Many people use e-paper devices for reading books. Others use them as a digital notebook for jotting down notes on the fly. While the Fujitsu Quaderno A4 3rd Gen can perform both functions just as well as other devices, it stands out by offering rich freehand drawing capabilities, so you can use it as a digital sketch pad on the go.
Sporting an A4-sized display, the e-paper device lets you do all your sketches and scribbles on a surface the size of many common sketch pads, all while giving you a much bigger screen for reading all sorts of printed materials that may not work quite well on smaller e-readers. We’re talking school textbooks, sheet music, and other reading materials with larger pages, making this quite the attractive device for people with very specific needs that doesn’t quite jive with other e-paper devices.
The Fujitsu Quaderno A4 3rd Gen has a 13.3-inch E-Ink Kaleido 3 display, which comes with 1,650 x 2,200 resolution (207 ppi) in grayscale mode, so you can draw some pretty sharp images on this thing. However, it does a support a color mode with 4,096 colors, albeit at a lower 103 ppi pixel density, so you get lowered resolution if you want a more vibrant-looking screen. It comes with a capacitive touchscreen, by the way, so you can simply tap and swipe to interact with the device.
The touchscreen is also compatible with electromagnetic induction digitizers, which should make it a more responsive screen for drawings and sketches. In fact, they bundled it with a stylus that uses a Wacom digitizer, so you get to draw with 4,096 pressure levels that changes the stroke and thickness that’s reflected onscreen, much like you do when using a traditional Wacom tablet. That means, a more realistic handwriting and drawing experience than your typical e-paper device.
While the Fujitsu Quaderno A4 3rd Gen can display 4,096 colors, only eight of those colors will be available for drawing and handwriting. Still, those colors are a great way to make your annotations stand out when scribbling on ebooks, all while allowing you to add contrasting colors to your sketches when needed. Some notable functions include a Memorization Mode (we’re guessing it’s some kind of flashcard function), automatic page turner, and a Favorites feature that let you mark specific notes and pages, so you can access them quickly later. Apparently, this device is also popular for storing sheet music, which is why it has Bluetooth that lets you pair it with wireless foot pedals for hands-free page turns.
The device has 32GB of internal storage, which, the outfit claims, is enough capacity to hold around 10,000 PDF files, with dual-band Wi-Fi allowing you to go online to download books and other materials. There’s also a USB-C port for wired file transfers. Dimensions are 8.8 x 11.9 x 0.2 inches (width x height x thickness) with a weight of 13 ounces, so this thing is paper-thin, making it easy to carry in hand for both note-taking and sketching duties.
The Fujitsu Quaderno A4 3rd Gen is available now, priced at $719.99.
