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The Lenovo Yoga Paper is an E Ink tablet with a 10.3 inch greyscale display that supports pen and touch input, a Rockchip RK3566 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and Android-based software.
First announced earlier this year, the Yoga Paper is available in China for around $400 and up, but Lenovo hasn’t announced plans to sell the tablet in other countries yet. But that could change soon. In a series of tweets Evan Blass has been spilling the beans on Lenovo’s plans for the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show. Among other things, he says Lenovo will introduce an E Ink tablet called Smart Paper.
Judging by the pictures, the Smart Paper looks identical to the Yoga Paper tablet. The only obvious differences I can find are the name and the fact that the text in the images appears to be in English rather than Chinese.
While it’s certainly possible that Lenovo could change some specs or features for the global version of the tablet, I’d be surprised if it varies too much from the version available in China, which features:
- Display: 10.3 inch E Ink Carta 1200 display
- Processor: Rockchip RK3566 processor (4 x ARM Cortex-A55 cores @ 2 GHz + Mali-G52EE graphics and 1 TOPS NPU)
- Memory/Storage: 4GB + 64GB
- Pen support: 4096 levels pressure sensitivity & 23ms latency
- Dimensions: 5.5mm thick
- Materials: CNC aluminum
- Battery: 3,350 mAh (up to 10 weeks standby)
- Wireless: WiFi, Bluetooth 5.2, wireless display support
The tablet has a thicker bezel on one side and features a slot for storing the digital pen when you’re not using it.
While this is Lenovo’s first tablet with just an E Ink display, the company has dabbled with the technology a few times over the years, releasing a few different dual-screen notebooks that used ePaper for one display (although sometimes that display was actually a keyboard).
There’s no word on how much Lenovo’s Smart Paper tablet will cost in the US and other global markets, or when you’ll be able to buy one. But we’ll probably learn more once the Consumer Electronics Show is underway next week.
Lenovo is hardly the only company playing in the E Ink & pen tablet space these days. Sony helped create the E-Note space with its Digital Paper lineup. ReMarkable has made a name for itself in recent years. A few less well known Chinese companies like Onyx BOOX and Bigme have a number of models with similar features. And some of the best-known companies in the eReader space including Kobo and Amazon have also released their own models.
I can’t help but wonder if there’s actually enough demand for the level of competition we’re seeing, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the bigger companies exit the space in the coming years if the answer turns out to be no. But for now it’s looking like a golden age of E Ink tablets… for those willing to spend the money on a digital tablet for reading and writing. Tablets with E Ink displays still tend to be more expensive than models with LCD screens.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not able to see any of Evan Blass’ tweets.
“You’re unable to view this Tweet because this account owner limits who can view their Tweets.”
Yeah, he locked down his account so that only followers can see them, but I still try to give him credit when he’s the source of a story.
I spent about 1/20th as much on an LCD writing tablet which uses a passive LCD panel that goes transparent when pressure is applied revealing a bright green sheet behind it. A button press uses a coin cell to blank the LCD. That combined with a phone to take photos of the finished drawings is pretty good for office note taking or whiteboarding. Going smart would give me easier sharing and an eraser function but a full tablet would be better still for not much more.
Lenovo’s biggest edge is their thinkpad keyboards. Pair a great, hinged, wired (pinned, whatever, just not bluetooth), thinkpad style lapdock with this and they’d really have something. I mean, I’d prefer windows for better software selection, but this would still be a rare device.
Lenovo’s eink laptops always make it impossible to use the screen with the keyboard. They keep getting so close to the other obvious use of eink. Yes, reading, yes handwriting, what about typing? Traditional laptops are awful outdoors, I know I use them out there despite their unsuitability, the visibility from both a brightness perspective and glare is awful. My kingdom for a great eink laptop, built for direct sunlight (should be prepared thermally for this as well).
And while the tablet market is crowded as you say, the convertible eink market is not.