Speaker 1: E ink tablets, take your basic e-reader and kick it up a notch, letting you take notes with the stylists. They combine the battery life and easy reading experience of a Kindle with the writing and note taking ability usually found on traditional tablets. So are they worth it compared to traditional tablets? I compare three of the most popular models.
Speaker 1: First thing, first ING tablets. Aren't trying [00:00:30] to be your go-to entertainment device. You can't scroll through social media, watch TV or play games. These devices ditch the bright L C D displays found on iPads and other tablets in favor of the energy efficient EIN technology. The screens use gray scale, just like your basic Kindle. Yes. These E ink tablets do have some kind of rudimentary web browser, but they're slow and definitely not fun to use. If you wanna browse the web stick with a tablet, [00:01:00] I find they work best for activities like reading note, taking and handwriting. Their goal is to give you the most paper-like experience. If you need to plow through PDFs or love to take handwritten notes in a distraction free setting and EIN tablet is ideal. So what's the difference between an E ink tablet and an e-reader e-readers like Kindles and Cobos tend to be small about the size of a paperback book.
Speaker 1: They're also basically good. Only for reading. You can highlight [00:01:30] texts and type out small notes with the onscreen keyboard, but they tend not to have stylist support. I tested three of the most popular EIN tablets available to see how they stood up in real world. Use. First up is the $300 remarkable two. This one is one of the best for taking lots of handwritten notes. It's super thin and light, which makes it easy to carry around in a backpack. It's 10.3 inches and uses a monochrome digital display with a resolution of 2 26, [00:02:00] DPI the writing and text look clear and sharp, and you can choose from over 40 different page templates for notes, with seven options, just for musical notation, including guitar cords and piano sheets. The software is easy to use with clear buttons at the top to add notebooks and folders. It has eight gigabytes of internal storage and an optional cloud storage service for $8 per month.
Speaker 1: After a 100 day free trial, that connect service also does handwriting conversion and has [00:02:30] Google drive Dropbox and OneDrive integration. The included stylish, which doesn't require pairing or charging is great. It offers the most realistic writing experience of any tablet I have ever used. The screen has a paper like feel, which gives the pen a level of friction that feels incredibly true to life. The remarkable two also shines with PDFs highlights automatically straighten themselves and turn a legible shade of gray. I could add pages to PDFs [00:03:00] for extra notes or write in the margins with ease the Remarkables thinness pen input and PDF management capabilities make this E ink tablets. One of my favorites, the biggest issue is that the remarkable two lacks any kind of back like which frankly could be a deal breaker, much like an actual book or notebook. This device requires an external light source to use in the dark.
Speaker 1: Even the cheapest Kindle now has front light illumination for nighttime use. [00:03:30] It also doesn't function particularly well as an e-reader as the only formats, it supports our PDF and unprotected EPU. That means you won't be able to access your Kindle content or any other EPU books with digital rights management software, which includes almost all legally purchasable books on the market. Ultimately, I found this eing tablet to be incredibly helpful as I mostly use it to highlight and mark up long PDFs at $300. This is the cheapest eating [00:04:00] tablet on our list, but it's still essentially just a PDF and note taking device. Next up is the $490 OnX books. Note air two. This is the most tablet like EIN device. I tested, it features a resolution of 2 27 DPI runs on a customized version of the Androids 11 operating system, and even has its own app store where you can download third party apps that have been optimized for the device.
Speaker 1: There's also a way to [00:04:30] access the full Google play store though. I wouldn't recommend it for anything other than downloading an rereading app. As the books still has an EIN display and isn't made for games or video it's 64 gigabytes of storage, which sadly isn't expandable and will fill up fast. If you download a lot of apps, the company does offer five gigabytes of cloud storage from its own service for free to help transfer documents to the device though, you can also use Dropbox, Evernote and OneNote. The [00:05:00] biggest benefit of the app store is that you'll have access to your entire collection of books from your Kindle nook and Cobo library. You can also download the Libby app for library books and Marvel unlimited users can download the app and read comics though, not in color. The note air two includes speakers and a microphone allowing you to listen to audio books from audible or other audiobook apps.
Speaker 1: This is a great selling point of the device, but I found the in-app experience to be less than ideal. If you're someone [00:05:30] who downloads eBooks for school, don't count on taking notes on top of your books to write directly onto them. You'll need to have them in a DRM free ebook format. For example, you won't be able to use the pen to take notes or highlights in books on the Kindle app. Luckily, the book supports a wide range of formats, including PDF EUB doc and mobi note taking and PDF management are strong on the note air too, but not as seamless as on the remarkable two highlights, [00:06:00] aren't automatically straightened and users have to choose the color and width of the marker. The known air two provides 16 options of gray sale color, but they all look the same on the device. Leaving highlights, looking dark and messy.
Speaker 1: The included stylists also lagged ever so slightly. When writing across the page on the plus side, if you like audio notes, you can include audio recordings. The note air two also lets you open a PDF and notebook at the same time in a split screen view, giving you [00:06:30] the ability to read and take notes all at once. Like the Kindle paper, white and Oasis, the books note air too comes with a warm and cold front light to help make the screen easier on the eyes and give it a more paper-like look, you can easily adjust both lights with a swipe down menu while this tablet is by far the most expensive on our lists. It's also the most versatile of the ING tablets and does a lot well, but nothing great. You might see that the company has recently [00:07:00] announced a note air two plus I haven't tried this one, but it's almost identical to the original air two, but with a bigger battery, which also makes it slightly heavier.
Speaker 1: Finally, we have the $400 Cobo. Lya Cobo might be a smaller company than Amazon, but it's been making e-readers for just about as long while Amazon once made a 9.7 inch Kindle, the product never offered natural input with a touch screen or stylist and was discontinued in 2014. [00:07:30] The Lya has a 10.3 inch screen and comes with a stylist and case. Unlike Kindles Cobos have a seemingly limitless ability to customize the reading experience. You can play continuously with margins line spacing, fonts and font size to get a page that looks exactly how you want to. No matter the size of the screen, the stylist can be used on any PDF or Cobo E pup. So it works just as well on library books, as it does on [00:08:00] books from the Cobo store. Speaking of the library, Cobo is known for its deep integration with the ebook library service overdrive.
Speaker 1: You can easily access browse and download library books directly from your device. So long as your local library uses overdrive. Unfortunately, the ellipses note taking capabilities are lacking. I experienced frustrating lag when writing with a stylist for any length of time and the notebook features are fairly basic. The basic notebook gives you four different templates, [00:08:30] graph paper, wide line dotted, paper and blank for comparison. The remarkable two offers a whopping eight different options just for lined paper, advanced notebooks, let you convert your handwriting to text insert drawings, diagrams, math equations, and a free form section. But there's just one type of lined page in which to take your notes. There are only a few types of pens to choose from and just five pen brush sizes, much fewer than the remarkable [00:09:00] two. In short, I wasn't able to use the notebook feature for anything other than the most basic scribbles.
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't recommend it for anything more than that. The cobalt Lya has 32 gigabytes of storage, a resolution of 2 27 DPI and a blue front light, but it lacks the warm light of the books. While this E ink tablet misses the mark on long form writing it excels at large screen library, friendly e-reader with the ability to scribble in the margins. So overall [00:09:30] each E ink tablet I tested has its strength and weaknesses. The remarkable is best for PDFs and note taking the book's note air two is the most versatile and expensive and the Cobo is the best for reading. Do you have any questions or favorite E ink model? Let me know in the comments for more guys and videos like this, check out the description below. Thanks for watching.
