There’s a new note-taking tablet in town — it just wandered in — and its name is Nomad. Like its name and brand suggest, the Ratta Supernote Nomad is an Android tablet designed for writing notes on the go. With this feature in mind, it rivals the likes of the reMarkable 2, and its compact dimensions make it all the easier to tote along.
The focus on writing does leave it lacking in reading capabilities, so it doesn’t challenge the best e-readers. Its limited software leaves a lot of room for Onyx’s many Boox tablets to swoop in with more flexibility. But as far as writing goes, there’s so much to like about the Supernote Nomad that we’ve already gushed about its capabilities.
Supernote Nomad
Ratta’s Supernote Nomad is a dedicated device for writers, doodlers, and note-takers. Its display is excellent for writing with a stylus, and the software facilitates writing with a streamlined UI. It may not be as flexible as its competitors, and the lack of lighting stings a little at this price, but if you’re chasing a compact writing tablet with a brilliant feel behind each pen stroke, this is it.
- Excellent writing experience
- Long battery life
- Stylish, serviceable design
- User-replaceable battery
- Expandable storage
- Limited, sometimes clunky OS
- No lighting
- Stylus sold separately
Price, availability, and accessories
A somewhat pricey start, with important accessories sold separately
The Supernote Nomad is available from Supernote for $299. Unfortunately, this price does not include essential or helpful extras. Supernote sells its styluses as add-ons, going for $59 and up — the stylus included for review was the premium Heart of Metal Pen 2 (Samurai version), a $75 option. The tablet’s special folio covers cost an additional $49 for a canvas model or $69 for the vegan leather option tested here.
Since the Supernote Nomad supports generic EMR styluses, you could buy just the tablet if you already have a stylus you like. And giving you stylus options at checkout means you won’t end up with an extra stylus you don’t want if you opt to choose one of the higher-end options. But, you’re realistically looking at $358 for the tablet and stylus at a minimum.
Specifications
- Resolution
- 1404×1872
Design
Clearly classy
The Supernote Nomad has fairly simple looks. It situates its E Ink display front and center with modest side bezels and thicker top and bottom bezels. The side bezels house capacitive controls that react to swipes and multi-finger touches. The tablet comes with either a white plastic shell or a clear shell, as seen here in the Crystal Edition. This clear shell shows through to the internal components, like the replaceable battery and the microSD slot, and it certainly looks slick.
The rear plate is held on by 18 small screws. This removable cover provides access to a battery that users can swap out should it ever die, which is a thoughtful feature for a product users could be using for many years, which is the point. Unfortunately, the numerous screws also make accessing the microSD slot something of a task.
The top edge of the Supernote Nomad has a USB-C port and a power button at opposite corners. That’s it for exterior hardware; there are no mics, speakers, or cameras on this tablet. It is designed with a purpose that is palpable while using it.
The rear of the tablet includes two magnetic anchors at the top and bottom where the first-party folio cover can attach. The link is reasonably firm and not prone to accidental disconnections. Disappointingly, the folio cover doesn’t have any magnetic or physical clasp to keep it from flapping open, so while it offers some protection to the display while held snugly in a bag, it won’t necessarily protect against a fall.
The display might also cycle between sleeping and awake if the cover flops. The design may be more akin to an actual paper notebook, but plenty of paper notebooks include clasps or straps, and the lack here leaves something to be desired in practice.
As fun as the exterior plastic looks, it feels like a cheaper plastic that could get roughed up easily, which tends to be the case for clear plastics. This is a device you’ll probably want to treat with care.
As fun as the exterior plastic looks, it feels like a cheaper plastic that could get roughed up easily, which tends to be the case for clear plastics.
The Supernote Nomad is quite slim, at just under 7mm thick, which makes it very travel-friendly. It weighs little more than most large-screen smartphones. That’s good news for handheld reading, though you’ll likely want to do your notetaking with the Nomad resting on a stable surface.
The 7.8-inch display doesn’t provide much room to rest your hands while writing on it with a stylus, so the display’s thin design is all the more handy. It lets you rest your hand on a table while still comfortably reaching the screen with a stylus.
Display and stylus
It’s like they were made for each other
Supernote has used a sharp, 7.8-inch ePaper display that provides a crisp 300 ppi that’s well suited for notes and books alike. It also displays grayscale content well with decent contrast. Beyond that, it’s not a very special panel.
The display refresh is slow like you might be used to from similar E Ink devices, and while this doesn’t lend itself well to animations (like Kindle app’s default page slide), it does result in minimal ghosting after a transition — something competing E Ink displays tend to incorporate through software so users can speed up or slow down full refreshes. The flip side is that the slow refresh makes zooming in and out in documents and the drawing app somewhat sloppy.
That said, the display’s surface finish is something special. Writing on it feels fantastic. I’ve been extremely pleased while taking notes on Onyx tablets, but the Supernote Nomad has the edge here. There’s little parallax separating the tip of the pen from where the ink shows up on the display, and the sharp ceramic nib paired with the textured display cover feels much more like writing on paper than glass. The inking is exceptionally responsive as well. I couldn’t detect much penning latency.
The stylus itself, Supernote’s Heart of Metal Pen 2 Samurai, is excellent. It’s thick enough that my hand didn’t quickly cramp while squeezing it, and it has an elegant design. It has a cap like you’d find on a decent pen, and it serves as on-the-go protection for the ceramic nib. That nib might never wear down on the display, but a drop could be fatal, so protection is important.
Beyond the writing feel, though, there’s not much exceptional about the Supernote Nomad’s display. Plenty of other writing tablets and e-readers are offering 300ppi displays. The “white” of the display is still fairly gray, and that only further holds it back next to something like the Onyx Boox Nova Air, which looks brighter at a baseline and can boost that even further with its built-in reading lights.
Beyond the writing feel, though, there’s not much exceptional about the Supernote Nomad’s display.
The Nomad also lacks its own lighting, which means you’ll need an external light source if you want to do any reading or writing in the dark. Some users may appreciate the lack of lighting, which makes the experience much closer to using real paper books and notepads, which does appear to be Ratta’s goal: digital stationery.
I found the lack of lighting an inconvenience for reading, as I had to turn on a lamp while my partner slept rather than reading by the soft lighting I could get from many other similar devices.
Software
Barebones Android with limitations
The Supernote Nomad perhaps sets itself apart most in the software department, for better or worse. Like the Onyx Boox lineup for tablets, the Supernote Nomad runs a specialized version of Android. In this case, it’s a custom build of Android 11 that Supernote dubs Chauvet, and it’s incredibly trimmed down.
While a company like Onyx’s fuller implementation of Android provides access to a wealth of Android apps — some that work well enough with the E Ink display and many more that don’t — the Supernote version of Android has just a few stock apps for taking notes, reading, drawing, browsing files, and accessing emails. Plus you can now sideload APKs if you wish, a recent update added this feature, which is great to see.
The only third-party application on deck is the Kindle app, which provides a handy way to tap into reading more content and makes up for the somewhat limited support for different file types. Unfortunately, the Nomad’s software is built around special navigation, removing the common Android nav buttons that the Kindle app expects.
The Supernote Nomad perhaps sets itself apart most in the software department, for better or worse.
This can prevent some navigation using the app, as I ran into during the sign-in process when I tried to do something as simple as going back to the prior screen. This led me to a dead-end that took a half-hour to get out of. It will probably be a fringe issue, but it is something the company should prepare for ahead of any additional third-party app support.
It’s best to approach this product as a note-taking device, and to that end, Supernote has built effective software. Its Note app is straightforward for diving right in but also fairly rich for taking notes to a higher level. It has a handful of templates, which are useful if you prefer writing on lined or gridded paper. You can add headings, keywords, and stars to your notes for organization, and you can use character recognition to turn handwritten notes into searchable text. While the stylus doesn’t include a dedicated eraser, holding two fingers on the left sidebar (by default for right-handed users) turns the stylus into a lasso eraser.
In addition to the notes you can create yourself, the Nomad allows you to add notes to documents you’re reading in the reader app, such as books and PDFs. If there’s no space for your notes on a document, you can surround text with brackets, and the app will create an embedded comment. You can search through books to easily see where you’ve made markups and export the files with your notes.
The device is really built around the writing experience, with a UI that provides quick access to making new notes, opening recent notes, or jumping back to the most recent document you were reading. The tablet doesn’t even turn itself off after a set time, instead electing to use a bit more battery to always remain in a ready state so you can start jotting down your thoughts in as little time as possible.
As capable as the note-taking abilities of the software, there’s still room for improvement. For one, there’s some inconsistency. The embedded comments work in epub books but not in PDFs. Searching a document for your notes will turn up all annotations but not those comments — you can only find them in a separate “Digest” tool. If any of that starts to get confusing, bear in mind there’s also so much depth to the product that it requires a 162-page manual to grasp everything it can do.
The device is really built around the writing experience, with a UI that provides quick access to making new notes, opening recent notes, or jumping back to the most recent document you were reading.
Installing the Atelier drawing app was bugged, and the first download button in the UI didn’t work. Instead, you had to click through on the name of the app to get to a functional download button.
You can access e-mail via the built-in client, which can link to Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Outlook/Hotmail, or others that use IMAP. It’s a little slow, but it works. You can even use it to pen e-mail that will show your handwriting, an enjoyable novelty for sure.
Performance and battery life
Fast enough, lasts enough
There is very little to say about the performance of the Supernote Nomad. It’s not a fast machine, but it doesn’t have any tasks that require speed. Opening documents and scribbling down thoughts are fast enough, and with access to more involved apps and games that you might play on a typical Android tablet, you can test to see how things work best for your own needs.
That said, sometimes the Nomad doesn’t seem as responsive as it could be. I can’t tell whether it’s missing touches because of the display sensitivity or because it was a little too slow to respond, but every now and then, an interaction goes completely unnoticed by the tablet, something that should be familiar to any E Ink users out there. I’d tap on things and get no reaction, and because the UI doesn’t always clearly indicate what is and isn’t a button, I’m left wondering if I’m at fault or not.
With limited performance generally comes long battery life, and that’s the case here. I got in plenty of reading, and a bit of notetaking, and my Nomad easily ran for more than a week. Even on its small 2700mAh battery and without ever powering down, the Nomad can go the distance. It’s helped along by the lack of backlighting, the minimal processing behind the scenes, and the largely static nature of its display. Again, it’s a device with a purpose, and it isn’t shy about it.
Competition
In the viable alternatives danger zone
The Supernote Nomad is far from alone in the digital notebook space. It runs up against the larger-screen, note-focused reMarkable 2, which starts at $279 but is effectively $360 with a stylus, as well as the the $399 Onyx Boox Note Air3 (we tested the Note Air3 C model that includes a color E Ink display and costs $100 more).
ReMarkable 2 tablet review: Top-tier writing experience, but that’s it
One of the best E Ink tablets for writing, marred only by its lacking e-reader functionality
Both are larger tablets, providing more screen real estate for taking notes and viewing PDFs better. The reMarkable 2 offers an excellent writing experience and focused note-taking features like the Nomad, but Supernote’s tablet is more portable thanks to its smaller size. The Nomad also has the benefit of access to the Kindle app along with the ability to sideload more e-reading apps, making it easy to load up books.
The Onyx Boox Note Air3 is more of a threat. It’s a little more expensive, but that price includes the stylus and (at the time of writing, anyway) a magnetic folio cover. The writing experience isn’t quite on the same level, but it’s close. And where Supernote locks its OS down, Boox opens it wide open with Android 12 and the Google Play Store, letting you go beyond the stock reading app to include Kobo, Libby, and Kindle — take your pick. Not all apps work well, and most third-party apps are laggy with the stylus, but the flexibility is there.
Should you buy it?
The Supernote Nomad fits into a niche within a niche. Where E Ink tablets are a specialty, those almost entirely dedicated to writing and annotation are another class entirely. Because of its limited software, it really doesn’t quite compete in the wider E Ink tablet space that devices from Onyx have carved out so nicely for themselves.
That said, the pen-on-paper-like feel of the Nomad is so brilliant that there’s certainly something for the dedicated journal-keepers. The operating system is also designed around the experience, so you’re less likely to get distracted by other things or wait for the system to start and your notes to load. While it might seem pricey for such a limited role, a nice Moleskin notebook with similar dimensions can cost well over $20, and you can very likely fit more notes in the Nomad than you can in 200 of those notebooks.
Supernote Nomad
The Supernote Nomad is great for writers looking to take advantage of digital capabilities while still enjoying the paper-like feel and quick access of a notebook. It’s not the ultimate E Ink tablet, but it’s still something special.
This review was updated with new information about sideloading now that the feature has been added to the hardware.
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