If you have started obsessing over fonts and pen weights on a tablet, e-ink note devices have well and truly hooked you. The reMarkable Paper Pro and the Kindle Scribe are the two everyone is weighing up right now, so here is how they actually compare.

Buy the reMarkable Paper Pro if you are a writer first and want the closest thing to a pure paper replacement, with a large colour e-ink page and almost nothing to distract you. Buy the Kindle Scribe if you are a reader who also likes to jot notes, because it doubles as a proper Kindle, plugs into a library you may already own, and saves you £179 in the process.

Prices move, so here are the live ones on Shopping.co.uk. The reMarkable Paper Pro is sold direct at £559, the top of this pair.

The Kindle Scribe undercuts it comfortably and starts from £379.99.

If the Paper Pro is more than you want to spend but you like the reMarkable approach, there is also the smaller reMarkable Paper Pro Move at £439, which keeps the writing-first philosophy in a more pocketable size.

This is where the reMarkable earns its premium. The Paper Pro is built writing-first, with a large colour e-ink display and a surface so close to real paper that the pen drag feels genuinely satisfying. There is no backlight, which sounds like a drawback but keeps the screen calm and matte, much like a notepad. It is deliberately minimalist, with no app store and no web browser, so when you sit down to write there is nothing else to wander off into. For distraction-free note-taking and marking up documents, it is hard to beat.

The Kindle Scribe writes well too, and for most people the difference will be smaller than the price gap suggests. The pen is responsive, notebooks are easy to organise, and you can annotate books and PDFs directly. It is not quite as paper-like as the Paper Pro, but it is more than good enough for meeting notes, margins and to-do lists.

Here the roles reverse. The Kindle Scribe is a reader that also writes, and that lineage shows. It has a front light, so you can read in bed or on a dim train without a lamp, and it plugs straight into the Kindle store and whatever Kindle library you have already built. If you have years of books in that account, the Scribe lets you carry the lot and write in the margins.

The reMarkable Paper Pro can hold documents and read them back, but it is not designed to be your main book reader. With no backlight you are tied to ambient light, and there is no integrated bookshop to buy your next read in a couple of taps. It will display a PDF beautifully, but it is a notebook that reads rather than a reader that writes.

The two devices take different routes once you are set up. The Kindle Scribe leans on the existing Kindle ecosystem, so your purchases, samples and library sync the way a Kindle always has, and accessories like cases and replacement pen tips are easy to find. There is no required subscription to use it as a notebook.

The reMarkable is more self-contained. Some cloud features, such as syncing your notes across devices and apps, sit behind the reMarkable Connect subscription, so factor that into the running cost if those matter to you. The core writing experience works without it, but the connected extras are where the ongoing fee comes in. Both take a stylus and a folio, and on both the writing feel is good enough that the bundled or first-party pens are worth sticking with.

If you are weighing up where your money goes across gadgets this year, our look at which MacBook is worth buying now runs through similar value questions on a bigger device.

Pick the reMarkable Paper Pro if writing is the whole point. It is the better pure notebook, the colour e-ink page is lovely, and the distraction-free design helps you actually think. You pay for that focus at £559, plus a subscription if you want the full cloud experience.

Pick the Kindle Scribe if you read as much as you write, or if you simply want most of the experience for less. At from £379.99 it reads beautifully thanks to the front light, taps into a library you may already own, and still handles notes and annotations comfortably. For a lot of people, the £179 saving and the proper reading mode will settle it.

If your main use is serious, distraction-free writing and document mark-up, yes. The paper-like feel and colour e-ink are the best here, and the lack of apps is a feature, not a flaw. If you mostly want to read with the odd note, it is more than you need.

For most people, comfortably. The writing is responsive, notebooks are easy to organise, and you can annotate books and PDFs. It is not quite as paper-like as the reMarkable, but at from £379.99 it covers the everyday notebook job well.

The Kindle Scribe does not need one to work as a notebook. The reMarkable works for core writing without a subscription, but some cloud and sync features sit behind reMarkable Connect, so check whether you need those before you buy.

The Kindle Scribe, clearly. It has a front light for low light and connects to the Kindle store and your existing library. The reMarkable can show documents but is not built to be your main book reader.

Yes. The reMarkable Paper Pro Move at £439 keeps the writing-first approach in a smaller, more portable form, so it is worth a look if the Paper Pro is more than you want to spend.