In addition to a bunch of laptops, tablets and phones, Lenovo also announced an E-ink notebook at CES. This device called “Smart Paper” has a 10.3-inch anti-reflective screen and 50GB of storage space, which according to Lenovo is enough to store 50,000 pages of various notes and doodles.
The stylus of Smart Paper has no built-in battery and can be stored in the device. Its latency is as low as 23ms, trying to simulate the response of real writing. It has 4,000 levels of pressure sensitivity and tilt detection, and you can also set 9 different writing strokes (such as pencil, ballpoint pen or marker pen). As for the paper, Smart Paper also provides dozens of options, including blanks, horizontal lines, and even staves.
Smart Paper also has built-in dual microphones, allowing you to record while taking notes. The content of the recording and the notes are synchronized with each other, so you can also click on a piece of text to listen to the current recording. Smart Paper can also convert your handwriting into text so that they can be searched, and of course you can also organize your notes into folders. Smart Paper also supports cloud synchronization, just install the Smart Paper mobile or Windows PC app. The app also has built-in functions for translating text and recording to other languages.
The E-ink device for notes can be regarded as a side branch of the e-book reader, but it seems that the penetration rate is not very high. Smart Paper is priced at US$400, which is US$60 more expensive than Amazon’s Kindle Scribe, and is expected to be available later this year.
