The Supernote A6 X2 Nomad Is a Super Lovable, Super Portable Digital Notebook
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The Good
- Fantastic paper-like writing experience
- Crisp, responsive screen
- Thoughtful note-taking features
- Calendar integration
- Seamless sharing options
The Bad- Syncing and downloading can be slow
- No native app store access
- Sideloading apps is tricky on Mac
- The size might be too small for some
Table of Contents
In recent months, I've reviewed two e-ink tablets—the Boox Note Max and the Boox Note Air 4C—that impressed me, but left me wondering who they were for. While they come with a stylus and foreground their note-taking software, they also run on Android and can install basically any app. In short, they seem to have been designed as both a replacement for your pen-and-paper workflows and an easier-on-the-eyes e-ink alternative to an iPad. And that's a lot to ask of any one device.
If you want a fully functional tablet than can run a ton of apps, iPads (and their Android-based counterparts) are really good at that job. If you want a great digital notebook experience, e-ink handles that well. A device that can do both is novel—certainly the Boox tablets impressed me enough that I gave them high marks—but here's the thing: Neither Boox digital notebook made me want to write in it. The Note Max is amazing for reading manga, and the Note Air 4C has breathed new life into my long-neglected library of digital comics—but I mostly leave the styluses in the drawer.
But the Supernote Nomad—now here's an e-ink digital notebook that doesn't have delusions of grandeur. It doesn't go out of its way to wow you with a color screen or an app-friendly operating system. It only wants to be the last notebook you'll ever buy, and the only notebook you'll ever need. And I'll be damned if it doesn't make me want to be the kind of person who keeps their life organized in a notebook.
"For those who write"
When you boot up your Supernote Nomad, you're greeted with a loading screen emblazoned with the slogan "For those who write." And that really tells you everything you need to know: This is a device intended for one job—recreating the feel of writing, sketching, and organizing your life in a paper notebook, but with all the added enhancements that infinite pages, keywords, folders, online syncing, and other digital embellishments can offer.
Supernote comes from Ratta, a private company based in China, Japan, and the U.S. that got started a decade and a half ago developing technology to allow for secure handwritten digital signatures. It later moved into the "digital stationery" space, and is part of an international consortium of companies focused on a "paperless" future—but without sacrificing the tactile experiences that make the physical act of writing so satisfying.
To that end, the Supernote Nomad is not trying to wow you with its technical specs. It offers a 7.8 glass e-ink screen with a 1404 × 1872 (300 PPI) resolution, in black and white only. There's no temperature-controlled front light (because adding lights to an e-ink display puts an extra layer between the outer glass and the inner display), so you can't use it in a poorly lit room.
It has a RK3566 Quad-Core 1.8 GHz processor with just 4GB of RAM. Its proprietary operating system is built upon an outdated version of Android 11. It doesn't come with app store access, it can't handle web browsing or social media, and it doesn't want to replace your iPad.
The Supernote wants to be a really great digital notebook.
A fantastic writing experience
Digital notebooks have been around a long time, but writing in one of them still feels a little bit like magic to me—the experience of putting stylus to screen and seeing words or drawings appear makes my brain buzz with the dissonance: the tactile movement of my hands creating in an unreal digital space.
The Supernote is the first device I've used that truly seems to capture this weird dichotomy—it makes an ephemeral act feel real, like I'm really writing in a notebook that actually exists, even though it's all still just data.
It's hard to explain why, and perhaps the poetry is unnecessary. Put more simply, the act of writing on the Nomad is extremely pleasurable. I frequently find myself picking it up just to jot down a thought or doodle a bit, the same sort of impulse that triggers me to waste pages and pages of paper notebooks writing "hello hello hello" over and over: Sometimes, it just feels good to write.
Similarly, the Supernote Nomad just feels good. Other e-ink devices I've tried feel like writing on glass, which can certainly be fine, but it's not an experience I love. The Supernote Nomad's screen has a coating that Ratta describes as "FeelWrite 2 Self-recovery Soft Film for natural writing," and the end result is that writing in it feels more like writing on paper.
Though it will work with any stylus, the screen is designed to be paired with a pen with a "Ceramic NeverReplace Nib," rather than one made of plastic, felt, or rubber. This doesn't only mean the tips will last a lot longer (I find the felt nibs on the Boox stylus wear down pretty quickly with use); coupled with the slightly tacky screen protector, it helps recreate the tactile feeling of pen and paper.
Unfortunately the easiest way to understand this is to experience it, but maybe this comparison will help: Writing on an iPad or other uncoated glass screen feels like trying to sign a restaurant receipt with a ballpoint pen directly on a hard table. Using the Supernote Nomad feels more like writing on the top sheet of a stack of Post-It notes. (And here's where I note that the larger model of this device, the Supernote Manta with a 10.7-inch screen, which I have also reviewed, feels even better—but more on that in my comparison of the two devices.)
Thoughtful note-taking capabilities
The Supernote Nomad's welcoming qualities go beyond the physical writing experience. Its custom OS was also designed solely with the note-taking experience in mind, and it shows.
When you turn on the device, you're immediately greeted with the most recent note you've written in—there's no home screen to speak of, no notes app to open up: You just jump right in. To switch between tasks, you use a simple physical gesture—swiping down on the right-hand bezel—to open up a sidebar menu where you can access the file system, open the email app, launch your to-do lists, and more.
Some reviewers have complained about the lack of a home screen, but I find it a boon—it solidifies my conception of the device as a notebook that I open when I want to write, and not a gadget I wake up to distract myself.
That's not to suggest the software is all about minimalism: There are a lot of robust tools to help you organize your ideas and optimize your workflows. For example, as you write, you can access various tools from the shortcuts bar, from different virtual writing instruments (needlepoint pen, ink pen, marker), to changing the line weight, to erasing (with multiple line weights there too, or the option to erase the entire current layer). You can undo or redo at a tap, change the template you're working in even after you've started writing, and more.
The lasso tool opens up another menu of options. You can circle any text to turn it into a heading, add searchable keywords, or add a hyperlink (to another note, PDF, file, or website). You can also move lassoed text around to easily reorganize your notes or copy a section to a different note.
One of my favorite quality of life features: If you draw a five-pointed star anywhere in your note, it will be added to an easily searchable index, so you can find important information quickly.
Take notes on PDFs and EPUBs
While you'll be doing most of your writing within your notes, you can also open and markup other file types on your Supernote, including EPUBs and PDFs, which is especially useful if you're using the device for studying—you can link a particular section of a PDF to your notes and vice-versa.
(Fairly) accurate text recognition
One of the downsides of a physical notebook is that everything in them is siloed off. The Supernote's software provides plenty of shortcuts and integrations to remove that frustration and allow you to (relatively) seamlessly integrate your handwritten notes and drawings into your workflow.
The most useful of these is the one-tap text recognition, which turns handwritten notes into text that can be exported as a PDF, TXT, or Word file. While the OCR (optical character recognition) isn't perfect, it's pretty darn good, even with my slightly sloppy script. And while you'll likely have to reformat your exported text document to get it looking good (and typo-free), that takes far less effort than painstakingly transcribing everything from one format to another.
Import and export files via the companion app
But how do you get those files off of your Supernote Nomad? There are a myriad of export tools, including email and cloud storage integrations (including Dropbox, Google Drive, and One Drive), but the easiest is through Supernote Cloud, a native cloud sync option that stores all of your notes. You can access it by logging into your storage account using a QR code or the Supernote Partner app, available on iOS and Android.
From the app, you can view, search, and export all of your notes without picking up your Supernote at all—the operation is truly seamless. My daughter used my Nomad for a school project that involved drawing a comic. She was able to sketch out her panels as separate notes, access them via her phone, and save them to color in a different app. Reloading the colorized versions to the Supernote Partner app for posterity simply required reversing those steps.
Mail, calendar and to-do list integrations
Beyond just your notebook, the Supernote Nomad can also replace your email, calendar and to-do list apps. While the native calendar app works pretty well on its own—allowing you to create events and link them to and from your existing notes or turn them into new notes—you can also connect your Google or Outlook email and calendar and automatically sync them at a tap. Frustratingly, Ziff Davis doesn't allow me to do this with my work account, but it worked just fine for my personal Google account—though the initial syncing and downloading process seemed a bit slow; it took some time for all of my many emails to filter over.
There's also a simple but useful to-do app that also integrates with your notes and calendar. You can add tasks by date and then check them off using a radio button, which is pretty satisfying if you are a list-making type of person.
It's an artist's notebook too
Like a paper notebook, the Supernote Nomad isn't just for words—you can draw in it too, and use tools like the lasso to move your images around or turn them into links or even searchable stickers (though that latter feature is currently only a part of the beta, which you can join by request).
There's an integrated, proprietary app called Atelier that is geared toward sketching and creating comics and manga, with a far more granular selection of writing implements and line weights (more than a dozen, by my count), 16 different grayscale variants, and multiple erasers. I am hardly an advanced enough artist to use most of these tools, but their presence is inspiring, and I'm really wowed by some of the work I've seen from others in the Supernote Reddit community.
It's also an e-reader (kind of)
Given it has an e-ink screen and is roughly the size of a Kindle, you might confuse the Supernote Nomad for an e-reader...and it can be one, sort of. The operating system offers you the option to download the Kindle app if you like, and you can sign in and read all of your Kindle books using it just fine.
While the screen looks great—text is super crisp and the background is nice and bright—the lack of a front light makes it less versatile than all but the most basic Kindles, and the app is much less snappy when turning pages, changing fonts, or moving around your library. It's more of a "nice to have" than a core use, because, again, the Supernote Nomad is a notebook first and foremost.
Not a device for jailbreaking or sideloaders
If you're the kind of person who likes to immediately jailbreak your devices to see how much you can get them to do, you're better off choosing something other than the Supernote Nomad. While it's certainly possible to sideload other Android apps onto the device—there's a slider to allow it in the security settings menu—the process is a bit cumbersome, especially on Mac. (Full disclosure: I couldn't get it to work during the writing of this review because it involves using Terminal commands, and I don't have the right permissions to do that on my work laptop.)
Even once you get additional apps loaded, there's no guarantee they will work well. Ratta clarifies that sideloading is not recommended and at your own risk, and there's a good chance that an app built for a smartphone won't work great on a device designed for writing.
A focus on existing users
Everything about the Supernote suggests that Ratta is focused on the user experience, and that extends to its business philosophy (prominent on the Ratta website) of favoring satisfying its existing customers over attracting new ones.
In practice, this means a steady stream of UX updates, which come with lengthy notes explaining what has been added, upgraded, or fixed; the beta program which allows you to preview new features early; and an active back-and-forth with the community over on Reddit, where posts from the Supernote team seem to be absolutely everywhere.
A modular design for a bit of future-proofing
Ratta's user-focused ethos carries through to the design of the device, which is modular and allows you to replace both the processor and the battery yourself—in theory. While some models of the device come with a screwdriver to make taking off the back panel easy, you currently can't buy a new processor or battery direct from the manufacturer. Still, it suggests that its heart is in the right place when it comes to making its products last as long as possible.
Do more by doing less
The FAQ section of the Supernote website takes an interesting tack in answering the hypothetical user question, "Can I use [a Supernote] to watch movies and play video games?" It reads:
Supernote is not an "All-in-one" tablet computer and isn't intended for everyone. Its design focuses on writing and reading to stimulate creative thinking, and nothing more. We suggest considering the iPad as an alternative.
Honestly, respect. The Supernote was not intended to serve multiple purposes, so it doesn't. You might be able to cheat the system and sideload different apps, but if that's you're primary concern, what are you even doing? Don't buy a $300 digital notebook. Buy an iPad (or a Boox Note Air 4c, if you really like e-ink).
But if you want a device that has been thoughtfully and meticulously designed to do one thing—replace your pen-and-paper notebook with a digital version that offers infinite pages and ample ways to interlink and organize them—I can't imagine you won't be pleased with the Supernote Nomad.
