TCL Is Releasing a Digital Notebook That Is Similar to the More User-Friendly Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.
When it comes to digital note-taking, you typically have two choices: do you want electronic ink (E-Ink) or speed? Devices like the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and Remarkable Paper Pro have demonstrated that there’s definitely a demand for electronic note-taking, even if they can be a bit sluggish. But for the most responsive digital notepad, you’ve usually had to settle for something like an iPad with a stylus. Now, TCL wants to change that.
A company specializing in budget tablets and TVs has finally announced its first full-fledged digital notebook: the TCL Note A1 NXTPAPER . Its Kickstarter launch is coming soon, with a release planned for February. The key feature is a clever twist: notes taken on this device are designed to look like they’re written on paper, while the screen is as fast as a gaming monitor.
This was made possible by NXTPAPER technology, which, while not entirely new, was previously positioned more for media consumption than creation. Unlike E Ink, which uses physical ink capsules embedded in the display, NXTPAPER uses a standard LCD screen with a matte, anti-glare coating and software to suppress blue light and varying degrees of reflection, mimicking paper.
The result—which I can attest to, having personally tested it at several CES shows—isn’t quite as pleasing to the eye as E Ink, but it’s convincing and much more comfortable to use for almost everything except reading plain text. Considering E Ink’s slow refresh rate and limited color display capabilities, it’s a decent compromise. Furthermore, the matte layer acts as a sort of screen protector, the kind artists buy to make drawing on a tablet feel more like drawing on paper. For my scribbles, it’s perfectly adequate.
The Note A1 NXTPAPER tablet runs Android, features an 11.5-inch display certified by TUV for eye comfort, and can display 16.7 million colors with a 120Hz refresh rate (or up to 120 frames per second). Considering the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft can only display around 4,100 colors and has a response time of 12-14ms between input and image refresh, this isn’t bad.
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And since it’s running Android, you get other perks, too, like the ability to stream your notes or PowerPoint presentations to a digital whiteboard. TCL hasn’t yet announced whether the Note A1 will be Play Store certified, but if it is, it will be easy to download note-taking apps, as well as additional perks like comic book readers. Thanks to the high refresh rate, you can even use this laptop for watching videos.
What sets this tablet apart from other TCL NXTPAPER models is the included stylus, built-in support for file formats ranging from Word and PDF to Excel and EPUB, and the ability to connect to cloud storage services like Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive. Furthermore, as you might have guessed from the name, it features a wealth of AI features.
Like Viwood’s AIPaper , the Note A1 has built-in features for transcription, translation, summarization, rewriting, and handwriting-to-text conversion. TCL hasn’t yet revealed how exactly these will work, but a short video demonstrating the device in action highlights some of them. Personally, I’m most interested in the “handwriting enhancement” feature, and I think people who enjoy doing math by hand will appreciate the “handwritten formula recognition” feature.
The downside to all of this is that traditional screens tend to last much less time between charges than E Ink screens, but with the 8,000mAh battery, TCL hopes to avoid that, though official battery life figures haven’t been released yet.
At launch, the TCL NXTPAPER will start at $549, compared to $630 for the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and Remarkable Paper Pro. This is a significant savings and worth considering, especially if you’re struggling to decide between E Ink and LCD. It won’t be as easy on the eyes as the Kindle, but it may be much less tiring for fast writers, and it will feel less computer-like than, say, an iPad.