Preliminary opinions on the Note 2

[AmCom]

Hi,

after agonizing for an irrational amount of time about which device to get, i finally decided to try out the Note 2. There are a couple of things that bother me with it, that I didn't find in any report prior to my purchase. So I'm gonna do a quick report on my initial impressions:

(1) The contrast seems really bad and the text actually looks fuzzy (to me, on my device) compared to a high res display. I expected the refresh rate to be slow (fine to me) but compared to what I was reading on the last weeks (ipad pro), it just looks super washed out and the text clarity is not where I expected it to be

(2) The thing is a finger print magnet. I mean, i never seen anything similar on any electronics, unless maybe the backside of my Huawei Mate 20.

(3) The size is fine to read A4 papers. You just put it in horizontal and split it in two and its really good. I would prefer this device to the Max for social science / humanities reading because it is lighter, smaller and has sufficient size. You can read book pdfs of smaller sizes simply in full screen. I like it.

(4) Highlighting is abysmal. I expected the writing to have some delay from all the reports but if you have a workflow that is mainly highlighting pdfs and adding some markup, oh boy, i basically could write a whole dissertation in the time the device takes to make up its mind to start highlighting.

(5) The interface is not self-explanatory but nothing too bothersome.

(6) Im using Nextcloud to sync between devices and it seems the Note refuses to safe pdfs directly to Nextcloud, which will be quite the bother if I switch devices. I will have to investigate this further tho, maybe there is a solution.

(7) I have no problem with the pen or the writing experience. In some respects i like it better than the insanely expensive apple pen 2. That thing gives me handpain because of its size and its also really impractical to hold it while reading. Also the friction on the note feels much better to write on than the ice skating rink that is the ipad screen.

That's it so far. I'll have to test a couple of weeks to see if the device is useful to me. The highlighting is a big bummer.

(i'll prolly crosspost this on r/ereaders, since i was scouring both places for use reports on those things)

take care!

[franzli]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

I also got a Note 2 as replacement for the regular Note whose battery had worn out.
I was interested to find you had terrible waiting for the highlighting - I've never intentionally used it so far (mostly just mark up using the pen), but I've found the highlighting a touch too sensitive at times, as my pan sometimes marks stuff when I don't have the pen choose enough to trigger pan rejection.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by AmCom

(1) The contrast seems really bad and the text actually looks fuzzy (to me, on my device) compared to a high res display. I expected the refresh rate to be slow (fine to me) but compared to what I was reading on the last weeks (ipad pro), it just looks super washed out and the text clarity is not where I expected it to be

IIf you want an Ipad Pro screen, you have to buy an Ipad Pro.
EInk is based on a different technology, but it only needs electricity when something changes.