS to mount it, and also because Colorsoft has many fewer files to collect and match up (no /system visible). But I only have about a dozen books on each, so this difference is meaningless, only about 10 seconds.

I have no idea what difference would be with thousands of books, but guessing it is not significantly different (how long does it take you?). I'm not ever gonna try it, because it would take days to index and I do not see the point of having my entire library on a Kindle.

[HarryT]

That's very helpful - thank you. I've placed my order

[Dr. Drib]

Totally and completely off-topic:

Welcome, Harry. Good to see you again.

[Dr. Drib]

Harry, I fully enjoy it for reading - but only at home, due to its large size. It's not that heavy for me, and I find it comfortable to hold when relaxing in a comfortable setting. I purchased a clear back for it, and read with it that way. (It also keeps the metal back from being cold.)

I side-load almost all my books and use calibre to accomplish this task. I currently use it only for reading.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Totally and completely off-topic:

Welcome, Harry. Good to see you again.

Thanks, Don. Good to hear from you, too!