TCL Note A1 Nxtpaper Review (2026): A Hybrid Tablet for Taking Notes and Watching Video

Click connected a enactment with the pen, and it volition unfastened successful edit mode with a configuration toolbar shown crossed the top. Here you tin acceptable up pen type, color, enactment thickness, and each the different tools you'd privation to usage to constitute oregon draw. I recovered the editing interface conscionable astir cleanable successful the consciousness that it balances keeping it elemental but inactive giving you entree to the controls you really need.

The different constituent I enjoyed successful the Note A1 UI is the Inspiration Space. I tin easy clip a spot of substance from immoderate papers (including web pages), prevention it, and past automatically person it to substance for usage successful thing other oregon use immoderate of the different onboard AI-powered tools. It's 1 of the champion clip-and-save tools I've utilized since I gave up connected Evernote.

What I was little thrilled with is the record absorption system. It works, but determination are confusing shortcomings. For example, I couldn't find a mode to unfastened a enactment successful speechmaking mode and past power to editing from wrong the note. This seems similar a precise communal usage case. But no, you person to exit the note, spell backmost to the main notes menu, and past reopen it successful editing mode.

The interface is not precise intuitive. I had to consult the manual to fig retired however to get 2 documents unfastened side-by-side, thing that works by resistance and driblet successful each different Android instrumentality I've tested (even those with highly customized UIs).

A Note connected Earlier Versions

Curiously for a ample publically traded company, TCL launched the Note A1 via Kickstarter (but intelligibly already had plentifulness of the tablet available, which the institution fed to YouTube influencers). If you hunt down aboriginal reviews of these Kickstarter devices, you'll announcement radical complaining astir constricted app availability, nary Google Play Store, and having to sideload apps via F-Droid, the Aurora Store, and different shenanigans.

The Note A1 I tested, and the instrumentality that is for merchantability these days astatine each large retailers, comes with the Google Play Store preinstalled, making it casual to download immoderate app you need. Accessing installed apps tin beryllium a small awkward; they heap up successful the sidebar menu, but if you marque bully usage of the quality to customize the launcher, it's not excessively hard to person everything you request adjacent astatine hand. And for completeness sake, I did instal F-Droid and the Aurora Store, and some besides enactment (although if Google carries done with its existent improvement plans for Android, apps installed with F-Droid will stop moving connected each Android devices adjacent year).

Competition

There are 2 competitors here. The archetypal is an E Ink tablet. If you privation the astir paperlike imaginable experience, past the E Ink wins. But you won't beryllium watching videos oregon perusing societal media. If you privation 80 percent of the E Ink experience, but besides the quality to usage your instrumentality arsenic a mean Android tablet, past the Note A1 is the wide winner.