I'm currently working on a doctorate (in a field completely unrelated to my paid work/business!) and got to snag a Lenovo Smart Paper over the summer while in the UK. Below is my initial "review", which is really just my thoughts on the thing.
Lenovo Smart Paper
As a first e-ink tablet for me - and, in fact, the first dedicated tablet I've owned in 10 years (not counting the Surface Pro 4) - this is really striking out into new territory for me. Overall, I would give the Lenovo Smart Paper passing marks, especially for people like myself with overstressed eyes that need to do a lot of digital documentary reading, but there is clearly room for improvement. I can understand why a lot of other online reviews say this has potential but still can feel a bit unfinished/rough around the edges.
The Good
The Lenovo Smart Paper, known as the Yoga Smart Paper in China (from what I can best glean off the Internet), is a roughly 10 inch tablet with an e-ink screen. It comes packaged with a compatible, no-charge pen; a magnetic cover (with provision for the pen); and a compatible wall charger and cable. At its price point (about £400 when I bought it on a student discount), it is comparable to the Kindle Scribe (as best as I can surmise) and better than things like the reMarkable (again, speaking from only what I've read online) in terms of price and what is included. That you don't have to purchase a cover, pen and whatever else essential to run the main features is a huge plus, and I give Lenovo credit for thinking of that.
I also like that you can run almost any type of e-book or document file on the machine, though some formats will need a bit more creativity and ingenuity to get to function than others - this is like due to it running a pretty bare-bones Android 11 AOSP operating system. It requires a bit of technical expertise to navigate and really use, but it is largely worth it once learned. The writing interface is good and responsive, and I find it quite pleasant to take notes on that I may largely forgo paper in the future if this continues to perform as hoped! The auto-adjust brightness feature (with no visible camera to measure light, as far as I can see) works really well, responding to even slight variations in shadow on a sunny day (which can be a bit annoying if my viewing angle hasn't changed at all), but I'd still give it a pass. With all the basic functionality features enabled, it's battery life is so-so - I haven't been overly impressed so far, but for lasting about 2 weeks per full charge with fairly steady use as I get used to it has so far left me satisfied.
Room for Improvement
That all being said, there are some things which I am not a big fan of that could use improvement. Almost all are software items, which means Lenovo could theoretically address them all (and make me a much happier camper to boot!).
- CA certificates locked: This one drives me nuts as my school's wifi authentication protocol requires a custom certificate (eduroam) in order to connect. If this is marketed at students in particular, which is seems to be, I would fail it on this also given the prevalence of eduroam networks at universities across the globe.
- Difficulty installing... well, almost anything: If you like and can live with Lenovo's pre-installed apps (of which almost all are free/open source), then you'll find no complaint here. However, if you attempt to install third-party APKs (since AOSP does not come with the Play Store, which requires a license and would have driven up the cost of this tablet if included) or other downloaded files, be prepared to download them multiple times and retry installation until achieving success (or giving up in frustration). This seems to be a software issue, possibly related to the Security settings and the CA certificate matter above.
- I honestly don't see the need for the Smart Paper app or the features being sold through it. Especially when you can connect Google Drive and sideload DropBox.
- Japanese input is horrendous. It only allows for phonetic transliteration and doesn't support Japanese Chinese characters at all (kanji). Lots of Chinese support, including (I think) for handwriting. But not so for Japan.
- Physical rocker buttons to adjust brightness (or, really, to program as the user sees fit!) would be a welcome addition. As would a 3.5mm jack port, though I honestly have not tried to recording feature nor connecting wireless headphones yet.
The Verdict
If you are a student or someone who takes copious notes, as well as someone needing to read or markup digital documents a lot and prefer to do it by hand (say, a paralegal or secretary), then this might be the tablet for you. However, there are a lot of software gimmicks that need smoothing out which can make this less accessible to many, including the target audience for this device. I think Lenovo has a good thing on its hands that can become great with just a bit more refining and polishing. 7/10
©2023 Aaron Pelot, CC-BY