E-Reader Review: Lenovo Smart Paper

Continuing a proud tradition here of titling all my e-ink tablet reviews as ‘e-reader reviews’, when they’re much more than just e-readers, purely to make it easier on my post tagging system…

You may recall (okay, you probably don’t, and who can blame you) that in my review for the Huawei MatePad Paper, I concluded by saying that that was the one I ‘ended up keeping’. Reader, this proved untrue. Just a month or so later, the Lenovo Smart Paper came out, and it blows the Huawei OUT OF THE WATER. Let’s do a deep dive.

E-Reader Review: Huawei MatePad Paper

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A few months ago I reviewed the Onyx Boox Note Air 2+, which has a whole intro about what exactly e-ink devices are and why I’m interested in them, so I won’t rehash all of that. At the bottom of that review, I noted that Huawei and Lenovo had competing devices coming out; the Lenovo one appears to be on ice, but the Huawei is now available in the UK, so I went ahead and decided to try it out.

E-Reader Review: Onyx Boox Note Air 2 Plus

A few months ago, I wrote about why I wouldn’t be buying the new Amazon Kindle Scribe, but the whole device concept was something I badly wanted to try. In recent years, e-ink has been taking off, as the technology has improved to the point where you can (just about) do more with it than simply read books. Of course, they’ll never be a match for your traditional laptop or tablet; e-ink screens have really slow refresh rates, so doing things like watching YouTube videos is not an enjoyable experience. But they shine as digital notebooks, which the popularity of the reMarkable 2 has proven. The lack of blue light means they’re better for your eyesight, and the slow refresh helps conserve battery life.

When I decided to get myself an e-ink tablet for reading and writing, I saw that the main choices were the reMarkable, Onyx Boox, or Supernote. To quickly summarise: reMarkable is a European company offering a device that’s primarily just a digital notebook, no browser or third-party apps available (although you can also annotate PDFs and EPUBs). Supernote is a Chinese company offering largely the same thing. Neither of the two have frontlights, meaning you can’t use them in a dark room, so I ended up going for Onyx Boox. They’re also a Chinese company, but they basically specialise in e-ink tablets running the full Android experience, as Google Play comes installed (on newer devices at least). Whether or not your Android app actually works on an e-ink screen, however, is a different matter – as I’ll cover lower down in this review.

It can be really difficult to judge which Boox device you should be buying, as the company releases new iterations every few months. For instance, the Note Air 2 came out a year after the Note Air, then it was superseded in a few months by the Note Air 2 Plus (identical but for a bigger battery). Then the Plus got knocked out of its position as Boox’s flagship device a few months after that by the Tab Ultra, which boasts an optional keyboard cover and aims to bridge the gap between e-tablets and e-laptops. Now the Tab Ultra has been replaced by the Tab X. As if things weren’t confusing enough already, there’s also a Nova Air, Nova Air 2, and Note 5, many of which bear distinct resemblances to each other.

This jumble of devices is definitely something that influenced my ultimate decision to return the Plus after a week of use. But let’s not get ahead of myself…

Why Amazon’s Kindle Scribe Isn’t Worth It

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A couple of weeks ago, I talked about my discovery that Amazon was releasing a brand-new Kindle model, called the Scribe. To say I was excited would be an understatement. Firstly because it’s been about six years since the Oasis (the last flagship device) came out, and secondly because the Scribe would offer what no other Kindle has before: the capacity for handwritten annotations.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the Scribe is going be worth its hefty $340/£330 price tag. (Especially if you’re British – selling at almost the same figure in pounds AND dollars feels very unfair…)

Amazon Is Releasing a Brand-New Kindle

Okay, am I the LAST person in the universe to know about the Kindle Scribe?

I realise I haven’t published a new blog post for a while (hoping to do better forthwith!) but I didn’t think I’d fallen this out of the loop. I can’t now remember how I learnt this, but a couple of days ago I discovered that Amazon will be selling a whole new Kindle model from 30th November. Emphasis on new.

Kindle Review: Amazon Kindle Oasis 3 (2019)

Yes: it’s expensive. In fact, it’s one of the most expensive e-readers around. But what my review will be examining today is whether or not it’s actually worth it. After all, there tons of cheaper e-readers out there, like the Paperwhite, also sold by Amazon.