The video embedded below shows the Hisense Q5, a new tablet that's reportedly coming out in China this week. It has a reflective LCD display, similar to e-ink (in that it looks and feels much more paper-like than a typical screen) but with much faster refresh rate than you'd get from a Kindle. But it also shortcomings of its own, such as a lack of persistence and less efficient energy use.

It clearly handles animated UI elements and videos with ease, and the question is whether it looks better in real life, in the gloom of an unlit room or the glare of midday sun, than the similar but doomed Pixel Qi.

Though it's otherwise an unremarkable $350 Android tablet, it does have a HDMI port, meaning you could use it as a 10.5" display. For comparison, a standalone 13.3" e-Ink display has a four-figure price tag [Amazon]. Read the rest

A couple of years ago, I was asked if I'd like to review the reMarkable tablet. If you're unfamiliar with it, the reMarkable is an E Ink slate and pen solution that provides a digital note taking and sketching solution that feels eerily close to writing on paper. I was excited to take it for a spin: despite the fact that I type for a living, my note taking and a good chunk of my writing is decidedly old school.

So far, I've had no luck in finding any hardware solution that serves me better than a piece of paper and a fountain pen can. Unfortunately, at its release, the reMarkable wasn't all that remarkable. While the latency of the tablet's E Ink display and pen were close to non-existent, the rest of its software felt under baked. The UI was far from intuitive. It functioned as an e-reader, but only barely. While you could export what you'd written to a smartphone or computer, there was no way to edit the text once it was there. It felt like a slog to use. I asked a colleague in Canada if he'd like to give it a try. I mailed it out to him and, a few weeks later, it came back to me, marked not "deliverable." I didn't have time to ship it out again as I was preparing to spend several months on the road. I threw it into the back of my workspace's storage cupboard. It lurked there until today. Read the rest

The first Pomera designed for English use looks like the e-ink typewriter I've always wanted, and even has a cleverly-folding full-size keyboard so the whole thing fits in a pocket. Two AA batteries will power it for 20 hours of continuous use, the simple operating system also has a calender and spreadsheet, and there'll be an SD card slot (and QR-code reading app) for transferring files.

A Kickstarter project is underway, seeking $90k to get production rolling.

pomera : Pocket Typewriter with E Ink [Kickstarter]

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reMarkable's 10.3" tablet has an e-ink display with a paper-like texture, a digital pencil with 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity, and promises to finally replace all that paper in your workspace. The pitch: read, write and sketch, all on one gadget.

Unlike traditional paper, reMarkable connects to the digital world when you need it to. Your thoughts, whether they’re words or sketches, are instantly synced to reMarkable’s cloud service and made available on all your devices. Documents and ebooks are easily transferred for reading and reviewing with pen in hand. reMarkable connects to the internet for easy sharing and collaboration across devices. You can even take notes on one device and have it appear on a second device, in real time.

It's 10.2" by 6.9" and a quarter inch thick. It weighs less than a pound, and the 1872 x 1404 pixel display works out at 225 pixels per inch. It runs Linux (not Android, though) and has an ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, 512MB of RAM and WiFi.

It claims a latency of 55ms and the demo video shows performance similar to the iPad Pro, which they say has 60ms latency. Wacom tablet hardware polls at Read the rest

I've been into old-fashioned mechanical keyboards lately; Sonder's e-ink model promises to bring the fetish into the 21st century. Each key is both mechanical and a tiny e-Ink display that can change on a per-application basis.

The Sonder Keyboard combines a sleek new design with a built-in rechargeable battery and enhanced key features. With an improved mechanical mechanism beneath each key for increased stability, as well as optimized key travel and a lower profile, the Sonder Keyboard provides a remarkably comfortable and precise typing experience. It pairs automatically with your Mac, so you can get to work right away. And the battery is incredibly long-lasting — it will power your keyboard for about a month or more between charges.

The styling is minimal and Apple-oriented. Sonder's keyboard uses Bluetooth, but comes with USB and a lightning port too. It's $200, which seems reasonable for such a specialized device: compare to Art Lebedev's Optimus Popularis color LED model, still a pricey curiosity at $1500. Read the rest

The CST-01 is presented as the world's thinnest watch, with an e-ink display and flexible battery embedded in a stainless steel band less than a millimeter thick. Read the rest