The perfect E Ink tablets for 2024

Display screen dimension: 10.3-inch | Battery life: Two weeks | Community connectivity: Wi-Fi | Capability: 8GB | Included stylus: No, additional price | Supported file varieties: PDF, EPUB

The latest reMarkable tablet isn’t topping our record as a result of it’s essentially the most full-featured and even most attention-grabbing writing pill we examined. Fairly, it offers one of the best mixture of options folks will discover helpful in an e-paper machine like this. We’ll get into all of them, however first, it’s value mentioning construct high quality. The reMarkable 2 weighs lower than one pound and is likely one of the sleekest E Ink tablets we tried. It has a ten.3-inch monochrome digital paper show that’s surrounded by beige-colored bezels, with the chunkiest portion on the backside edge the place you’d naturally grip it. There’s a slim silver bezel on the left aspect, which attaches to equipment just like the folio case and the brand new Kind Folio keyboard. Hats off to reMarkable for making an E Ink pill that feels proper at residence with your entire different fancy devices.

Let’s begin with the writing and studying experiences on the reMarkable 2, each of that are nice. From the get go, scribbling, doodling and writing was a breeze. We examined out the Marker Plus, which has a built-in eraser, however each it and the usual Marker are tilt- and strain delicate pens, and require no batteries or charging. I noticed mainly no lag between my urgent down onto the reMarkable 2’s display and contours exhibiting up. The latency was so low that it felt the closest to precise pen-and-paper. However I’ll say that this isn’t distinctive amongst our prime picks on this information – nearly all the E Ink tablets we examined acquired this very essential function proper.

On the subject of studying, the reMarkable 2 helps PDFs and ePUBs, and you’ll add recordsdata to the machine by logging into your reMarkable account on desktop or by way of the companion cellular app in your cellphone. It’s also possible to pair your Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Dropbox account along with your reMarkable account and entry recordsdata that means as properly. That needs to be adequate for anybody who, say, reads loads of tutorial papers or opinions many paperwork for work. It’ll be more durable for individuals who buy their ebooks from on-line marketplaces just like the Kindle or Kobo shops, however there are different choices for these.

One other enjoyable technique to get paperwork onto the reMarkable 2 is by way of the Read with reMarkable extension for Google Chrome. After putting in it and pairing your reMarkable account, you’ll be capable of ship articles you discover on-line on to your reMarkable 2 so you may test them out later. You possibly can even customise these recordsdata to be despatched as textual content solely, which is able to allow you to change their format instantly in your reMarkable, or as a PDF file. No matter which you select, you’ll be capable of mark up these articles as you’d another file on the E Ink pill. I used this extension rather a lot and I did get pleasure from studying longform articles on the reMarkable 2 greater than on my iPhone. With the ability to underline, spotlight and in any other case mark up these tales was extra of a bonus than a necessity for me, however for others who glean sources from on-line supplies can be higher off for it.

General, it’s fairly simple to get recordsdata onto the reMarkable 2 and it’s potential to entry them elsewhere when you could not be capable of whip out the E Ink pill. These with a reMarkable Join subscription can have one of the best expertise, and it’s a pleasant perk that you just get a one-year membership whenever you purchase one. The $3-per-month subscription offers the power to edit present notes and take new ones from wherever utilizing the desktop and cellular apps, plus limitless cloud storage and syncing.

That mentioned, I stored most of my testing native on the reMarkable 2 itself and was impressed by its means to be a digital pocket book with no steep studying curve. You possibly can create completely different notebooks and “fast sheets” to arrange your handwritten notes, and folders to make sense of imported recordsdata. You’ll discover eight completely different brush varieties with which to mark up paperwork and take notes, together with customizable line thicknesses and “colours” (which simply present up as shades on the pill itself). You possibly can even sort wherever you need in a doc, and the reMarkable 2 can translate handwritten notes into machine-readable textual content with shocking accuracy.

It was no shock that the reMarkable 2 ended up having one of the best mixture of options, together with a comparatively low studying curve. The corporate was one of many first on the scene with a very viable E Ink pill again in 2017, and so they’ve been refining the expertise ever since. However that comes at a value – the reMarkable 2 isn’t the costliest E Ink pill we examined, nevertheless it’s not low cost both. The pill will set you again $399 with the usual Marker, or $449 for a bundle with the Marker Plus. You could possibly get a 10th-gen iPad and the USB-C Apple Pencil for round identical value and also you’d have a extra versatile duo, purely primarily based on the capabilities of iOS.

However you’re most likely not contemplating an iPad for a particular motive, whether or not that’s your love for E Ink or the sensation of pen-to-paper writing, otherwise you merely need a extra distraction-free expertise. In the event you’re searching for an E Ink pill that won’t take ages to get used to, gives a stellar writing expertise and makes it comparatively easy to entry notes elsewhere, the reMarkable 2 is your greatest guess.

Learn our full reMarkable Paper Professional evaluate

Display screen dimension: 11.8-inch | Battery life: Two weeks | Community connectivity: Wi-Fi | Capability: 64GB | Included stylus: No, additional price | Supported file varieties: PDF, EPUB

ReMarkable upped the ante in mainly each means with the Paper Pro, with out sacrificing something we liked in regards to the reMarkable 2. Each my colleague Dan Cooper and I examined out the brand new machine and you’ll learn his full reMarkable Paper Professional evaluate right here, which fits in-depth into the Paper Professional’s achievements and shortcomings. In my testing, I used to be most impressed by the refined design, sooner response instances and small joys that got here from having a brand new shade show.

The $579 Paper Professional has an 11.8-inch show, which is barely bigger and taller than that of the reMarkable 2. It’s not cumbersome, although, and with its 5.1mm thickness, it will get actually near the legal-pad pocket book dimension I personally love. It feels fairly premium by itself, particularly with the brand new grooved edges, and even with its Folio protector, it stays fairly svelte. The reMarkable 2 definitely isn’t an ogre by comparability, however the “professional” within the Paper Professional’s identify is well-deserved.

Contained in the reMarkable Paper Professional is a brand new 1.8GHz quad-core Cortex A53 processor, 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage — all of that are specs which have been bumped up from the reMarkable 2. It really makes a distinction within the efficiency of the brand new mannequin. Whereas the reMarkable 2 definitely didn’t lag, the Professional feels zippier: web page refreshes are faster, actions and transitions are extra easy and pen latency is barely 12ms (nearly undetectable in my expertise).

The place you see the gears working most frequently is in the usage of shade. The Paper Professional’s display makes use of a modified model of E-Ink’s Gallery 3 know-how known as Canvas Colour, which is able to producing 20,000 colours that may layer on prime of one another (suppose whenever you spotlight a line greater than as soon as utilizing two completely different colours over each other). You possibly can really see the pixels turning from a regular black shade to the colour of your selecting whenever you’re scribbling in a be aware, which isn’t a foul factor as a result of the display doesn’t lag or freeze due to this — write at your individual pace and the machine will up and produce the best colours as you go alongside.

As for software program, you’re getting the identical expertise as you’d with the reMarkable 2, which is to remain a reasonably streamlined interface that makes it simple to arrange your entire paperwork, notes and different studying and writing materials. The reMarkable 2 provided one of the crucial approachable software program experiences in an E Ink pill, and that continues right here on the Paper Professional. These gadgets prioritize a distraction-free atmosphere — or on the very least, a lower-distraction zone — and I recognize how reMarkable has stored its gadgets’ interface easy and simple.

Arguably the largest caveat to any reMarkable pill stays the month-to-month Connection subscription — an elective $3-per-month service that gives limitless cloud storage, machine syncing and the power to create and edit notes in reMarkable cellular apps. Energy customers will possible discover it worthwhile to pay for Join, however the Paper Professional’s 64GB of inner storage could be sufficient for others who need to hold it easy (and hold all of their exercise to the Paper Professional itself). New machine homeowners get a 100-day free trial, so it’s simple sufficient to provide Join a shot after which cancel if you happen to don’t end up utilizing all of its perks.

Crucial factor to recollect if you happen to’re contemplating a reMarkable pill is that, base on our testing, each the reMarkable 2 and reMarkable Paper Professional are stable gadgets. The Paper Professional definitely earned its “professional” moniker because of noticeable enhancements the corporate made, however these don’t detrimental how good of a tool the reMarkable 2 nonetheless is. However if you happen to’ve acquired the money and need to put money into a luxurious E Ink pill expertise, the Paper Professional is the best way to go.

Display screen dimension: 10.2-inch | Battery life: Months | Community connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth | Capability: As much as 64GB | Included stylus: Sure | Supported file varieties: AZW3, AZW, TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively and more

You actually have two choices on this house: the Amazon Kindle Scribe and the Kobo Elipsa 2E. The Scribe edged out the Elipsa 2E purely due to its low-latency pen-and-screen mixture. The Elipsa has its deserves, which we’ll get into in a bit, nevertheless it simply couldn’t compete with the Scribe when it got here to a seamless and easy handwriting expertise.

We already gave the Kindle Scribe the complete evaluate remedy, and basically, I loved it whereas testing it out for this information, too. As talked about, there’s little to no latency when writing on the Scribe with its companion pen. Due to the newest software program replace, you even have extra brush varieties to select from now, together with fountain pen, marker and pencil, which add to the attraction. Like different E Ink tablets, the Scribe makes it simple to create a number of notebooks, and you’ll add pages to them and alter up their templates if you want.

As an e-reader, the Scribe shines not solely because of its 10.2-inch touchscreen with auto-adjusting entrance lights, but in addition as a result of you might have Amazon’s whole e book retailer at your fingertips. In the event you get most of your studying materials from Amazon or subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, you’ll be capable of bounce proper into your entire titles immediately on the Scribe simply as you’d on a tool just like the Kindle Paperwhite. As well as, the Scribe can hook up with Audible by way of Bluetooth for audiobook listening. It’s additionally simple to get ebooks out of your native library and browse them on a Kindle. This can be essential not just for voracious readers, however particularly for college kids who purchase or lease digital textbooks and those that devour books usually for analysis functions.

I considered college students rather a lot when utilizing the Scribe. I began faculty in 2009, two years after the primary Kindle was launched and one yr earlier than the primary iPad got here out. Getting textbooks digitally actually wasn’t an choice for me – however I can perceive the enchantment a note-taking machine just like the Kindle Scribe would have for college kids. It’s arguably even higher than a regular Kindle as a result of its larger display dimension, which is able to make it much less tiring to stare at for lengthy durations of time. Including the power to take handwritten notes whilst you’re finding out is icing on the cake.

Nonetheless, Amazon’s execution of e-book notes isn’t my favourite. You really can’t make annotations within the margins of Kindle ebooks. As an alternative you press and maintain the pen’s tip on the display to spotlight textual content or add a be aware to a specific phrase or phrase. In the event you do the latter, a window pops up on the underside half of the display the place you may both take a handwritten be aware or sort a textual content be aware utilizing the Scribe’s mildly irritating and sluggish on-screen keyboard.

Amazon not too long ago rectified this a bit with a software program replace that enables for direct on-page writing in sure Kindle books. The Kindle Retailer now has a piece that showcases “Write-on Books,” which is at the moment largely made up of journals and sport books that function puzzles like crosswords and sudoku. That is definitely a step in the best path, nevertheless it means you continue to will not be capable of mark up your favourite fiction and non-fiction books till they help the brand new function.

That is the place I give a nod to the Kobo Elipsa 2E, the place you can write notes within the margins, underline, circle and in any other case mark up your studying materials. It’s a extra pure (and enjoyable) expertise because it mimics what you’d do if you happen to had been studying a bodily e-book. It’s a disgrace that the latency on the Elipsa was only a hair extra noticeable than that of the Scribe. If it weren’t for that, it may need crushed Amazon’s machine right here.

What that additional little bit of latency interprets to in apply is handwriting that may come out only a bit messier, and that will increase precipitously the sooner you write. However that additionally signifies that you’ll discover this essentially the most when taking notes longhand on the Elipsa; if you happen to’re primarily utilizing an E Ink pill to mark up paperwork, it received’t have an effect on you as a lot. Regardless of that, I did like the best way Kobo executed notebooks on the Elipsa. You possibly can have a regular pocket book the place you may write and scribble away, or an “superior” pocket book that helps handwriting-to-text conversion and inserting issues like diagrams and formulation. Textual content conversion is definitely fairly correct, too, even when coping with a few of my ugliest handwriting.

Kobo additionally has a reasonably sizable e book market, so it’s definitely an honest choice if you wish to keep away from the Amazon ecosystem. However Amazon has the higher hand in relation to value. The Kobo Elipsa 2E pack that features its stylus is $399, whereas the 16GB Kindle Scribe with the premium pen (which incorporates devoted eraser and shortcut buttons) is available in at $369. Even if you happen to max out the Scribe with 64GB of storage, you’d solely spend $20 greater than you’d on the Kobo Elipsa. That, mixed with the Scribe’s robust general efficiency and the ubiquity of Amazon’s e book choices will make it the higher alternative for many readers.

Display screen dimension: 10.3-inch | Battery life: Weeks | Community connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth | Capability: 32GB | Included stylus: No, additional price | Supported file varieties: PDF, EPUB, Phrase, Textual content (.txt), PNG, JPG, Comedian e-book archive (.cbz), FictionBook2 (.fb2) and OpenXPS (.xps)

I spent some time testing all of those E Ink tablets, and the Supernote X is the one I used to be persistently most excited to make use of. As a pocket book nerd, I discover this factor so cool. Accessible in 10.3-inch (what I examined) and seven.8-inch sizes, the Supernote X has a “FeelWrite” display protector that has a unique really feel than a regular e-paper display. When writing on it with Coronary heart of Steel Pen 2, which is weighty and appears like a fountain pen, you get a gel pen-like really feel reasonably than the subtly scratchy vibe that different E Ink tablets have. In truth, the Supernote X has the most effective writing experiences out of any pill I examined.

The Supernote X helps a spread of file codecs, together with PDF, ePUB, Phrase (.doc), PNG and JPG, which actually opens up the content material you may put onto the factor. I wished to see if I may deal with it nearly like a digital bullet journal, and that wasn’t arduous to do. There are built-in web page templates, however I used to be in a position to obtain every day, weekly and month-to-month planner templates on-line, resize them and transfer them onto the Supernote X utilizing Android File Transfer. The machine has a devoted “MyStyle” folder the place it can save you recordsdata you need to use as templates. Probably the most troublesome half was ensuring I had the scale proper whereas resizing the paperwork. As soon as saved in the best folder, I may make a whole pocket book out of the templates I had gotten from the web free of charge.

Supernote does have its personal “app retailer,” however there’s not a lot in there, and its Play Retailer choices are restricted to solely the Kindle app. This machine doesn’t have a backlight, so it received’t be simple to see in darkish environments. However you may obtain Amazon’s e book app and browse similar to you’d on a regular pill (no, you may’t mark up books right here both).

Actually, the very last thing I wished to do with the Supernote X was learn, although. The machine actually shines as an E Ink pocket book and the corporate clearly put loads of thought into “constructing a greater mousetrap,” so to talk. You possibly can translate handwritten phrases into typed textual content, however you don’t have to do this to ensure that the software program to acknowledge your handwriting. There’s a key phrases function that allows you to mainly bookmark essential phrases for fast entry later. All it’s essential to do is lasso the phrase, press the key phrase button and the pill’s software program will translate your writing into typed textual content. Then you may add it as a key phrase and rapidly bounce again to it from the left-side pill of contents menu. Equally, you may bookmark titles and add stars to pages which might be essential, all of which aid you bounce between essential bits.

That mentioned, the Supernote X generally felt just a little inconsistent. The writing expertise was top-notch, however there have been different issues that felt rather less polished. For instance, you may swipe down on the best bezel to carry up a menu that allows you to rapidly navigate between favorited notes and up to date paperwork – that’s fairly considerate. However then the Information web page simply has a few starkly named folders like Export, Screenshot and Inbox that I didn’t contact as soon as, and the pen sidebar has extra choices than most individuals will know what to do with (and none of them have textual content labels).

These are small nit-picks, however they go to indicate that the Supernote X may not be one of the best machine for tech novices. There’s a studying curve right here, however pocket book nerds like myself can be thrilled with all that the Supernote X has to supply. Unsurprisingly, all these superior options come at a steep value: the A5-sized pill with a folio and pen will set you again at the very least $532, making it the costliest set on our record.

Display screen dimension: 10.3-inch | Battery life: As much as 4 weeks | Community connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth | Capability: 64GB | Included stylus: Sure | Supported file varieties: PDF, PPT, EPUB, TXT, DJVU, HTML, RTF, FB2, DOC, MOBI, CHM, PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP

Whereas we haven’t absolutely examined the brand new Boox Note Air 3, we really feel snug recommending it right here as a result of it’s mainly only a barely upgraded model of our earlier choose, the Note Air 2 Plus. Key variations are the Word Air 3’s sooner processor and new fingerprint recognition function, however in any other case each gadgets have the identical 10.3-inch “paperlike” display, run the newest model of Android and are available bundled with a stylus.

Based mostly on our expertise with the Word Air 2 Plus, Boox’s whole Word sequence is what you’d get if you happen to eliminated a few of the notebook-specific options from the Supernote X and added in a extra full model of Android. Boox makes a variety of attention-grabbing E Ink gadgets and the Word Air 2 Plus/Word Air 3 are those that greatest examine to the others on our record because of its 10.3-inch show. They’re E Ink Android tablets, so which means you may really obtain Android apps from the Google Play Retailer like Kindle, Kobo and others. There’s even an online browser, and sure, you may watch movies on this factor, too.

After all, simply because you are able to do all of that doesn’t imply you must. E Ink screens are really greatest for studying and writing, so I didn’t spend a lot time binge watching YouTube on Boox’s machine – however I used to be blissful that I had the liberty to take action. Actually, the utility of Android is available in with the app retailer and I count on that most individuals will use it to obtain all of their favourite studying and writing apps. Very similar to a regular pill, this can be a terrific choice for anybody that will get their studying materials from a bunch of various locations — and since you may manually switch paperwork out of your laptop to the machine, too, it’s far-and-away essentially the most versatile choice on our record.

I skilled little to no latency when writing on Boox’s machine and I used to be pleased with the variety of brush choices it has. Just like the Supernote X, it comes with a bunch of web page templates you should use, or you may herald your individual PDFs and different paperwork to make use of as templates. There’s an “AI recognition” function that interprets a complete web page’s handwriting into typed textual content, and it’s really fairly correct. (Although, it did persistently confuse my “&” for a capital A). I additionally appreciated you can add other forms of fabric to your notes, together with internet pages and voice recordings, and share notes as PDFs or PNGs by way of e-mail, Google Drive and different companies. Options like these make sure that, with this partially analog machine, you don’t miss out on a few of the conveniences {that a} true digital pocket book system would have.

And, importantly, Boox tablets basically supply an attention-grabbing worth proposition. A Word Air 3 bundle with the pill, a regular pen and a folio case is available in at $400, placing it on the upper finish of the value spectrum among the many gadgets we examined. However contemplating it’s a full Android pill, that doesn’t appear absurd. Those that need to keep away from distractions more often than not whereas nonetheless accessing e-mail and an online browser would possibly gravitate in direction of a tool like this.

There’s additionally the Word Air 3 C, a model of the identical pill that has a shade e-paper show, and had been in a position to spend a while with that machine. Colour, unsurprisingly, provides loads of dimension and enjoyable to a tool like this. Not solely are you able to get pleasure from full-color photographs in books, however it’s also possible to take notes, spotlight and mark up paperwork utilizing a couple of completely different colours of digital pens and markers. The massive caveat, although, is that the Word Air 3 C prices $100 greater than the usual Word Air 3, so you may should pay a premium if shade is a precedence for you.

Display screen dimension: 7-inch | Battery life: As much as 40 days | Community connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth | Capability: 32GB | Included stylus: No | Supported file varieties: EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, CBR, Kobo audiobooks

The Kobo Libra Colour, one of many firm’s latest ereaders, not solely provides shade to its display but in addition stylus help. Which means you may spotlight textual content, write within the margins of e-books and create notebooks. The low-latency, feature-rich stylus, plus integration with Dropbox and Google Drive, make the Libra Color a surprisingly efficient E Ink pill. Finally, we nonetheless suppose the Kindle Scribe is your greatest guess for a tablet-and-ereader combo, because of the extra expansive Kindle library and the bigger, ten-inch display — however Kobo’s newest deserves a point out.

The Libra Color is our present choose for a mannequin with buttons in our ereader information. It has a premium construct, loads of textual content customizations for snug studying and a crisp, warm-light, seven-inch show. The addition of shade provides curiosity to e-book covers and allows you to spotlight textual content in 4 completely different hues. Kobo additionally caught a sooner processor within the machine, which makes waking from sleep, turning pages, navigating the menu and altering orientation zippy quick.

The Libra Color doesn’t include the Kobo stylus — one other level within the Scribe’s favor — however if you happen to add the $70 accent, you’ll be capable of spotlight textual content and scribble notes within the margins of any e-book. You’ll additionally unlock entry to Kobo’s two types of notebooks: Fundamental, which helps you to draw, scribble and write freehand, and Superior, which may convert handwriting to typed textual content and allows you to add diagrams and sections.

The stylus gives three pen types, plus a brush and highlighter, and switching between them is fast with an unobtrusive menu. Due to the colour know-how, you may write and attract ten colours and spotlight in 4. One of many few points I bumped into was with the highlighter button — it’s in a terrific spot for spotlighting textual content on the fly, however that location can also be proper the place I relaxation my pointer finger, so I usually hit it whereas writing. However the utility of the built-in eraser balances out that irritation.

I observed a barely perceptible latency and good strain sensitivity, which is most evident utilizing the fountain pen. The faucet-to-convert function nearly all the time accurately turned my bizarre printing-and-cursive-hybrid handwriting into sort, and importing notebooks to Dropbox or Google Drive took mere seconds. (It’s also possible to do hardwired, USB-C transfers to a pc.)

With the added price of the stylus, you’ll pay $290 for Kobo’s set, which remains to be $50 cheaper than the bottom mannequin Scribe. In the event you don’t want a bigger display or entry to the a whole bunch of Kindle titles you might have already bought, the Libra Color makes for an interesting ereader/E Ink pill different. — Amy Skorheim, Reporter, Shopping for Recommendation