Key Takeaways
- Supernote’s A5 X2 E Ink tablet will be called Manta & be priced at $459, a remarkable deal compared to competitors.
- The Manta won’t have a frontlight, making it less optimal as a reading device.
- Although the launch date remains unknown, anticipation is growing for the affordable writing-first Manta tablet, possibly available in early 2025.
To say there is a devout group of Supernote fans online, eagerly awaiting any morsel of news about the perpetually delayed A5 X2 would be an understatement. Supernote has been teasing it’s 10.3-inch device for over a year now, and while some fans have become despondent over the wait, for others the hype only continues to grow. That hype reached a fever pitch last night when the first news since October was inadvertently revealed.
What’s new with the A5 X2?
We know a name and a price!
Sometime late Sunday night, Reddit sleuths found a meant-to-be-hidden page on Supernote’s website. Early on Monday, the page was taken down, but not before it was saved to the Wayback Machine. So, thanks to an oversight by the Supernote IT team, we may finally know that the A5 X2 E Ink writing tablet will be called the Manta and is going to cost $459.
Even though this price is in line with our prediction back in September, it’s still a remarkable deal for someone looking for a writing-first E Ink device. Kindle and Kobo both sell note-taking e-readers for around $400 but those are subsidized by e-book sales and exist in a closed ecosystem. The Boox Go 10.3, which has an open Android 12 ecosystem, is just $380, but it isn’t built from the ground up for a premium handwriting experience. If you do want that first-class, pen-on-paper feel that Supernote is known for, you can get it in the new reMarkable Paper Pro, but that will run you $580, plus a subscription to access a closed ecosystem.
But there are some caveats if you’re thinking about picking one of these up. For one, the Manta won’t have a frontlight. Putting a frontlight on an e-reader meant to be written on increases the distance between the stylus and the output, making for a worse writing experience. Unfortunately, that also means that it has to sacrifice some of its utility as a reading device.
Another compromise is the use of a plastic screen instead of a glass one. Supernote’s smaller device, the Nomad, has had numerous customer complaints about broken screens, so it’s likely that Supernote opted for the flexible Mobius screens to mitigate that issue.
Still no word on when it will arrive
But we’re hoping to see it before Christmas
We’ve reached out to the Supernote team to confirm if this name and the price are locked in but have yet to hear back from them. There was no mention of a launch date on the discovered webpage, but just the fact that it existed at all indicates that we’ll probably get some official news soon. It’s probably too late to have it in our hands before Christmas, but it’s not unlikely that we’ll be able to order it this year and receive it in early 2025.
