I received my Quirklogic Papyr device today from the Calgary-based company. I must say that I had a very good experience dealing with the super-responsive customer service team (h/t to David) and it was a big decision in my buyer’s journey.

Initial Impressions

My first initial impression of the Papyr tablet is extremely exciting. I loved how light weight the device is – it should make long hours of reading fun. One of the biggest drawbacks with Kindle and Remarkable devices is the smaller display that poses a challenge when reading PDF documents and papers. The 13.3 inch display on this device makes reading and marking these documents easy.

I also like the document management system that is synchronized across web, mobile apps and the Papyr device. For my initial tests, I used the web-based document management site Quirklogic Portal to transfer PDF documents from my laptop. The drag and drop functionality makes transferring files a breeze. I also found that documents that are more than 25MB cannot be transferred as Papyr currently does not support larger file sizes.

The mobile app also allows you to transfer documents from Dropbox or local storage. I could not find a way to import PDFs directly through the mobile app. The only way I could add a PDF was by selecting one/few/all pages from within a PDF and importing them into an already open workbook.

The stylus works well – mine came at 17% charge so charging the stylus was the first thing I did. The tablet was at 85% charge.

Reading Experience

The reading experience is the best feature of this device. The PDFs and papers display great – this is my primary use case as I would be marking and highlighting text most of the time. I do not expect to use this device for note taking. However, it would be suitable for sketchnoting, doodling, mind mapping, etc. The zoom feature works very well and it’s easy to make adjustments to your liking.

Writing Experience

My initial impression regarding the writing experience is that it’s not as good as Remarkable but it’s not bad either. I have found writing on Remarkable to be superior to all other eInk devices that I have used. As of now, I do not think any other device does writing better than Remarkable, and therefore any comparisons on this front are futile.

I am wondering what kind of cover/case would be a good fit for this device as it’s large. I just discovered that the device sits very nicely on the AmazonBasics tablet stand and makes the reading experience even better. (see pic)

I will keep updating this review as I use the device more. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Update Sep 10, 2020: Papyr just received a new software update from Quirklogic. The interface looks much better now and Chrome browser is a welcome addition.