Best E-Ink Writing Tablets Compared: reMarkable, Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, Boox, Supernote and Kobo Go Head-to-Head

Writing feel: reMarkable and Supernote set the bar

If the only thing that matters is how it feels to put pen to glass, this comparison narrows quickly. The reMarkable Paper Pro's sub-1 mm pen-to-ink distance and genuinely frictional surface are the reference point at the large-screen end, and the Paper Pro Move backs up the same philosophy with hard numbers — 12 ms latency and a 0.92 mm gap — on a textured glass panel that still works in direct sun. The Supernote A5 X2 Manta is the only non-reMarkable device here described as offering one of the most convincing paper-like feels in the category, and it does so on a sharper 300 PPI panel than either Paper Pro manages.

Amazon closes much of the gap differently: the Scribe Colorsoft's rearchitected display stack nearly eliminates parallax, which is the specific complaint that has dogged glass-fronted writing tablets. The Boox Note Air5 C's answer is speed rather than texture — Super Refresh and the new Smooth mode make it genuinely fast for e-paper. The clear loser on this criterion is the Kobo Elipsa 2E, whose writing experience falls short of the Kindle Scribe's, let alone the reMarkable pair's.

Colour: 229 PPI beats 150 PPI, but the Move is sharpest of all

Four of these seven do colour, and they are not equivalent. The reMarkable Paper Pro is the only large device here that holds 229 PPI in colour as well as monochrome, where both the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and the Boox Note Air5 C drop to 150 PPI — which is exactly why Amazon's colour looks soft on detailed pages and covers, and why Boox's colour layer is the weak point of an otherwise polished tablet. On paper the Paper Pro should win outright; in practice its trade-off is saturation, with output that reads muted rather than vibrant.

The sharpest colour panel in the group is actually the smallest: the Paper Pro Move's 264 PPI, 20,000-colour screen makes colour-coding and highlighting worthwhile at a density none of the bigger units match. If colour is a deal-breaker, the Supernote A5 X2 Manta and reMarkable 2 are out of the running entirely — both are monochrome only.

Reading in the dark, and text sharpness

For anyone who wants one device for notes and for night-time reading, two of these disqualify themselves immediately: neither the Supernote A5 X2 Manta nor the reMarkable 2 has any front or backlight, making both unusable in the dark. Everything else here lights up, and the Boox Note Air5 C and Kobo Elipsa 2E go furthest by offering adjustable colour temperature as well as brightness — Boox with warm/cold control, Kobo with ComfortLight PRO — against the Paper Pro's simpler adjustable reading light.

On pure text sharpness the 300 PPI class wins: the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, Boox Note Air5 C and Supernote A5 X2 Manta all render monochrome text more finely than the Paper Pro's 229 PPI or the Elipsa 2E's 227 PPI. Put those two facts together and the Boox is the best all-round reader in this group — 300 PPI text plus a tunable light — with the caveat that its Kaleido screen looks darker than a pure mono panel, and that it's heavy for extended one-handed reading in a way the 230 g Paper Pro Move never is.

Price and the hidden cost of the pen

The sticker prices span a wide range, and the cheapest entry is the oldest: the reMarkable 2 at $279 undercuts everything else by at least $170. At the top, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft ($629.99) and reMarkable Paper Pro ($629) are effectively tied as the most expensive devices here — and Amazon's is called out as its priciest Kindle ever, roughly $130 above the monochrome Scribe.

But list price is not total price. The Scribe Colorsoft includes a pen that never needs charging and ships with an eraser, grip button and ten spare tips, and the Kobo Elipsa 2E includes the rechargeable Kobo Stylus 2 — no extra purchase. The Supernote A5 X2 Manta's $459.99 is really $535–$549 once you add the $75–$89 pen, which erases most of its advantage over the Boox Note Air5 C at $529.99, and the reMarkable 2's bargain $279 similarly excludes the essential Marker. The Paper Pro Move is the hardest sell on value: $449 for a 7.3-inch notepad, with features gated behind a subscription, is $170 more than the far larger reMarkable 2. The Elipsa 2E is the wildcard, since no price is listed for it here — it's simply described as expensive for a reading-first device.

Software freedom: Boox and Kobo open up, reMarkable locks down

This is the widest gulf in the comparison. The Boox Note Air5 C runs full Android 15 with Google Play, so it is the only device here that can install whatever note, reading or cloud app you already use. The Kobo Elipsa 2E takes a different route to flexibility: 15 natively supported file formats including PDF, MOBI, CBZ and CBR, plus native OverDrive integration that makes library borrowing frictionless — nothing else here does public-library reading that cleanly, though Kobo's store catalogue is thinner than Kindle's.

At the opposite pole, the reMarkable Paper Pro's closed OS runs no third-party apps, handles only PDFs and EPUBs, and requires transfers through reMarkable's own app or web service — a walled garden next to the Boox's open Android and the Kobo's format buffet. The reMarkable 2 shares that restriction but reframes it as the point: no apps, browser, video or games to distract you. The Scribe Colorsoft sits in between, tied to Amazon's ecosystem but with the strongest bundled hardware, while the Paper Pro Move adds a subscription element and, unlike the bigger reMarkables and rivals, no typing attachment option.

Size, weight and build

The Paper Pro Move is in a class of its own for portability at 230 g and 6.5 mm — the first reMarkable you'll actually carry everywhere — but its narrow canvas is poorly suited to long notes or drawing, which is exactly what the 11.8-inch Paper Pro and 11-inch Scribe Colorsoft are for. Among the full-size devices, the reMarkable 2 is the most pleasant to hold at 4.7 mm and roughly 405 g, with the Kobo Elipsa 2E close behind at 390 g and 7.5 mm; the Scribe Colorsoft's 400 g is comparable but it lacks water resistance, and the Boox is explicitly the heavy one for one-handed sessions.

Longevity is the Supernote's unique pitch: a swappable battery and motherboard plus microSD expansion make it the only device here designed to be repaired and upgraded rather than replaced. Boox matches the microSD slot; the Paper Pro's fixed 64 GB and the Elipsa 2E's 32 GB do not expand, and the reMarkable 2's 8 GB is the smallest allocation in the group by a wide margin. On stamina, the Paper Pro is the only one here with a stated figure — around two weeks of mixed use.

Verdict: which one should you buy?

Best overall large notebook: the reMarkable Paper Pro. It has the biggest screen here, the only colour that doesn't collapse to 150 PPI, a reading light and the writing feel that defines the category — accept the muted colour and the closed, PDF/EPUB-only software.

Best for flexibility and reading: the BOOX Note Air5 C. Android 15 with Google Play, 300 PPI text and a warm/cold light make it the most versatile device in this comparison, and at $529.99 it undercuts both $629 flagships.

Best bundled package: the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, if you're already in Amazon's ecosystem. Its included pen — no charging, eraser, ten tips — and near-zero parallax are the best writing hardware here out of the box, but it's the most expensive device in the group and its colour is the softest.

Best pure writing instrument: the Supernote A5 X2 Manta. A 300 PPI A5-sized panel, the most convincing paper feel outside reMarkable, and modular repairability — provided you never need colour, never write in the dark, and budget for the $75–$89 pen.

Best for library borrowers: the Kobo Elipsa 2E, on the strength of native OverDrive and 15 file formats, as long as you accept that writing is its weakest event against the Scribe and the reMarkables.

Best value: the reMarkable 2 at $279 — still the cheapest way into class-leading handwriting, and the nicest of the big models to hold, if you can live without colour, a light and the Marker's extra cost.

Best for the commute: the reMarkable Paper Pro Move, the only genuinely pocketable option here and the sharpest colour panel in the comparison — just don't expect to draw or write at length on it.

Battery Life

The reMarkable Paper Pro is the only device here with a published endurance figure — around two weeks of mixed use — so it's the safest pick if long stretches away from a charger matter. The reMarkable 2's 3,000 mAh cell and the Supernote A5 X2 Manta's swappable battery (the only user-replaceable pack in this group) are the other notable points; runtime for the Scribe Colorsoft, Note Air5 C, Elipsa 2E and Paper Pro Move isn't specified in these reviews, so we're not ranking them here.