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Best E Ink tablets in 2024
Slim designs, crisp displays, and intuitive note-taking — find your ideal E Ink tablet with this comprehensive round-up
If you're like us, you've also stayed up until the wee hours under the hypnotic blue glow of a phone or tablet, reviewing spreadsheets, taking notes, and maybe watching a TikTok video or two (or ten). But let's face it, a tablet just can't do what your trusty notebook can. Good old-fashioned paper's simplistic nuances can't be denied — its unmistakable texture, the directness of the pen meeting page, and the freedom from the incessant need to recharge are all worth noting.
Kindle Scribe vs. Kobo Elipsa 2E: Which is the better E Ink writing tablet?
Two e-readers enter the ring, only one will leave
E-readers dominate the E Ink device consumer market, but the e-writer has emerged in the last few years. The e-writer is an e-reader that lets you use a stylus to jot down ideas, annotate text, and mark electronic documents. Boox, who offers a lot of nice e-readers, has been making devices with styli since at least 2011 with the M92, but the biggest names in the game — Kindle and Kobo — didn’t throw their hats into the ring until 2022 and 2021, respectively.
Best Kobo e-readers in 2024
From the sophisticated Sage to the economical Clara, Kobo has every reader covered
E-readers are game-changers for bookworms. With an E Ink tablet, voracious readers get their hands on anticipated titles with less waiting time, explore new books and genres, and take many favorite texts on adventures — no back strain or pallet jack necessary.
Supernote Nomad tablet review: Say goodbye to paper for good
A note-taking experience that feels just right
There’s a new note-taking tablet in town — it just wandered in — and its name is Nomad. Like its name and brand suggest, the Ratta Supernote Nomad is an Android tablet designed for writing notes on the go. With this feature in mind, it rivals the likes of the reMarkable 2, and its compact dimensions make it all the easier to tote along.
This is my new favorite Android device, and it's not a phone
Barebones Android that delivers a purpose-built experience? Count me in!
What can I say? I'm a sucker for purpose-built devices. Perhaps this stems from being born in an age where such things existed in all walks of life, from washing machines and refrigerators that would last 50 years to tube televisions and tape recorders that delivered a polished and purpose-driven experience. I miss those days when it feels rare modern tech can deliver on all the promises it purports to fulfill. Sure, we have tablets that can do everything under the sun, but do any of those features ever feel polished to the point of perfection? Of course not; well-made things last, and despite the claims of going green across so much marketing, the last thing any mainstream tech manufacturer wants is for your device to last; the yearly churn must continue to drive profits.
This weird, E Ink-powered keyboard phone looks amazing and is almost certainly vaporware
The Minimal Phone is has only passed the design stage, but it sure looks dope
Now that Boox has proved the combination of Android and E Ink can result in some niche but incredibly handy tablets, handsets have started popping up. That's right, E Ink smartphones. Hisense already offers a few, with more manufacturers popping up. Of which, there's a hot new mystery phone making waves (per Liliputing). The Minimal Phone already has a website available, offering a few mockups of the device along with a way to join the waitlist. The only trouble is that a Reddit AMA revealed the device has only recently passed its design stage, meaning there's nothing to show yet beyond renders. Still, if the device does manage to come to fruition, it could be the answer for those who want something in between a dumbphone and a smartphone, which certainly sounds appealing.
What is an E Ink display, and how does it work?
Learn about how the fascinating screen technology works
When Amazon dropped the first Kindle on the world in 2007, it single-handedly created the e-reader market. Even though devices like the Kindle and the Kobo can't compete with a high-end tablet in terms of 24-bit color depth or 60Hz refresh rate, they blow those devices out of the water when it comes to battery life by taking a different approach to their displays.
Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C review: Everything's better in color
Merging Android with E Ink and a splash of color is pure magic
Onyx is continuing its crusade in the name of e-reading, though it might be more appropriate to call its devices E Ink Android tablets, as they don't come running locked down operating systems like Amazon's Kindle e-readers or reMarkable's tablets. One of the latest models from Onyx is the Boox Tab Ultra C, and it puts a colorful spin on the Boox Tab Ultra we reviewed in March, which is already an appealing device.
Can I buy replacement Amazon Kindle Scribe pen tips?
Ready to unleash your inner wordsmith, but your pen tip is worn down? Don't panic!
Every bookworm worth their salt owns or wants to buy an e-reader. These devices are a more portable and convenient alternative to paperback or hardcover books, with displays that look and feel like paper and batteries that can last for weeks or months. Some e-readers even have the added advantage of writing and drawing with an active stylus pen.
Onyx Boox Tab Ultra review: E-ink excellence, hamstrung by price
The Onyx Boox Tab Ultra aims to be a great e-reader that doubles as a tablet or PC, but it comes at a high price
The Onyx Boox Tab Ultra aims to combine Android capabilities with an E Ink tablet, so when it was announced last October, I was pumped for it. Its paper-like screen, stylus for doodling and taking notes, media playback capabilities, and support for millions of Android apps are enough to entice anyone interested in using an excellent e-reader.
Next-gen E Ink screens promise brighter, bolder colors for future e-readers
Now maybe the older ones will come down in price
Low-power electronic paper displays are foundational to the e-book industry, and it’s no understatement to say that the Kindle wouldn’t exist as it does today without this technology. The E Ink Corporation is easily the biggest player in this space, and three years ago it announced its Kaleido screens that finally brought color to e-paper displays at a reasonable price. Color screens haven't risen to dominate the e-book market just yet, but E Ink has been pushing ahead with the technology and just announced its latest generation of Kaleido panels, with some decent-sounding upgrades
Huawei MatePad Paper takes on the Kindle Paperwhite for E Ink tablet supremacy
Why buy just an e-reader when you could have an Android tablet?
Huawei has been doing its best to keep its mobile lineup enticing since it was forced to drop Google’s services, thanks to those notorious US sanctions. That hasn’t stopped the company from trying to keep its consumer business afloat, though, and the likes of the P50, P50 Pro, and P50 Pocket (its first clamshell foldable) are recent attempts to sustain its relevance (even as the lack of GMS makes things difficult). Now with MWC 2022 officially getting started, Huawei has announced an E Ink tablet that looks perfectly poised to take on a whole new market segment for the company.
The Consumer Electronics Show is always full of surprises, and one of them this year was a pre-production smartphone with a color e-ink screen from Hisense. While Stephen wasn't convinced of the device's usability during a hands-on demo, Hisense doesn't seem to be the only company working on an e-ink phone.
Your smartphone's screen is a glutton. Sure, it may be beautiful, high-res, and with action as smooth as silk, but every second you're staring at it your phone's battery is just ravenously being sucked dry. Manufacturers have been working since smartphones existed to mitigate that problem, but progress has been a series of baby steps. Now a new tech promises to turn screen power consumption on its head, adapting the sort of low-power B&W e-ink screen you'll find on devices like Kindles to show a full range of colors.
Last month, phone manufacturer Yota Devices declared bankrupcy and began shutting down. That company was best known for its Yota Phone, a phone with an e-ink display on the back for on-the-go reading. If you're still longing for a phone with a paper display, the 'Kingrow K1' might be the answer.
Read update
- Engadget claims that the YotaPhone 3 will have a Snapdragon 625 processor, which would make sense for the device's price point. The front screen will be a 1080p 5.5" display, with a 5.2" 720p e-ink display on the back. The phone will also have 4GB of RAM, dual SIM slots (one of thm can also be a microSD card slot), a 12MP back camera, a 13MP front camera, a 3,200mAh battery, and a USB Type-C port.
Pictured: YotaPhone 2
The YotaPhone 2 and its predecessor have always intrigued me. They're probably the only significant departure in form factor available on the market right now that isn't different for the sake of being so, adds value, and has been relatively successful in its endeavor. After its European release last December, the YotaPhone 2 is coming back with a new color variant: white. And it looks striking if you ask me, especially with that new E Ink white theme where the old interface's colors are inverted.
Lenovo might own Motorola now, but the company is still doing its own thing when it comes to mobile devices. There are a pair of new Android phones today, as well as a wearable and a completely self-indulgent accessory—a selfie flash. Your life is complete now, right?
Five months after demoing working InkCase Plus prototypes at this year's Mobile World Congress, Oaxis has taken to Kickstarter to get its hands on some cold hard cash. And it's paying off. Already the company has amassed over $100,000 in pledges, surpassing its funding goal on just the first day. The idea of a case that adds a Bluetooth-connected secondary e-ink display to a phone apparently has a lot of people plenty excited. As of right now, over 500 of them. Nevertheless, $30,000 of their funding has come from three $10k sales, $15k from five $3k sales, $13k from thirteen $1k sales, and $7.2k from eight $900 sales. At those rates, it only takes a few.
Companies file for new patents all the time with nothing ever coming of it, so Google's application shouldn't be taken as evidence that such a device is coming down the pipeline. Nevertheless, some concepts are just plain cool. Google has designed a computing device with dual e-ink displays that folds as though it were an actual book, according to a patent application that the US Patent and Trademark Office recently published.