Unleash Your Writing Capabilities With the Best Writing Tablets
There are many ways to create and express yourself in today’s fast-paced world. One of these methods is writing on paper with a pencil or pen. However, not everyone has the time or space for that kind of luxury anymore. That’s where the best writing tablets in 2023 come in! Writing tablets work as an electronic canvas that you can manipulate through touch. Plus, it is a great way for children to explore their creativity and improve handwriting skills. These writing tablets are not just toys; they’re also educational tools. It has been proven that if kids use writing tablets, their hand-eye coordination with drawing and spelling can increase. They’re ideal and extremely fun for children who need to learn to write or explore their imagination and creativity without being distracted by colors and drawings! Below is a guide to some of our favorite writing tablets of 2023.
Comparing the Top Writing Tablet for 2023
Richgv LCD Writing Tablet – Best Glare-Free Tablet
Key Features
- 10-inch widescreen
- Radiation and glare free to protect eyes
- Always on and ready to use
- Environmental friendly
Richgv LCD Writing Tablet is the perfect writing tablet for kids. It has a 10-inch widescreen and a pressure-sensitive LCD, which can help increase hand-eye coordination with drawing as well as spelling abilities.
One of the best features of this product is that it provides eye protection for children. With its portability and ease of use, it’s a great tablet for you to choose from.
This tablet for writing is a great way to keep your kids busy and learning at the same time. It even comes with an attachable stylus that will allow you to write or draw on the screen.
CHEERFUN LCD Writing Tablet – Best Value
Key Features
- 10-inch screen
- Great gift for younger relatives
- No-mess activity
- Comes with two styluses
Encourage your child’s creativity without encouraging a mess around the house with the CHEERFUN LCD Writing Tablet. You can draw in different colors and with different brush sizes. It’s got the cutest dinosaur outer case that your child will love. The 10-inch screen is big enough for them to write words if they’re learning from home, or just to draw multiple pictures of their favorite TV characters or animals.
If you’re searching for the perfect Christmas or holiday gift for your nieces and nephews, this is a cute and affordable option. They will get hours of enjoyment drawing or writing on them. The battery lasts a long time and comes included in the package.
TEKFUN LCD Writing Tablet – Best No-Mess Tablet
Key Features
- 8.5-inch screen
- High-quality plastic
- Comes with a stylus
- Lightweight and portable
The ideal writing tablets are those that children can explore and play with, like this one!
The TEKFUN tablet has an 8.5-inch screen, which is large enough for children to see what they’re doing. It also comes with a non-radiation, wide colorful screen so that your child won’t get eye strain or headaches from using it. Plus, the tablet for writing supports 100,000 writings, so you don’t have to worry about getting a new one anytime soon!
This tablet is a high-quality plastic, water-proof, and anti-fall electronic writing device that supports handwriting input, so it can be used for taking notes, drawing pictures, making lists, and much more!
KOKODI LCD Writing Tablet – Best Economical Tablet
Key Features
- High-quality plastic
- Good bang for your buck
- Portable and durable
- Helps reduce paper waste
The top writing tablets offer children the maximum features, and KOKODI LCD Writing Tablet does just that. It has a sturdy plastic body with an IP54 water-resistance rating to protect it against spills. The anti-fall design makes this one of the highest quality kids’ tablets for writing on our list.
High-quality plastic equals durability, so there’s no need to worry about your tablet getting scratched by a child who doesn’t know what they’re doing with their toys yet. It also helps keep all moisture out so that the tablet is always dry and doesn’t get ruined by any liquids in your house.
Derabika Drawing Board – Best Bright Tablet
Key Features
- 50% brighter than other tablets
- Vivid colorful screen
- Makes a perfect gift
- Made of durable plastic
Derabika is the latest version of the most popular drawing board in the world. It is 50% brighter and has a vivid color screen. It also comes with an interactive pen that will let you draw on your screen.
This tablet for writing is the perfect tool for preschool children to learn how to draw. The lightweight drawing board is made of high-quality material and can be used by kids with ease. The unique design of this drawing board makes it stand out from other similar products available on the market today.
This product is definitely a must-have for any artist, designer, or cartoonist who wants to bring their sketches to life, making it the perfect gift for anyone interested in art, design, and cartoons.
Cimetech LCD Writing Tablet – Best Overall Tablet
Key Features
- Pressure sensitive LCD
- Sleek design makes it attractive
- Environmental and eye friendly
- Easy on
If you are a parent with a child, then you may be asking what writing tablet is best for your children. If so, the Cimetech LCD Writing Tablet might be the perfect choice for you.
With many colors to choose from, it’s perfect for a child of any age and gender. It’s also easy on parents’ wallets!
This tablet can do more than just write letters or draw pictures, however; you can create notes, memos, and so much more! This tablet has a sleek design that will look great in any child’s room. It is also lightweight and can easily be carried in a backpack with no worry of it getting damaged.
Finding Your Next Writing Tablet: A Buyer’s Guide
Different types of writing tablets are now on the market. Having such a wide variety available makes it difficult to know which one is right for you. The buyer’s guide below will help you choose the one that best fits your needs.
What Factors To Consider Before Buying a Writing Tablet
Here are some of the factors you should consider before buying a kid’s tablet for writing.
Drawing area on the writing tablet
There are different sizes of writing tablets. They range from the smallest dimensions of about 5 inches to the largest, up to 12 inches and more.
However, the main thing to consider when looking at the size of the tablet is not its overall size, but the size of the screen that the child will be writing or drawing on. The dimensions of the LCD screen should be large enough to let the child write or draw freely without feeling restricted.
Display features
The ideal tablet for writing has a touchscreen interface with pressure sensitivity that lets you draw and write on it with a stylus. Touchscreens are perfect for children, as they can’t risk ruining the tablet with their grubby hands.
The best ones also have a stylus, making it easy to type and draw pictures without smudging them or having your hand get in the way of what you’re drawing. This is also a great option if you don’t want to use your fingers to write.
Material used
The best kid’s tablets for writing are made of durable material which can resist wear and tear. Silicone is the best material because it is soft and has a textured surface that gives you a good grip when you are writing. It also supports your wrist in the correct writing position and helps prevent it from getting sore.
Battery life of the tablet
Make sure you check the battery life that comes in the tablet. It should be able to last you at least 12 months, if not more. The battery life should be mentioned on the tablet’s box, so keep an eye out for that.
How Much Does a High-quality Writing Tablet Cost?
Writing tablets can cost a nice chunk of change. Generally, writing tablets cost between 50-100, but this fluctuates depending on what types of features you are looking for. The best way to find out how much one will cost is to search for on Amazon for different tablets and compare them.
Why Do You Need a Tablet for Writing?
Writing tablets are not only a good option for kids to practice their handwriting, but you can use them to perform many other tasks. Kids can practice their math skills on them or just doodle away. Children who aspire to be artists can use their tablets to make creative drawings.
Writing tablets prove to be useful for teenagers and adults as well. They can be used to take notes, memos, create shopping lists, or make drawings when trying to explain something to their children.
over, writing tablets help save trees because they help people go paperless. That’s a win for you and the environment!
Writing Tablets FAQs
A: Tablets can help your kids to learn numbers, letters, and symbols. A tablet with a touchscreen increases their learning experience. It is less frustrating when drawing, tracing, and coloring on a tablet if it has a touchscreen.
A: No, not all writing tablets support every type of pen, so check the writing tablet’s stylus or pen compatibility before buying it. Some writing tablets also come with a built-in pen or stylus, while some allow kids to use their fingers to draw or write.
A: You can easily clean the touchscreen display of your writing tablet with a damp microfiber cloth.
Mark has worked behind the scenes in the world of office supplies for almost his entire adult life, so he understands the ins and outs like no one else. He’s volunteered his time to help others build their ultimate home or work office space.
Best Drawing Tablets for Kids to Practice and Learn
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When was the last time when you enjoyed learning while sitting down to grasp a topic? How long does it take you to understand any content without proper interest to absorb it well?
Now try analyzing how hard it will be for toddlers and kids to learn something new without them being able to love the process.
Learning while having fun is critical for the development of kids. It helps youngsters establish a good attitude about studying, and they are more inclined to remember what they have learned as a result. Here are some reasons why studying and having fun go together.
Let’s discuss the advantages in short.
- Mixing learning with play helps youngsters establish a good attitude toward learning. It also encourages creativity and problem-solving abilities.
- Youngsters who learn via play are more interested and have a greater awareness of their surroundings.
- They are also more willing to investigate and test new ideas, which can aid in developing critical thinking skills.
- Furthermore, mixing study and play might help youngsters develop social skills. Children can learn how to engage with their classmates, exchange ideas, and work together through a shared goal through group games and other endeavors. This allows them to cultivate respect and empathy for others.
All-in-all, learning while having fun is important to a child’s development and growth. It enables them to cultivate their imagination and problem-solving abilities and acquire social abilities that will assist them again for the rest of their life by providing engaging and dynamic learning experiences.
Impact of Drawing Tablets on the Development of the Learning Process of Kids
Drawing tablets can help children develop their learning processes, notably inventiveness, digital abilities, and hand-eye coordination.
Drawing tablets include various imaginative tools, such as electronic paintbrushes and color palettes, that let kids explore their imaginations and enhance their artistic abilities.
One very important quality of e-drawing is increased motor coordination. These tablets assist kids in developing fine motor skills through Drawing and coloring on the screen with a stylus. This can aid in developing their kinesthetic awareness, dexterity, and hand control.
What else more? Let’s continue investigating further.
These electronic gadgets can be utilized in various courses, including math, scientific knowledge, and creative writing, to provide fun and stimulating learning experiences.
Nevertheless, it stimulates creativity as drawing tablets provide students with various tools, colors, and textures to utilize while creating digital art. This can assist children in exploring their abilities to think outside the box in novel and fascinating ways.
To summarise, drawing tablets can be a significant tool in the early learning process of children. They can improve motor skills, aid learning, promote digital literacy, and boost teamwork.
Let’s explore some of the best drawing tablets for kids to draw, practice and learn.
DoodleJamz JellyPics – Sensory Drawing Pads
This Sky Castle product has an eye-pleasing appearance and attracts young artists in numbers. Black, Cyan, and yellow beaded emoji backer cards are available with the product, with a dimension of 7.75.70.4 inches.
- Filled with a transparent gel and colored beads to mold over any painting.
- JellyPics gel is 100% non-toxic.
- No requirement for the battery, ensuring your kid draws and enjoy.
You are also provided with a stylus pen to create your art, along with the obvious fingertips.
Sunlu’s 2-Pack LCD Writing Tablet
Flaunting its presence as one of the bestsellers on Amazon, this drawing tablet by Sunlu has an item weight of 4.5 ounces. With a screen resolution of 1024600, the device claims to be waterproof and drop-resistant.
- The 8.5-inch display size is easier for your kids to carry and handle.
- 2 stylus pens are provided with the tablet making painting and doodling a really fun task, and the tilt function to draw lines of thickness according to the force you apply during use.
- The LCD screen is apt to protect the eyes from damage and glare.
This is quite a steal deal as 2 packs of writing pads are packed with your order!
Cimetech LCD Writing Tablet
With a screen size of 8.5 inches, this tablet from cimetech is bluish in appearance, specially designed for drawing and writing. The tab has a built-in rechargeable battery to run for purpose, with a screen clear key outside the LCD display.
- Applicable for varied purposes, like painting and drawing, graffiti-designing, mathematics counting board, and official purposes.
- Advanced technology to safeguard the delicate eyes of your kids during use.
- Only 1 button is used for locking/unlocking the screen.
A stylus pen is provided with the package. All in all, it’s a perfect gift for any occasion, be it birthdays or Christmas.
Colorful Doodle Board Drawing Tablet
An amazon’s choice product in the doodle and scribbler section for kids, this pink colored drawing tablet is perfect for 3-6 years old female infants. Being erasable and reusable, this educational board is quite a product to check out.
- Uses natural light and no blue light so that their tender eyes don’t suffer.
- Lock function enabled in the model to ensure the drawing gets frozen and is unhampered accidentally.
- Highly portable and durable, with a one-click erase button.
The batteries can serve you up to 12 months and are replaceable for further use.
FLUESTON LCD Writing Tablet Doodle Board
Provided with a colorful LCD screen, this doodle board has an item dimension of 11.427.480.39 inches. Flueston’s drawing tablet is highly suitable for kids under 8 years old.
- 10-inch display – bigger and better than others, with an added color screen.
- Multipurpose tool for writing, drawing, office, memo card, message board, and as a communication tool.
- Lock screen and 1-click erase option.
Neither blue light nor glare can damage your toddler’s eyesight, thanks to the awesome technology of the gadget.
KOKODI LCD Writing Tablet
This plastic writing tablet is blue, absolutely perfect for infants and kids wishing to learn drawing indoors and in a fun way. The product by KOKODI has a dimension of 9.86.90.24 inches.
- The battery compartment is provided with a screw as a safety precaution.
- 3-6 months of battery life is replaceable and can serve up to 1 lac drawings.
- LCD display pledges to protect eyes during constant stare.
A gift perfect for all occasions, the packaging includes a writing tablet, pen string, pen holder, drawing pen, built-in battery, and packaging box.
Sunany LCD Writing Tablet
This Sunany tablet is 8.5 inches large, weighing about 3.95 ounces. The display type is an LCD one serving to teach drawing and painting to children primarily. Let’s watch out for all its features.
- Environmental, waterproof, and moderate drop resistant.
- Pressure-sensitive LCD screen enables you to draw a line of thickness as per your requirement.
- Reusable and highly commendable, as its battery life is 3-12 months lifespan.
Say goodbye to old ways of learning to draw and wasting loads of paper, and nurture your child’s creativity well with the help of this product. Surely, this can be a fabulous gift on any occasion.
BUKEBU LCD Writing Tablet Doodle Board
A “fun study partner” and a “parent-child time” – as described in this product overview section on Amazon, the doodle tool is pink. Bukebu’s items can be purchased for both young boys and girls.
- Chargeable and reusable by built-in button battery holder case, with a child-safe screw.
- Perfect for taking notes, making lists, sketching, playing games, and lots more.
- Screen lock facility available, which chops off undesirable ruining of content made on the board.
- Shield toddlers’ vision from glancing at the screen at a stretch.
All it takes is 1 click to erase and remove the unwanted work from the LCD in less than a microsecond!
TECJOE 2 Pack LCD Writing Tablet
This 2-pack LCD Writing table developed by TECJOE is a product to check out, specially developed for toddlers to draw, write and paint. With a screen size of 8.5 inches, this device may very well fill the boots of your expectations.
- Includes a pack of 2 LCD writing tablets – blue and pink.
- A great tool for learning mathematics, counting, handwriting practice, and painting.
- Slide the screen lock button to nullify the serendipitous pressing of erase key.
The product can be the best item to carry in a long road trip, as it shall be a way of engagement for a restless kid.
LEYAOYAO LCD Writing Tablet
An Amazon’s Choice product, launched under the brand name of Leyaoyao, is primarily a touchscreen painting tab for gaming purposes. Being super thin in shape provides it a success rate than others. A protective bag is also included with the order.
- 8.5″ display with eye-protection technology.
- 2 magnets on the reverse side of the tablet will enable you to stick and hang it from your refrigerator.
- Screen lock and erase buttons are both available.
You can use it for your kid’s arithmetic, handwriting, and painting development. The packaging encompasses 1 CR2 battery.
FLUESTON LCD Writing Tablet Doodle Board
With an item dimension of 11.427.480.39 inches, Flueston’s tablet is coated with a delightful dolphin blue color. 1C batteries are required for its operation, which is rechargeable and reusable.
- Its extremely lightweight and portable feature provides no reason not to carry it while traveling.
- Eco-friendly and protectant towards the vision of toddlers.
- Easy to use with its lock and erase feature.
No more allowing the scope of messing the wall, as those doodles on the wall will be transferred to the e-doodle board henceforth.
Final Words
Going through all the best drawing tablets, you may decide which to use now. The tablets operate on high-end technologies and a useful plethora of special features.
Drawing tablets are hugely beneficial for the development of your children if used in the optimum direction. Invest in them, and ensure you keep no stones unturned in your little one’s growth.
- DoodleJamz JellyPics – Sensory Drawing Pads
- Sunlu’s 2-Pack LCD Writing Tablet
- Cimetech LCD Writing Tablet
- Colorful Doodle Board Drawing Tablet
- FLUESTON LCD Writing Tablet Doodle Board
- KOKODI LCD Writing Tablet
- Sunany LCD Writing Tablet
- BUKEBU LCD Writing Tablet Doodle Board
- TECJOE 2 Pack LCD Writing Tablet
- LEYAOYAO LCD Writing Tablet
- FLUESTON LCD Writing Tablet Doodle Board
The 10 Best Drawing Tablets for Artists and Designers in 2023
Erika Rawes has written for Digital Trends, USA Today, and Cheatsheet.com and has tested dozens of consumer technology products for multiple tech sites.
Rich Scherr is a seasoned technology and financial journalist who spent nearly two decades as the editor of Potomac and Bay Area Tech Wire.
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A drawing tablet is almost a second touchscreen for your computer, making it possible to use a pen or stylus to input information onto a screen. Any creative task on a computer that requires pinpoint precision can benefit from a pen’s tactile response. Drawing tablets can help presenters, artists, graphic designers, and Photoshop geeks.
We think most people should buy the XPEN Artist 12 because of its compatibility and customization features (and low price tag).
Our experts evaluated dozens of drawing tablets, and we’ve rounded up our top picks below.
Best Overall
XP-PEN Artist12
The XP-Pen Artist12 earns our top spot because of its compatibility, customization, and reasonably affordable price point. The touchscreen display—a 1920 x 1080 HD IPS display—isn’t the highest resolution available, but with 72% NTSC Color Gamut accuracy, its FOCUS is on reproducing your work with as much precision as possible.
What’s great about having an 11.6-inch display inside your drawing tablet is that you don’t need to look at your other screen while drawing on a separate surface—you’re drawing on the device where your lines and colors appear. This makes it feel like you’re really creating art in the real world.
The passive hexagonal pen (which feels very pencil-like) allows for 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity so that you can really get the hand-sketched feel in your work. And because the pen is passive it’s not another device that needs to charge.
In addition, the Artist12 gives you a full-high touch bar you can program to fulfill certain commands on your computer (XP-Pen recommends mapping it to the zoom-in/zoom-out feature), and you can harness six different assignable shortcut keys. This makes it less of a drawing-only tablet and more of a full-featured control surface for your design programs. The device is compatible with Windows 7, 8, or 10 (in 32 or 64-bit) and Mac OS X as old as version 10.10.
Screen Size/Active Area: 11.6 inches | Screen Resolution: 1920 x 1080 | Pen Type: Passive | Standalone: No
Best Display
Gaomon PD1560
- Big, bright, beautiful display
- Active pen with great pressure accuracy
- Tons of function buttons
The Gaomon PD1560 boasts a big, bright, 15.6-inch display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution. In some ways, it rivals the Wacom options, but because it doesn’t feature a touch wheel or flashy multi-touch, we think it’s a more suitable rival with our top pick from XP-Pen.
Because of the 72% color gamut accuracy and the 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity from the active pen, it really does have many of the features of the Artist12. What makes it different is that it offers 10 assignable function keys (lined up in a column on the left edge of the device), which is more than the Artist12. However, you’ll have to pay nearly 100 more for this device.
The IPS display’s brightness and the extra function keys might be enough for you to spend that higher price tag, but the awkwardly wide form factor (different from something like the less-sprawling Cintiq 15) makes it a device that will take up a lot of space on your desk.
There’s no denying that this is a great peripheral with truly impressive pen specs. Our reviewer, Jeremy Laukkonen, found the pen performed flawlessly during testing, although he noted that the side buttons could be more pronounced.
Screen Size/Active Area: 15.6 inches | Screen Resolution: 1920 x 1080 | Pen Type: Active, rechargeable | Standalone: No
“This tablet really does present an impressive display for the price, but because of the awkwardly wide footprint and the unfortunately high price tag, it might not be the best fit for everyone.” — Jeremy Laukkonen, Product Tester
Best Standalone Drawing Tablet
Simbans PicassoTab
The Simbans PicassTab is actually a standalone tablet, despite the fact that we were steering clear of these for this review. The reason this unit, to us, could be considered a drawing-specific tablet is because that’s the thing it does best. If you want an Android tablet for media consumption and web browsing, this will do fine, but you can get just as good of an experience on the cheaper Amazon Fire tablets.
What this tablet does better is drawing. And that’s for two reasons. It comes with an active stylus right out of the box, allowing for solid palm rejection (crucial for avoiding mis-presses while drawing). It also comes with Autodesk Sketchbook and Artflow preinstalled—two excellent beginner sketch apps for Android.
As far as tablet specs go, these aren’t all that impressive, but they’ll work well for a standalone drawing tab. There’s a 1.3GHz quad-core mobile processor, a 10.1-inch IPS display that sports a resolution of 1280 x 800, and even a 2MP front-facing camera and a 5MP rear-facing camera.
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and even a microSD card slot are here. You also have the capability of using a micro-HDMI port to connect this tablet to an external computer. And it’s that latter point that makes this really friendly for budding artists. They can start with the onboard sketch app basics but then graduate to real Adobe apps and use an external monitor while using this tablet as a peripheral. It’s a good balance of both worlds, and it goes for right around 200.
Screen Size/Active Area: 10.1 inches | Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800 | Pen Type: Active | Standalone: Yes
The best E Ink tablets for 2023
I’ve been a notebook person for most of my life. I’ve had dozens of notebooks over the years that served as repositories for to-do lists, story ideas, messages jotted down during meetings and everything in between. But at a certain point in my adult life, I turned away from physical notebooks because it became easier to save all of those things digitally in various apps that were always available to me on my phone. I sacrificed tactile satisfaction for digital convenience, and a small part of me mourns for all of the half-filled notebooks I left in my wake.
Onyx Boox Note Air 2 Plus
For some like me, an E Ink tablet may be the solution to those dueling impulses. They can combine the feeling of writing in a regular notebook with many of the conveniences of digitized documents. E Ink tablets allow you to take all of your notes with you on one device, while also letting you scribble with a stylus just like you would with pen-and-paper. Unlike regular tablets and styli, though, E Ink tablets are nowhere near ubiquitous — but there are just enough players in the game to make deciding which one to buy more complicated than you might think. We tested out a bunch of the most popular E Ink tablets available now to see how well they work, how convenient they really are and which are the best available today.
Are E Ink tablets worth it?
An E Ink tablet will be a worthwhile purchase to a very select group of people. If you prefer the look and feel of an E Ink display to LCD panels found on traditional tablets, it makes a lot of sense. They’re also good options for those who want a more paper-like writing experience (although you can get that on a regular tablet with the right screen protector) or a more distraction-free device overall.
The final note is key here. Most E Ink tablets don’t have the same functionality as regular tablets, so you’re automatically going to be limited in what you can do. And even with those that do allow you to download traditional apps like Chrome, Instagram and. E Ink tablets are not designed to give you the best casual-browsing experience. This is mostly due to the nature of E Ink displays, which have noticeable refreshes, a lack of color and lower quality than the panels you’ll find on even the cheapest iPad.
Arguably the biggest reason why you wouldn’t want to go with an iPad (all models of which support stylus input, a plethora of reading apps, etc) is because it’s much easier to get distracted by email, social media and other Internet-related temptations. An e-reader is also worth considering if this is the case for you, but just know that most standard e-readers do not accept stylus input. If you like to make notes in the margins of books, underline and mark up PDFs and the like, an e-reader won’t cut it.
What to look for in an E Ink tablet
I discovered four main things that can really make or break your experience with an E Ink tablet during my testing; first is the writing experience. How good it is will depend a lot on the display’s refresh rate (does it refresh after every time you put pen to “paper,” so to speak?) and the stylus’ latency. Most had little to no latency, but there were some that were worse than others. Finally, you should double check before buying that your preferred E Ink tablet comes with a stylus. Believe it or not, many of them require you to purchase the pen separately.
The second thing to consider is the reading experience. How much will you be reading books, documents and other things on this tablet? While you can find E Ink tablets in all different sizes, most of them tend to be larger than your standard e-reader because it makes writing much easier. Having a larger display isn’t a bad thing, but it might make holding it for long periods slightly more uncomfortable. (Most e-readers are roughly the size of a paperback book, giving you a similar feeling to analog reading).
The supported file types will also make a big difference. It’s hard to make a blanket statement here because this varies so much among E Ink tablets. The TL;DR is that you’ll have a much better reading experience if you go with one made by a company that already has a history in e-book sales (i.e. Amazon or Kobo). All of the titles you bought via the Kindle or Kobo store should automatically be available to you on your Kindle or Kobo E Ink tablet. And with Kindle titles, specifically, since they are protected by DRM, it’s not necessarily the best idea to try to bring those titles over to a third-party device. Unless the tablet supports reading apps like Amazon’s Kindle or the Kobo app, you’ll be limited to supported file types, like ePUB, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, PNG and others.
Third, most E Ink tablets have some search features, but they can vary widely between models. You’ll want to consider how important it is to you to be able to search through all your handwritten notes and markups. I noticed that Amazon’s and Kobo’s E Ink tablets made it easy to refer back to notes made in books and files because they automatically save on which pages you took notes, made highlights and more. Searching is less standardized on E Ink tablets that have different supported file types, but their features can be quite powerful in their own right. For example, a few devices I tested supported text search in handwritten notes along with handwriting recognition, the latter of which allows you to translate your scribbles into typed text.
The final factor to consider is sharing and connectivity. Yes, we established that E Ink tablets can be great distraction-free devices, but most manufacturers understand that your notes and doodles aren’t created in a vacuum. You’ll likely want to access them elsewhere, and that requires some form of connectivity. All of the E Ink tablets I tried were Wi-Fi devices, and some supported Cloud syncing, companion mobile apps and the ability to export notes via email so you can access them elsewhere. None of them, however, integrate directly with a digital note taking system like Evernote or OneNote, so these devices will always be somewhat supplementary if you use apps like that, too. Ultimately, you should think about what you will want to do with the documents you’ll interact with on your E Ink tablet after the tablet portion is done.
Best for most: reMarkable 2
reMarkable 2
The reMarkable tablet isn’t topping our list because it’s the most full-featured or even most interesting E Ink tablet we tested. Rather, it provides the best mix of features people will find useful in a device like this.
The latest reMarkable tablet isn’t topping our list because it’s the most full-featured or even most interesting E Ink tablet we tested. Rather, it provides the best mix of features people will find useful in a device like this. We’ll get into them all, but first, it’s worth mentioning build quality. The reMarkable 2 weighs less than one pound and is one of the sleekest E Ink tablets we tried. It has a 10.3-inch monochrome digital paper display that’s surrounded by beige-colored bezels, with the chunkiest portion at the bottom edge where you’d naturally grip it. There’s a slim silver bezel on the left side, which attaches to accessories like the folio case and the new Type Folio keyboard. Hats off to reMarkable for making an E Ink tablet that feels right at home with all of your other fancy gadgets.
Let’s start with the writing and reading experiences on the reMarkable 2, both of which are great. From the get go, scribbling, doodling and writing was a breeze. We tested out the Marker Plus, which has a built-in eraser, but both it and the standard Marker are tilt- and pressure sensitive pens, and require no batteries or charging. I observed basically no lag between my pressing down onto the reMarkable 2’s screen and lines showing up. The latency was so low that it felt the closest to actual pen-and-paper. But I will say that this is not unique among our top picks in this guide – almost all of the E Ink tablets we tested got this very crucial feature right.
When it comes to reading, the reMarkable 2 supports PDFs and ePUBs, and you can add files to the device by logging into your reMarkable account on desktop or via the companion mobile app on your phone. You can also pair your Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Dropbox account with your reMarkable account and access files that way as well. That should be good enough for anyone who, say, reads a lot of academic papers or reviews many documents for work. It’ll be harder for people who purchase their ebooks from online marketplaces like the Kindle or Kobo stores, but there are other options for those.
Another fun way to get documents onto the reMarkable 2 is via the Read with reMarkable extension for Google Chrome. After installing it and pairing your reMarkable account, you’ll be able to send articles you find online directly to your reMarkable 2 so you can check them out later. You can even customize these files to be sent as text only, which will let you change their format directly on your reMarkable, or as a PDF. Regardless of which you choose, you’ll be able to mark up these articles as you would any other file on the E Ink tablet. I used this extension a lot and I did enjoy reading longform articles on the reMarkable 2 more than on my iPhone. Being able to underline, highlight and otherwise mark up those stories was more of a bonus than a necessity for me, but for others who glean sources from online materials will be better off for it.
Overall, it’s pretty easy to get files onto the reMarkable 2 and it is possible to access themelsewhere when you may not be able to whip out the E Ink tablet. Those with a reMarkable Connect subscription will have the best experience, and it’s a nice perk that you get a one-year membership when you buy one. The 3-per-month subscription provides the ability to edit existing notes and take new ones from anywhere using the desktop and mobile apps, plus unlimited Cloud storage and syncing. On that last front, if you don’t pay for Connect, only “notes and documents synced online in the last 50 days” will be available in reMarkable’s companion apps. I suspect 50 days worth of document syncing will be enough for some, but not power-users. Putting the ability to take notes anywhere behind a paywall is a bit of a bummer no matter what and makes it much harder for anyone to use the reMarkable ecosystem as their main note-taking space.
That said, I kept most of my testing to the reMarkable 2 itself and was impressed by its ability to be a digital notebook without a steep learning curve. You can create different notebooks and “quick sheets” to organize your handwritten notes, and folders to make sense of imported files. You’ll find eight different brush types with which to mark up documents and take notes, along with various line thicknesses and “colors” (which just show up as shades on the tablet itself). You can even type wherever you want in a doc, and the reMarkable 2 can translate handwritten notes into machine-readable text with surprising accuracy.
It was no shock that the reMarkable 2 ended up having the best mix of features, along with a relatively low learning curve. The company was one of the first on the scene with a truly viable E Ink tablet back in 2017, and they’ve been refining the experience ever since. But that comes at a cost – the reMarkable 2 isn’t the most expensive E Ink tablet we tested, but it’s not cheap either. The tablet alone will set you back 299, and then you’ll have to shell out either 79 or 129 for the Marker or Marker Plus, respectively. In all, you’re looking at 430 for the best version of the reMarkable 2 you can get (and that assumes you skip the new 199 Type Folio Keyboard). You could get a 9th-gen iPad and the 1st-gen Apple Pencil for the same price and you’d have a more flexible duo, purely based on the capabilities of iOS.
But you’re probably not considering an iPad for a specific reason, whether that’s your love for E Ink or the feeling of pen-to-paper writing, or you simply want a more distraction-free experience. If you’re looking for an E ink tablet that will not take ages to get used to, offers a stellar writing experience and makes it relatively simple to access notes elsewhere, the reMarkable 2 is your best bet.
Best e-reader E Ink tablet: Amazon Kindle Scribe
Amazon Kindle Scribe
The Kindle Scribe excels at being a big, beautiful ereader on which you can also jot down notes while you read.
You really have two options in this space: the Amazon Kindle Scribe and the Kobo Elipsa 2E. The Scribe edged out the Elipsa 2E purely because of its low-latency pen-and-screen combination. The Elipsa has its merits, which we’ll get into in a bit, but it just couldn’t compete with the Scribe when it came to a seamless and smooth handwriting experience.
We already gave the Kindle Scribe the full review treatment, and in general, I enjoyed it while testing it out for this guide, too. As mentioned, there’s little to no latency when writing on the Scribe with its companion pen. Thanks to the latest software update, you also have more brush types to choose from now, including fountain pen, marker and pencil, which add to the charm. Like other E Ink tablets, the Scribe makes it easy to create multiple notebooks, and you can add pages to them and change up their templates if you wish.
As an e-reader, the Scribe shines not only thanks to its 10.2-inch display with auto-adjusting front lights, but also because you have Amazon’s entire ebook store at your fingertips. If you get most of your reading material from Amazon or subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, you’ll be able to jump right into all of your titles instantly on the Scribe. It’s also easy to get ebooks from your local library and read them on a Kindle. This will be crucial not only for voracious readers, but especially for students who buy or rent digital textbooks and those who consume books regularly for research purposes.
I thought about students a lot when using the Scribe. I started college in 2009, two years after the first Kindle was released and one year before the first iPad came out. Getting textbooks digitally really wasn’t an option for me – but I can understand the appeal a device like the Kindle Scribe would have for students. It’s arguably even better than a standard Kindle because its screen is bigger, which will make it less tiring to stare at for long periods of time. Adding the ability to take handwritten notes while you’re studying is icing on the cake.
However, Amazon’s execution of book notes is not my favorite. You actually cannot take notes in the margins of Kindle ebooks. Instead you press and hold the pen’s tip on the screen to highlight text or add a note to a particular word or phrase. If you do the latter, a window pops up on the bottom half of the screen where you can either take a handwritten note or type a text note using the Scribe’s mildly frustrating and sluggish on-screen keyboard.
Amazon recently rectified this a bit with a software update that allows for direct on-page writing in certain Kindle books. The Kindle Store now has a section that showcases “Write-on Books,” which is currently mostly made up of journals and game books that feature puzzles like crosswords and sudoku. This is certainly a step in the right direction, but it means you still won’t be able to mark up your favorite fiction and non-fiction books until they support the new feature.
This is where I give a nod to the Kobo Elipsa 2E, where you can write notes in the margins, underline, circle and otherwise mark up your reading material. It’s a more natural (and fun) experience since it mimics what you’d do if you were reading a physical book. It’s a shame that the latency on the Elipsa was just a hair more noticeable than that of the Scribe. If it weren’t for that, it might have beaten Amazon’s device here.
What that extra bit of latency translates to in practice is handwriting that can come out just a bit messier, and that increases precipitously the faster you write. But that also means that you’ll notice this the most when taking notes longhand on the Elipsa; if you’re primarily using an E Ink tablet to mark up documents, it won’t affect you as much. Despite that, I did like the way Kobo executed notebooks on the Elipsa. You can have a standard notebook where you can write and scribble away, or an “advanced” notebook that supports handwriting-to-text conversion and inserting things like diagrams and formulas. Text conversion is actually pretty accurate, too, even when dealing with some of my ugliest handwriting.
Kobo also has a pretty sizable ebook marketplace, so it’s certainly a decent option if you want to stay clear of the Amazon ecosystem. But Amazon has the upper hand when it comes to price. The Kobo Elipsa 2E pack that includes its stylus is 399, while the 16GB Kindle Scribe with the premium pen (which includes dedicated eraser and shortcut buttons) comes in at 369. Even if you max out the Scribe with 64GB of storage, you’d only spend 20 more than you would on the Kobo Elipsa. That, combined with the Scribe’s strong overall performance and the ubiquity of Amazon’s ebook offerings will make it the better choice for most readers.
