E-Reader Review: Lenovo Smart Paper

Continuing a proud tradition here of titling all my e-ink tablet reviews as ‘e-reader reviews’, when they’re much more than just e-readers, purely to make it easier on my post tagging system... You may recall (okay, you probably don’t, and who can blame you) that in my review for the Huawei MatePad Paper , I concluded by saying that that was the one I ‘ended up keeping’. Reader, this proved untrue. Just a month or so later, the Lenovo Smart Paper came out, and it blows the Huawei OUT OF THE WATER. Let’s do a deep dive. Accessories We’ll start with the bundled folio case, as that’s the first thing you’ll see when you glance at the Lenovo. From a distance, it looks great - a smooth dark grey surface, with the shiny logo in the corner. It also has magnets to hold the device in place. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel great to touch. The surface is weirdly rubbery, and it feels flimsy. In fact, it is flimsy; after less than a month of carrying this in my bag, you can see how a little bit of the outer coating has peeled off (at the top of the pen bump) to reveal the cloth innards. So I’ve had to shell out another £17 for a cover to go ON TOP of the folio cover, which is... not ideal. Luckily though, that’s basically my biggest downside out of the way. The other bundled accessory, the EMR stylus, is great. A bit on the small side, so if you have larger hands this may not be for you, but mine are small so it’s perfect. It’s a sleek metallic pen which magnetically slots into a furrow on the left-hand side, and I love this design because it means there’s no risk of the pen falling off or being damaged, as might happen if you store it snapped to the side of the tablet. This is the only tablet I’ve seen with this design choice. (You can also store it on the side if you really want to). The Lenovo’s screen is slightly textured, so writing with the pen feels perfect - there’s enough scratchy feedback that you don’t feel like your pen is just gliding across a glass screen, which is an issue I had with the Huawei. If it’s quiet you can even hear the scratching. This does make the nibs wear down like on the ReMarkable, but the tablet comes with a few other nibs and I’m told you can buy more by ringing up your local after-sales service. Unless you have very heavy handwriting, you shouldn’t burn through more than a pack or so of nibs per year, which won’t set you back too much. Hardware The actual tablet itself is a squarish slate made from sleek dark grey metal. I have to say, this makes it feel much more premium than the Huawei, which was covered in a weird sort of textured plastic that was good to grip...

Preview: ~500 words