Ewriters anyone?

[mike_bike_kite]

I'm very happy with my Kindle paperwhite but I'm continually surrounded by sheets of A4 that are filled with lists or technical designs for computer applications etc. I'm mildly interested in the new large format ewriters like the Boox Note Air as it could organise my life a bit better plus I could read the occasional PDF in it's natural format.

The main thing that put me off is the price. I'm also not sure about Android on such a device. These ewriters are fairly new so the price is going to be higher at the moment but I also can't help thinking that Kindle may produce an ewriter that will make me regret my purchase. Colour is also just around the corner.

Do these things justify their price tag? Is colour worth waiting for? Are cheaper models around the corner? Should I just stick with sheets of A4 and a pencil?

Mike

[Quoth]

You want an LCD Tablet like a 10" Lenovo for colour. Inherently colour for eink will either be dark, needing massive front lighting (Triton) or washed out (Kalido). Physics limits of eink approach, not technology. You'd need an as yet non-existent technology for passive colour as good as printed paper.
Larger than 8" is very expensive.
These are not a new market segment.
It depends on the Android app as to how well it works on eink.
The Boyue Likebook Mars is only 7.8", but it's nearly as big as a Forma and about €45 cheaper with 3.5mm jack audio, sd-card slot, BT for audio, BT for a real keyboard and Playstore that can be turned off. Koreader APK worked by direct download. Most Android Apps only need the Google Framework on to install from the Playstore. The Native PDF reader does autocrop and background/watermark fixing, but the built in epub reader is inferior to koreader.
I need the 10" LCD tablet (nearly 1/2 the price of a Mars) for colour or for technical PDFs. I use Xodo on it for PDFs and images and Lithium on it for epubs, but the Mars is superior for smaller PDFs.
The Kobo Libra is best to annotate ebooks, but I read Gutenberg and other PD ebooks on the Mars as koreader allows fixup of format. You can install koreader on a Kobo, but I've never bothered. I use Calibre to fix up any important Kindle or epub ebooks.

I've not used A4 paper and a pencil for years. Decent laptop since 2002 (replaced late 2016) and a 2nd PC + screen in the workshop. Mostly stopped printing PDFs when I got the 10" tablet, but I might print old service sheets for workbench to annotate with pen & highlighter when restoring / repairing vintage electronics.

I stopped printing manuscripts for proofing when I first got an eink Kindle.

[mike_bike_kite]

Thanks for your insight. Colour isn't all that big a thing for me but, if it doesn't detract from the text clarity, then it would just be a nice to have. The BT for a possible keyboard would also be really nice to have. I already have laptops and tablets but I much prefer to use eink if possible because it's pleasant to read and the batteries last forever. Can you organise your documents into a directory structure and search for items with these things? I tried PDF docs on the kindle but always gave up as I found them difficult to read.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

Can you organise your documents into a directory structure and search for items with these things? I tried PDF docs on the kindle but always gave up as I found them difficult to read.

Certainly you can with the Boyue Likebook Mars, and likely similar Android 8.1 models. Even many Android phones and tablets don't have a filebrowser. The one pre-installed on the Mars seems fine. Actually unlike the Kobo it has poor library features, no global title search, no collections and no series. But it does have a file manager and also the Library app has a Most Recently Used page and browses by directory. There is also search and subdirectories.

You can search the storage via USB from a laptop too, though sadly it's slow MTP mode rather than mass storage.

Even a 7" 300 dpi is too small for most technical PDFs. The Mar 6.8" is too small for magazines and A4 / Letter technical documents. So you either spend €150 on a 10" LCD tablet, or €400 on a larger one, or insane money for 10" to 14" approximately eink. Some of the larger eink are ONLY really for PDFs.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Certainly you can with the Boyue Likebook Mars, and likely similar Android 8.1 models. Even many Android phones and tablets don't have a filebrowser. The one pre-installed on the Mars seems fine. Actually unlike the Kobo it has poor library features, no global title search, no collections and no series. But it does have a file manager and also the Library app has a Most Recently Used page and browses by directory. There is also search and subdirectories.

You can search the storage via USB from a laptop too, though sadly it's slow MTP mode rather than mass storage.

Even a 7" 300 dpi is too small for most technical PDFs. The Mar 6.8" is too small for magazines and A4 / Letter technical documents. So you either spend €150 on a 10" LCD tablet, or €400 on a larger one, or insane money for 10" to 14" approximately eink. Some of the larger eink are ONLY really for PDFs.

It depends entirely on your eyesight. My mom would probably struggle to read a PDF intended for letter sized paper like a journal article on a 7.8" reader like the Oynx Nova series. I can do it fine. If you can read tiny text you can do it. The DPI is high enough for it to be clear.

I don't think Amazon is going to bother with an "eWriter". It doesn't mesh super well with how they make money with devices (selling you other things) and considering how they price the Oasis for what it offers I can't see them beating Oynx or Likebook on pricing by much if any.

That said I love my Nova 2 and Oynx Note Air. If you're going to be writing a lot the 10" screen makes a big difference. It is also more enjoyable to read PDFs on the Air. Storage works in a directory structure, you can search it. They also run Android so stuff like OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. can be used to sync files on and off wirelessly. Android also means any reader app you can think of! Kobo, Amazon, Google Play Books, Libby all work. BT keyboards work although I haven't done that too much. However the pen is really only usable for writing in the built in apps since most apps don't take into account eInk. The built in notes app is pretty good and so in the PDF reader.

I would go for a Oynx Note Air if you want to write notes and read PDFs. It's not cheap but it's extremely flexible. Remarkable is cheaper but way way more limited and worse at reading.

[ottischwenk]

When it comes to portrait work, I would prefer Likebook Alita over Note Air.
It has a slower CPU, but 1 GB more RAM and what can be important, SD expansion - I use a 512 GB card.
I have both, using Alita in portrait mode for handwritten comments and notes in document work (music scores, study scripts, etc), while I use Note Air exclusively in landscape mode as a glare-free notebook with keyboard, stylus and remote control (the screen is too slow for mouse or touchpad).