We have a new candidate in the E Ink phone that’s not really a phone market from the eNote maker Viwoods. They just released a new device called the AiPaper Reader, and it’s available to order on Amazon for $279.99.
There are some good things about the device, and some not so good things. First off, it has a 6.13″ black and white E Ink screen with 300 ppi like the Boox Palma 2, but it uses a newer Carta 1300 screen instead of a Carta 1200 screen.
The AiPaper Reader also adds a SIM card slot so it can be used as a phone (kind of) and a portable data device. However, it only supports older 4G networks. And the weird thing is Viwoods doesn’t recommend using it as a phone. There’s a Q&A on the product page that says the following:
Can AiPaper Reader be used for calls after inserting a 4G SIM card?
The AiPaper Reader’s 4G functionality is designed to allow users to access reading materials and AI services anytime, anywhere. Call performance may vary depending on the user’s location. We don’t encourage using AiPaper Reader for making phone call.
Another odd thing about the device is it lacks an external speaker—that’s something you never encounter with real phones.
On the plus side, the software is based on Android 16, which is the latest version available. You never see E Ink devices with the latest version of Android. Onyx just released two new models with Android 15, and most of their devices are still running older versions than that.
Another cool thing about the AiPaper Reader is it only weighs 138 grams. They claim it’s the lightest E Ink device on the current market. I haven’t checked around to verify that, but the Boox Palma 2 with the same size screen weighs 170 grams, and the latest 6″ Kindle weighs 158 grams.
As far as specs go, they aren’t giving us much to go off of on the Amazon listing, but I checked on the Viwoods website and learned a few more details. It turns out the AiPaper Reader only has 4GB of RAM, which is pretty low, and it doesn’t have a memory card slot. But it does have 128GB of onboard storage. It uses an undisclosed octa-core CPU, and it has a 2580mAh battery, which is significantly smaller than the 3950mAh battery on the Palma 2.
Despite being made by a company that makes eNotes, the AiPaper Reader does not support stylus input. Of course capacitive styli will work since they’ll work with anything, but it’s not meant to be a notetaking device.
Another oddity is the fact that it doesn’t have a warm frontlight. It does have a frontlight with adjustable brightness, but it lacks the option to change the color temperature of the frontlight.
Obviously with a name like AiPaper the device is big on AI. It even has its own dedicated AI button. It supports multiple AI models, including Chat GPT 5, Gemini-2.5-flash, DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-V3, and all are free to use.
All things considered, I still think the Boox Palma 2 is the better device overall for the price, but with the extra features and the newer screen and newer Android version the AiPaper Reader is certainly worth considering.
Having the latest Android version and Carta 1300 screen are big pluses, but the lack of warm light, smaller battery, and no expandable storage take this out of the running for me. The Palma 2 is pretty light even with the bigger battery.
The biggest issue for me would probably be the light. Having tried the AiPaper Mini, the screen even on the dimmest light setting, is still way too bright. With a small reader, I would want to read it at night in bed, on a dimmer setting and I don’t think this new Viwoods reader would be good for that.
@Looboo
Since it runs Android I guess you could just use an app like “Dim Easy”, which I use on tablets/phones that are still to bright with minmal brightness. And there’s also the “Extra dim” function in the Accessibility settings of Android (at least on Android 15). Or you could use the dimming features in apps like Librera (my favourite reading app) or Koreader.
What I don’t like is the 128 GB memory which in the end means around 100 GB for you books, papers etc. What’s so hard about adding a memory card slot?