Lenovo introduced its latest notepad tablet called Smart Paper, designed to make you feel like you’re writing pen on paper. Writing on a screen never really felt like that for me, despite obvious improvements in response time and softness from other devices I’ve tested over the years.
The Smart Paper has a 10.3-inch E Ink display and comes with a stylus you never have to charge. Not only that, but there’s a magnetic slot for it too, ensuring you take it with you wherever you go. Writing on the Smart Paper felt smooth, owing to the 23-millisecond response time that reduces latency to something almost imperceptible. Is it perfect? No, but it’s pretty close. I didn’t notice any notable problem making contact with the screen and writing what I wanted as I briefly tried it out.
As you might expect, your hand won’t interfere with anything you’re writing, which is great for left-handers. There are nine different settings, like a ballpoint pen, wooden pencil, mechanical pencil, marker, brush, and more. A lot of this device reminded me of the Kindle Scribe.
Given this is purely for notetaking, Lenovo is trying to make it adaptable. Two integrated microphones let you record either yourself or an interview, lecture, presentation, etc. and correlate your notes with the audio. Tap on something you wrote, and the audio will play at that moment. The Smart Paper also converts handwriting to text, something it did very well when I tried both printing and calligraphic writing.
There’s plenty of room for it all with the 50GB of onboard storage. Lenovo says that’s enough for 50,000 pages, though voice recordings take up more space, so the real number will depend on how mixed your data is. Either way, you can also sync the Smart Paper device with Lenovo’s Smart Paper app for iOS, Android and Windows to back up and access your notes from those devices too. If you want to organize your notes, you can do it from the Smart Paper itself by creating folders to put them in.
Coming soon
It looks to be a while before Lenovo brings the Smart Paper to market, as it’s slated to come in late 2023. Check out the latest tech and gadgets coming out of CES 2023.
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