A new E Ink ereader and digital notepad has turned up on Indiegogo, a crowdfunding website. It’s being developed by a company called Team UC.
The device is called the MobiScribe. It comes with a 6.8-inch E Ink Carta screen with a frontlight and it includes a stylus pen for writing notes on the screen.
It has a Wacom touchscreen with support for 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity, along with a capacitive touchscreen for finger touch.
It runs software based on Android 4.4.
It clearly has an ebook app but they don’t bother to mention anything about it or what formats it supports, other than PDFs.
The specs are old school by Android ereader standards. It has a 1GHz Freescale processor with 8GB of internal storage space and 512MB of RAM. It has a memory card slot, WiFi, and the frontlight has adjustable color temperature.
The MobiScribe is selling for $199 and it is expected to ship in February.
The Team UC website also shows a 13.3-inch model but apparently it’s not available yet. You’re probably better off just getting one of Onyx’s devices anyway. Who knows if Team UC is going to keep up with software developments. That appears unlikely if they’re starting out with older Android 4.4 software instead of something newer like Onyx’s 6.0 software.
Hmm it comes with a back light… for $199…
You said, “You’re probably better off just getting one Onyx’s devices anyway.”
Which Onyx device would you suggest around this price?
Unfortunately Onyx doesn’t sell any with stylus support for $200 (there is the new 6-inch Poke without a stylus for $149) but these are only cheap because of the pre-order. The regular price is $339, and that’s just ridiculous with those specs. 512MB isn’t close to enough RAM for Android and the 1ghz processor is going to be a lot more sluggish than the 1.6ghz quad-core processor on Onyx’s newer devices. The Nova Pro will probably be in the $300 range and it’s superior to the MobiScribe in every possible way. It looks like Team UC is trying to replicate the Remarkable’s success at a smaller scale, but they cheaped out on the processor and RAM and the ancient version of Android so I doubt it’s going to work out well.
Thanks for clearing this up for me 🙂
Isn’t this just an actual rebranded Netronix E60QR2(maybe + updated digitizer). Same one that the other “swell” ereader blog was selling thru indiegogo/their store?
Perhaps but the note app looks suspiciously similar to Onyx’s note app in the video. But upon closer inspection it’s different enough that it’s more likely they copied most of it instead. I’d steer clear of this device either way. Something seems fishy about the whole setup, or maybe I’m just too skeptical of crowdfunding campaigns.
Looks interesting for me. Thank you for posting.
Hi Nathan
This is Roger with TeamUC again. I really appreciate your attempt to build an independent community in reviewing e-readers. However there are some details that you are missing that would be misrepresentative of the product as a whole. I recognize that you are skeptical of us being a new brand, however please trust that we have an experienced manufacturer and we are truly trying to bring a new and competitive iteration to the table.
To Clarify:
our early bird price has ended and we are now at a price of 214 until the end of the campaign. we are nearly out of our initial batch of 490 devices, and will continue to ship more in perhaps 3 months lead time.
The consistent build of android is necessary to minimize complications for open development environment, as it allows for development to occur without constantly keeping pace with Google’s development of android.
Also .pdf, .epub, and .mobi formats are supported by the native reader app but other reader apps may also be installed because of the android OS. This was missing because of our initial emphasis on the note-taking features and was an oversight of our interested e-reader community, apologies.
There was a typo in the original spec and the available ram is, in fact 1GB, and the specs overall are competitive to the reMarkable if you were to draw a side by side comparison.
Thanks for your consideration and keep up the good work
best,
Roger W
Hello Mr. Wang…
May I ask what’s the reason you guys went for Android 4 on this device?
It is the most stable form of android for our purposes with all the necessary elements for our device. Also it provides an environment that is easy for open API development 🙂
As an example, past a certain point, android updates that perhaps would make it easier for say, an AI to analyze app usage could potentially interfere with or interfere with existing development that is optimized for an E-Ink Device.
Mr. Wang, I am interested in purchasing this device. I currently have an Onyx Poke pro, although I have not used it much.
My ideal device is one that has a flush screen and bezel, only a power button and no external hardware buttons, an SD extension, and note taking capabilities, as well as a warm colored light.
Does the Mobiscribe have a warm color light in additional to the cool colored light?
Finally, when can the device be shipped out?
Thank you very much in advance for your response!
Mr. Wang, I was also wondering if there is any possibility that you may know of other cases that cover the entirety of the device from top to bottom including the outer edges. If so, please let me know at your convenience! Thank you very much!
Hi CDT,
Please contact me directly at my email rogerw-at-teamucinc.com and I’ll try my best to answer your questions directly 🙂 I dont want to spam Nathan’s board with support replies haha.
Yes the mobiscribe does have an adjustable warm/cool light! Although I’m not quite sure what you mean by the bezel.
Also as of now we don’t have any other cover options but we may release more in the future 🙂
I bought it. I have it in hand. But I cannot get it to connect with Bluetooth, and it wont download apps from google play store. I’m pretty frustrated. I cannot even seem to get the drawing I did to save to a file or upload it to my computer. I’m thinking of returning it, but I really want this thing to be as awesome as it looks.
Hi Mike, The google play store is not compatible as it relies on google play services which are not compatible. Please follow the guide I’ve written (it is at the second update on the indiegogo page) in regards to how to download 3rd party .apks
Envia pro Brasil?
Will this allow us to read scribd books?
The Scribd app isn’t optimized for E Ink at all so the text looks washed out and faded. They need to add an E Ink theme.