I’m a longtime lover of pen and paper, so E Ink tablets have been interesting to me ever since they started becoming more widely available. After keeping hundreds of half-finished notebooks over the years, I, at some point, turned to digital tools because it was easier to store everything on my phone or laptop so I always had my most important information at my fingertips.
E-ink tablets offer the best of both worlds: the tactile satisfaction of a regular notebook with many of the features found in digital tools, plus an eye-pleasing e-ink screen.
These devices have come a long way in recent years — you can now find them in a range of sizes, some have color E Ink screens and others even function as full-blown ereaders with access to ebook stores and your local library’s offerings.
I’ve tested about a dozen E Ink tablets over the past year or two to see how well they work, how convenient they really are, and which are the best tablets using E Ink screens available today.
Are E Ink tablets worth it
E Ink tablets will only be a worthwhile purchase for a select few. If you like the look and feel of an e-paper display compared to the LCD panels found on traditional tablets, this makes a lot of sense. They’re also good options for people who want a more paper-like writing experience (though you can get that kind of functionality on a regular tablet with the right screen protector) or want a more distraction-free device overall.
The last note here is important. Most E Ink tablets don’t run on the same operating system as regular tablets, so you’ll automatically be limited in what you can do. And even with those that allow you to download traditional apps like Chrome, Instagram, and Facebook, E Ink tablets aren’t designed to give you the best casual-browsing experience. This is mainly due to the nature of E Ink displays, which have a noticeable refresh, lack color, and are lower quality than the panel found on the cheapest iPad.
Arguably the biggest reason you might not want an iPad (all models of which support stylus input, a plethora of reading apps, and more) is that it’s too easy to get distracted by email, social media, and other internet-related temptations.
If this is the case for you, you might also want to consider an e-reader, but just know that most standard e-readers don’t accept stylus input. If you like making notes in the margins of books, outlining PDFs, and marking up PDFs, an e-reader isn’t right for you.
What to look for in an E Ink tablet
Latency
I’ve discovered four main things during my testing that can really make or break your experience with an E Ink tablet; the first is the writing experience. How good this is will depend heavily on the display’s refresh rate (does it refresh every time you put the pen to the “paper”?) and the latency of the stylus.
Most had little to no latency, but there were some that were worse than others. Finally, you should double-check whether your favorite E Ink tablet comes with a stylus before you buy.
Reading
The second thing to consider is the reading experience. How well will you be able to read books, documents, and other things on this tablet? Although you can find E Ink tablets in all different sizes, most of them are larger than your standard e-reader because it makes writing easier.
Having a larger display isn’t a bad thing, but it can be a little more uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time. (Most e-readers are roughly the size of a paperback book, giving you a similar feeling to analog reading.)
Supported file types will also make a big difference. It’s hard to make a blanket statement here because this varies so much between E Ink tablets. In short, if you choose a tablet made by a company that already has a history of e-book sales (such as Amazon or Kobo), all titles purchased from the Kindle or Kobo store should be automatically available on your Kindle or Kobo E Ink tablet.
And with Kindle titles, in particular, since they’re protected by DRM, trying to get those titles onto a third-party device isn’t necessarily the best idea. Unless the tablet supports a reading app like Amazon’s Kindle or Kobo apps, you’ll be limited to supported file types, such as ePUB, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, PNG, and others.