Tablet instead of paper: Lenovo presents Smart Paper

With the Smart Paper, Lenovo is showing a hybrid form of notebook and tablet at CES 2023. Digital notepads of this type are available, for example, from Onyx or ReMarkable. Lenovo has thus brought a competitor onto the market for the rather limited selection of e-ink tablets.

Smaller than a sheet of A4 paper

The tablet has a handy size of 10.3 inches and weighs just under 400 grams with its metal casing. The e-ink touch display is also used in other e-readers. You can adjust the light to a comfortable warmth and brightness. According to Lenovo, writing feels like writing on paper. This is probably due to the display surface and the pen tip, which provide a more tactile feel. With the 3550 mAh battery, you can write up to 170 pages or read over 7000 pages on a full charge.

The pen is always with you

The tablet comes with a pen. The Lenovo Smart Paper Pen has no battery and can be stored in the casing. It does not need to be charged and, according to Lenovo, has very low latency. This means that what you write is transferred to the tablet virtually instantaneously. The pen tip is made of felt. The pen setting can also be changed. This means you can switch between ballpoint pens, pencils or even calligraphy. On the tablet, you can choose between different paper templates: lined, graph paper, blank and music manuscript paper. According to Lenovo, you can also sketch and shade well thanks to the tablet's pressure sensitivity and tilt detection.

Software and functions

With two integrated microphones, you can also use Lenovo's Smart Paper as a dictation machine or record a meeting. You can still take notes at the same time. If you're a student reading through your lecture notes and can't remember what was said at that moment, you can click on the part of your notes and the recording will be played back at that exact point. This allows you to compare and add to your notes afterwards. The tablet has a calendar and a calculator, PDF support and the option to access emails.

The rather modest storage space of 50 gigabytes is enough for over 50,000 pages of notes. You can also start a keyword search across all your written notes if you can't remember where exactly you need to find something specific. You can also search in digital books and articles that you have saved on the device. You can buy books via the ebooks.ch app.

With the Lenovo Smart Paper app, a cloud app from Lenovo, you can also access your files on other Android, iOS and Windows devices. You can also transcribe your audio recordings or translate text into other languages. However, you must subscribe to this app.

The Lenovo Smart Paper is expected to be available on the European market in January 2023 at a price of 472 francs or 479 euros.