My Supernote First Impressions

A couple of days ago my Supernote A6 X2 Nomad arrived.

I’m not going to go into the details about what it is, how it works or how it compares to alternative options because there are a lot of reviews and guides, written and video, out there already. What I thought I would do is explain why I bought it considering that I already have a reMarkable 2 and what my first impressions are.

Why I Got It

I am someone who scribbles notes on bits of paper. These are mostly work-related things and my desk is covered in paper which I regularly sort through and then shred and recycle. Not only is this wasteful but my preference is to use Rhodia notepads, and specifically the No. 16 which is A5, so it is quite expensive too.

A couple of years ago I bought a reMarkable 2 to try to go digital and write my notes electronically. It never really clicked and it largely gathers dust although I occasionally charge it up and have another go. The biggest issue that I have with it is that as a notebook it is not very good. It’s clunky to add and delete pages and the whole thing just feels very over-simplified and restrictive. For most people simplicity is probably a good thing but I have always found myself frustrated by the user experience it offers. Of lesser importance it is almost A4 sized and for some reason I just find that too big to sit on my desk where I have A5 notepads and I tend to have to pick it up to write on it which makes it oddly intrusive.

And then a couple of weeks ago Matt Gemmell posted some messages on Mastodon about how he uses his Nomad. Two in particular intrigued me. The first was about using a non-10-inch device which obviously chimes with my comment about the size of the reMarkable and the second was alink to his video about how he uses his Nomad. After watching the video I decided to take the plunge and order one because it looked a lot like what I’d hoped the reMarkable would actually be.

What I Bought

• A white Supernote A6 X2 Nomad
• The ‘Ink’ Heart of Metal pen
• The dark blue vegan leather folio

The crystal Nomad is more visually interesting than the white model but I know that my device will live in its case so the clear back will be hidden anyway. The $30 saving would help towards to overall cost of a fairly impulse purchase.

I also wanted a heavy stylus that feels like a good quality ink pen so the Heart of Metal was an easy decision. The finish was trickier but the blue folio helped me pick the Ink variant.

And the folio choice was decided by wanting a more premium feeling case in a colour which was not going to look grubby after a few weeks (I play with Blu Tack, possibly a side-effect of giving up smoking 24 years ago) so my fingers can be slightly greasy).

First Impressions

After some very limited use, my first impressions are very positive.

The notebook software solves a lot of problems I had with the reMarkable and doing things like adding a new page before or after the current one is really quick and simple, as is deleting a page. The software feels like it has been written for people who want to be able to manage pages as well as writing notes on them. There are also some really lovely features such as being able to define text as a header and then having a simple contents table for each notebook.

Physically the device is a really good size for me. A 7.8 inch screen will be too small for a good percentage of people, particularly those who want to read A4 PDFs easily, but it is what I mentally consider to be notepad sized and the whole device has about the same footprint as my A5 pads. It is thicker than the reMarkable, particularly when it is in its folio, but again this adds to the experience for me. When you hold it, it feels like a notepad or a Moleskine notebook which makes it all feel very familiar and reassuring in your hand. Sometimes super-light and ultra-thin is not what you actually want.

I’ve loaded a couple of technical ebooks onto the Nomad and they are, as expected, beautifully handled. The font size can be adjusted and the layout is flexible because they are epub files, not PDFs, and most of the programming and reference books I use are available as epub files. I have not tried reading a PDF on the Nomad yet and I expect it will be okay (the landscape view helping reduce the issue of the small screen size) but I also expect most PDF annotation, etc. will be done on my iPad as it is now because most are sent around via email (although the Nomad does have an email application so who knows).

The inclusion of a Kindle app is great. I do most of my reading on a Kindle so being able to put books onto the Nomad too is going to be very handy. I do not think that the Nomad will replace a Kindle for me (dropping a Kindle in the bath is less catastrophic than dropping a Nomad in it) but is it great to be able to have the ability to read on it when I want to.

And I think I’m only really scratching the surface so far. Things like custom page templates, conversion of handwriting to text, digests (marking sections of epub or pdf files which can then be shown as a list and annotated), drawing with the Atelier app are all things I have yet to play with and there is an awful lot more too.

So what about the negatives? The only issue I have had so far is that sometimes pen strokes are not detected but I think that there are some new settings I can play with to help resolve that. Genuinely, apart from that, I’ve been delighted with everything else.

Conclusion

I will blog more about it in the future but as of right now I’m expecting to pass my reMarkable on to my daughter and for the Nomad to become more and more a part of my daily life. My first impression is that this is a wonderful device and exactly what I have been looking for.