A 6" device is going to be a hard sell w/ folks having cell phones, but I would be down for an e-ink cell phone w/ (Wacom EMR) stylus.
They already exist. Well, two. The MobiScribe Origin (second device by them) and King Jim Freeno. I’m pretty sure both are the same device in different shells from some Chinese OEM.
The Freeno got discontinued this year, but MobiScribe are still going and have a small niche.
And, while lacking EMR, Hisense are now on their second generation of E-Ink phone and have released a non-cellular version as a pocketable ereader.
I’d say there absolutely is a sustainable niche of customers there. Ones who want notetaking and book/document access, and also want long battery life.
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Wasn’t there also something called Yota phone? A Russian entity I believe. What happened to them?
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Three generations. Nothing since 2019.
There is a website claiming to sell some sort of model, but given the current situation and the website looking dodgy (listing the device running Android 4.2.2)… I’d steer well clear.
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No thoughts of getting one. Just curious as to why it went quiet. Present political situation probably doesn’t do them any good either.
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I would rather say, that it didn’t sell well enough.
To special and to expensive
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Other’s have commented as well but one of our customers trialed a couple and it had some potentially dodgy preloaded apps which appeared to be doing data harvesting.
We never tested one, but I did get to play with the Yota, and conceptually anyway, it had some charms.
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TikTok of the 00’s?
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Ony Boox Leaf review by the Verge:
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A heads up in case anyone gets tempted by the crowdfunded ReInkstone R1 or Topjoy Butterfly DES color e-ink tablets. Backers are full of regrets.
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Just received a second one of these from a customer for our certification testing this morning. (first one was DOA).
Of course, it’s full Android which could be a plus. It also has the same e-ink display as the Kobo Elipsa, which again is noticeably less sharp than the Kindle Scribe, albeit with better contrast.
One other note to companies like Boox, as this is positioned at least somewhat more towards a general-purpose device, they and others trying to make larger e-ink devices a mainstream thing, really need to work on the OOTB experience as this one hard crashed once and had an unresponsive touch screen upon restart as it was in the process of downloading updates. A subsequent restart resolved that issue, but this is apparently par for the course according to our customers that have experimented with these.
BOOX Tab Ultra | 10.3’’ ePaper Tablet PC made for Productivity – The Official BOOX Store
PS: I’m not sure why Boox specifies it as a 10.3 inch panel and Kobo specifies it as 10.2 when from everything we can tell, it’s the same panel.
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Looks like Boox is coming out with a 13.3” version of the Tab Ultra. Premature listing seen on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/BOOX-Tab-ePaper-Tablet-Digital/dp/B0BNZT5QVX
Discussed by Nathan:
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Got very brief hands on with this late yesterday. The display appears to be the same e-ink panel in the Scribe.
The pen is most definitely EMR and the software has a couple of solid features that seem 100% designed to address those like me who have a primary use for them for document review/markup.
Two other things.
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They didn’t confirm or deny, but it looks to be running a highly modified version of Android.
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Even though as the article states, the MSRP is $60 higher than the Scribe, you can virtually always find some level of “sale” on Lenovo devices.
And the voice note feature is appealing to me as well.
Lenovo’s Smart Paper tablet is a $400 answer to the Kindle Scribe | Engadget
PS: they absolutely nailed the case.
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If they’d just use EMR for their other devices again…
But I’m guessing that it’s only here because that’s whatever their supplier was offering.
EMR seems to have a lock on pen enabled e-ink devices including the license fees currently being 1/3 what they are for Windows/LCD devices.
I have no idea if this a temporary move to gain market share or permanent. However as we have discussed previously EMR is the obvious choice for e-ink devices for multiple reasons
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The PDF for Lenovo’s Smart Paper eNote shows Android 11 and their ebook app of choice is eBooks.com… which makes it dead in the water as far as I’m concerned unless the Kindle app can be sideloaded. There is no Google Play Store.
Eh?
eBooks.com is fine enough and you can get DRM free eBooks in a variety of places. Plus, there’s always Calibre.
A little more work? Sure. But I don’t think that’s beyond the target audience for this device.
No GPS is more of an issue, but then again many apps just don’t work well with eInk, especially if you are drawing/writing. It does make the Onyx devices look more appealing, but then again they are more expensive.
Voyo’s seems quite taken by the Lenovo Smart Paper, and I have to agree.
Build quality, surface texture, overall design finishes all seem among the best of the pack.
@~13:00 The screen refresh speed and lack of ghosting were particularly impressive out of the box.
@~23:00 Pen sensitivity, tilt/pressure, nib feel, and software brushes…all there, and equal to the Remarkable.
The overall UI (though ripped from Remarkable OS) seems highly polished. Wow. I have to say…compared to their other niche devices, this is a stunning first attempt from Lenovo.
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I had only a few minutes of hands on with it at CES, but I was very impressed with it.
Two things stood out to me were display, which was visually sharper and looked higher contrast than my Elipsa or the Scribe I briefly had and how fluid and responsive the software/OS was, again more so than either aforementioned device.
OTOH a couple of obvious features specific to pen support seemed to be missing, though it’s likely they are just implemented differently than the two devices I have experience with.
I also liked the in hand feel of the pen, better than my Elipsa, and on par with the Scribe.
At least two of our customers are considering these, so we should be able to test them soon.
PS: The OS seems to be a highly customized variant of Android, so if that’s actually the case, might open it to hackability and apps
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Tells me Lenovo believes there is huge growth potential in this space. I’m not sure the existing eInk sales are enough to settle for cannibalizing just a piece of it.