Comparing Our Favorite Digital Notebooks
Model Display Resolution Color? Storage Weight Battery life reMarkable Paper Pro 10.8 inches, adjustable front light 229 pixels per inch Yes 64 GB 1.16 pounds Up to 2 weeks reMarkable Paper Pro Move 7.3 inches, adjustable front light 264 pixels per inch Yes 64 GB 0.51 pounds Up to 2 weeks Kindle Scribe 10.2 inches, adjustable warm light, auto-adjusting front light 300 pixels per inch No 16, 32, or 64 GB 0.96 pounds Up to 12 weeks reMarkable 2 9.7 inches 226 pixels per inch No 8 GB 0.89 pounds Up to 2 weeks Supernote A5 Manta X2 10.7 inches 300 pixels per inch No 32 GB, and can expand storage with a microSD card 0.83 pounds Under a week Kobo Libra Color 7 inches, adjustable front light 300 ppi for black and write, 150 ppi for color Yes 32GB 0.44 pounds About a month
Our Favorite Smart Pens
Neo Smartpen M1+ for $129: Skip the tablet and write directly on paper with a smart pen instead. The Neo Smartpen M1+ is the thinnest and lightest of all the pens I tried, which makes it feel a bit more like your standard pen. Importantly, it's comfortable to hold and use. You should be able to find whatever size and style of notebook you need as well as planners. The Neo Studio app (iOS, Android) is nice, with an easy-to-navigate notebook system and the ability to search for pages by page number or date. You can change the color of the ink and thickness of the lines right on the page as you go, or you can switch them up later and edit the colors of what you've written. —Medea Giodiano
Moleskine Smart Writing Set for $279: Moleskine has garnered a devoted following for its classic notebooks and journals, but it has also moved into smart territory. The Smart Writing Set gets you a notebook and pen bundle, so this is the best option for most people starting out. Write in the notebook and it'll appear in the companion app! But you can buy the pen on its own, as well as the smart notebooks and planners in various sizes. The Moleskine Notes 2.0 app (iOS, Android) was easy to use once I settled into it. An older version of the app is available for download, but the 2.0 version is more streamlined. A pop-up let me know that 2.0 is still a work in progress and I might need to switch back to the older version if my device is having trouble, but my iPhone 11 didn't have any issues. I tested the the $149 2018 version of the Smart Writing Set, which is no longer available, but we plan to test the latest version soon. —Medea Giordano
Honorable Mentions
Photograph: Iskn
Boox Note Air3 C for $450: This model was a solid all-around performer, and has a more complicated ecosystem than our top picks but has more capabilities to compare with a standard tablet. This version has been discontinued, but there's a new version, the Note Air4 C ($530).
Neo Smartpen Dimo for $59: This is the cheapest smart pen option and uses replaceable batteries. It isn't compatible with Google Calendar, iCal, or Outlook like our other picks.
Rocketbook Fusion Plus for $38: If you really prefer the paper experience and don't want something you need to charge, then Rocketbook is for you. Rocketbook makes several reusable notebooks, planners, and accessories like index cards and sticky notes. I like the Rocketbook Fusion Plus since it comes with a ton of different template styles, from your classic monthly and weekly pages to project management layouts and meeting notes, making it feel closer to the variety a digital notebook can offer you. Take notes with an erasable Pilot Frixion Pen (one comes with whichever item you buy), scan photos of the pages into the Rocketbook app, and erase the whole thing with the damp microfiber cloth (also included). The app is designed to keep everything organized and easily send things off to Google Drive, Slack, Trello, OneNote, and a handful of other options.
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