iFLYTEK AINote 2 Assessment – AI-Powered E-Ink Pill with Dwell Offline Audio Transcription

Final yr, I reviewed the Plaud Notice and Notice Professional, which allow you to report conferences after which use AI to transcribe them and produce issues like assembly notes and thoughts maps. As somebody who sits by way of quite a lot of product briefings and conferences, and who additionally has ADHD, I’ve discovered that form of instrument genuinely helpful. It saves me from writing notes by hand and stops me from forgetting what was stated.

I later reviewed the iFLYTEK Good Recorder. On paper, it appeared like a superb different, as a result of it supplied dwell offline voice transcription with no subscription. In apply my expertise was inferior to Plaud. The accuracy was a bit hit or miss, and it did not one of the AI work reminiscent of assembly notes. It was not dangerous, however it was not nice both.

One other machine that comes up lots amongst folks with ADHD is the reMarkable e-ink pill. My very own expertise of it’s restricted, however the individuals who personal one are inclined to price it extremely.

So when iFLYTEK supplied me the AINote 2 to overview, I used to be . It’s an e-ink pill alongside the traces of the reMarkable, and it additionally provides dwell voice transcription and translation, plus the AI options I favored on the Plaud, together with assembly notes. On paper it reads like a powerful choice for folks with ADHD, or for anybody who wants to remain organised and attends quite a lot of conferences.

After a couple of weeks of use, it isn’t excellent. It has a good variety of quirks the place the reMarkable is extra refined. Even so, I’ve come to love the mix of an e-ink pill with dwell voice transcription and AI summaries, and that blend is what retains me reaching for it. Additionally it is one of many thinnest tablets you may at the moment purchase, and iFLYTEK leans on that tough in its advertising.

iFLYTEK AINOTE 2, AI Notice Taking Pill for Assembly, 10.65″ E-Ink Pill, Extremely-Skinny 4.2mm Digital Pocket book with Voice-to-Textual content, 16-Language Transcription, Handwritten-to-Textual content, Very best for Work&Research

• Paper-Like Writing Expertise (Frontlight-Free E-Ink System）：With 8 brush types and low-latency handwriting efficiency, AINOTE 2 provides a writing really feel much like pen on paper. The frontlight-free E-ink show supplies snug viewing below regular indoor and outside lighting. Notice: Not meant for low-light or dark-room writing with out exterior lighting.
• AI-Powered Productiveness: Leverage AI to mechanically generate assembly summaries and convert handwritten notes to textual content in a breeze. Spotlight key factors with star, triangle, or circle markers, and the machine immediately transforms them into actionable to-do lists and weekly stories. Handle duties seamlessly with the included stylus.
• 16-Language Transcription Assist：AINOTE 2 helps multi-language transcription designed for conferences, lectures, and interviews. This characteristic helps seize spoken content material and convert it into textual content for simpler overview and group. Requires an energetic web connection for transcription companies. Accuracy will depend on audio high quality, speaker accent, and atmosphere. Designed to help observe overview, not for word-for-word skilled transcription.
• Extremely-Skinny & Transportable Design： At roughly 4.2 mm in thickness, AINOTE 2 is designed for light-weight portability. Its streamlined construction makes it simple to hold for every day work, journey, or examine, whereas supporting prolonged use below typical working situations. The machine provides as much as 14 days of utilization time when used for about half-hour per day with the remaining time in standby or powered off, and as much as 113 days of standby time. Essential: The machine will not be designed to be used in excessive temperatures or harsh environmental situations, which can have an effect on efficiency or battery life.
• Easy Ecosystem Integration: Sync AINOTE 2 with Google Calendar to maintain your schedule constant throughout all gadgets, eliminating guide updates. Extra app integrations are within the pipeline, guaranteeing you keep centered on productiveness with out fixed tool-switching

The AINote 2 (left) subsequent to the smaller AINote Air 2 (proper).

Specification

Right here is the total specification for the AINote 2.

Subscription Prices and Options

I detest the development of every thing having a subscription, however I can perceive the necessity to cowl the price of AI fashions. Moreover, for a productiveness machine, I feel it turns into simpler to justify the fee. For $60 a yr I feel the offline voice transcription makes it value it, plus limitless observe syncing and extra AI fashions. Resulting from how skinny that is, and the excessive value, the one time substitute justifies the fee, too.

That being stated, it’s annoying that the offline voice transcription is walled off within the Professional subscription. You probably have paid £500+ for a tool that has the {hardware} to do offline transcription, then there isn’t any justification to make you pay extra for this. The truth that ChatGPT AI evaluation is included totally free makes this much more irritating.

Design and Construct

The very first thing you discover is how skinny and lightweight the AINote 2 is. It measures 4.2 mm thick and weighs about 295 g, which makes it the thinnest and lightest pill of this measurement that I’ve used. iFLYTEK markets it as a Guinness World File holder for the thinnest pill, and whether or not or not you care concerning the report, the sensible impact is actual. It’s snug to carry in a single hand for lengthy stretches, and it slips right into a bag and disappears.

That thinness comes with a trade-off. The physique is usually plastic, paired with a Mobius Carta e-ink panel that makes use of a versatile plastic substrate fairly than glass. The upside is the low weight and just a little give that ought to make it extra resilient to a knock than a inflexible glass display screen. The draw back is that it doesn’t really feel as reassuringly stable as a thicker, glass-backed machine. Faucet the decrease half of the entrance or again and also you hear a faint hole observe, as if one thing inside will not be fairly anchored. It’s a small factor, and I’ve had no reliability issues, however it does take just a little shine off in any other case beautiful {hardware}. A strip of silver steel across the edge lifts the look, and the corners are properly rounded.

I’d go so far as to say it is best to price range for a case from day one. The pill is so skinny that I instinctively dealt with it extra fastidiously than ordinary for the primary week, and a folio takes that fear away.

Across the machine you get a USB-C 3.0 port and a small standing LED on the underside edge, an influence button with a built-in fingerprint scanner, and a devoted button that summons iFLYTEK’s voice assistant. The stylus clips to the proper edge magnetically, although the maintain is weak and the pen comes off simply, so a folio with a pen loop is the safer wager. On the again are 4 rubber toes and a row of 5 pogo pins, which is how the optionally available keyboard folio attaches.

One omission value flagging is the dearth of a G-sensor, so the display screen doesn’t rotate mechanically while you flip the machine. You may swap orientation in software program, however on a pill at this value I’d count on auto-rotate to be there.

e-Ink Show

The show is a ten.65-inch monochrome panel at 1920 x 2560 and 300 PPI, which is a contact bigger than a sheet of A5. It’s a Mobius Carta display screen, and the background is strikingly white for e-ink. Textual content seems to be crisp and darkish, with robust distinction, and for studying and writing it is likely one of the nicer monochrome panels I’ve checked out.

The large resolution for consumers is the dearth of a entrance gentle. The AINote 2 has no backlight in any respect, so you might be reliant on ambient gentle. In a fairly lit room this isn’t an issue, and the excessive distinction helps, however you can not learn in mattress with the lights off. That is one space the place the smaller AINote Air 2 truly has the sting, as a result of it contains an adjustable heat and funky entrance gentle. If evening studying issues to you, that distinction alone could steer you in the direction of the Air 2 or a competitor.

The opposite factor to grasp is refresh behaviour. iFLYTEK has not fitted any of the fast-refresh modes you get from Boox or Bigme, so whereas the native note-taking and studying apps really feel responsive, scrolling and animation in third-party Android apps can look uneven. That’s regular for e-ink, however gadgets with fast-refresh know-how deal with it extra gracefully.

Writing Really feel and Responsiveness

I’ll admit upfront that I’m not somebody who writes a lot by hand, so I got here to this anticipating to be unimpressed. As an alternative, writing on the AINote 2 turned out to be one in all its highlights. The display screen has a lightweight texture that offers a pleasing little bit of friction, the stylus wants no charging as a result of it makes use of Wacom EMR, and latency is low sufficient that the ink seems like it’s sitting proper below the nib. Responsiveness, particularly, is great.

The pen itself is ok fairly than particular. iFLYTEK quotes 4,096 stress ranges, and there are eight brush sorts, although in apply the distinction between a number of of them is refined. The larger situation, which different reviewers have flagged and I observed too, is that the bundled nib has a slight flex and may develop a faint squeak because it wears. As a result of it’s a Wacom EMR machine, you may swap in a third-party EMR pen, and that tidies up the writing really feel significantly. It’s a little disappointing that the included pen is the weak hyperlink on a tool bought partly on its writing expertise.

For notes you can begin with a clean web page or decide a template. The easy choices are clean, lined or grid, however there are additionally weekly planners, assembly schedules, work logs and extra, which I discovered useful for conserving every assembly in a constant structure. There’s additionally a neat set of pen gestures: circle one thing to show it right into a process or to flag it as necessary, and the marks tie into the duty checklist and calendar. I’ll come again to the bounds of that within the schedule part, as a result of it doesn’t deal with a number of objects as cleanly as I would love.

Efficiency and {Hardware}

Inside is a Rockchip RK3576 octa-core chip, with 4 Cortex-A72 and 4 Cortex-A53 cores working as much as 2.2 GHz, backed by 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage. There isn’t any microSD slot, so you might be caught with the onboard 64 GB.

In benchmark phrases it is a mid-to-lower tier e-ink processor. Geekbench 6 figures reported for the machine land at roughly 321 single-core and 893 multi-core, which tells you it’s constructed for note-taking and studying fairly than heavy multitasking. In day-to-day use the native apps are responsive sufficient, and I hardly ever felt held again when writing or studying. The gradual moments have a tendency to indicate up in particular locations: toggling Wi-Fi, loading the e-mail consumer, and ready for the AI to generate textual content. These felt extra like software program inefficiency than an absence of uncooked energy, and they’re the form of factor a firmware replace might enhance.

One {hardware} limitation to pay attention to is that there are not any built-in audio system. The four-microphone array is there for recording and voice instructions, and it does an excellent job of choosing up a room, however if you wish to play again a recording you’ll need Bluetooth headphones or a speaker. For a tool pitched at conferences and audio notes, the absence of even a primary speaker is an odd hole.

AI Options

The AI instruments are what separate the AINote 2 from a plain e-ink pocket book. They cowl dwell transcription, assembly summaries, handwriting recognition (OCR), content material templates and thoughts maps. iFLYTEK talks up the underlying mannequin in pretty grand phrases, and it is best to deal with that advertising language with the standard pinch of salt. What issues is how the options behave, and that may be a blended image. The transcription is the strongest half, whereas the chat-style AI and textual content technology are slower and fewer constant.

Additionally it is value understanding that a lot of the cleverer AI work wants an web connection, as a result of the language fashions run on iFLYTEK’s servers fairly than on the pill. That’s unavoidable for large-model options on any machine, however it does imply two issues. First, the AI options won’t work offline. Second, your knowledge is being despatched to a server for processing, which some folks shall be uneasy about for delicate conferences. The dwell transcription can fall again to downloadable offline language packs, which is the half I care about most, and I’ll cowl that shortly.

AI OCR

OCR, the conversion of handwriting into typed textual content, is supposed to underpin quite a lot of the machine. The spec sheet lists a protracted roster of supported languages, properly over 100 when you embody the secondary checklist. In apply, accuracy is the weak spot. With tidy writing it does an affordable job, however it’s inconsistent, and since a number of different options lean on it, reminiscent of turning a circled observe right into a process, that inconsistency spreads. My handwriting will not be the best, so your mileage could range, however I’d not depend on it for something the place errors can be expensive with out checking the output.

The place it labored greatest for me was the duty checklist. You handwrite a process, the machine recognises the textual content, and also you settle for it. That circulate is genuinely helpful. It’s extra hit or miss elsewhere, and as I observe within the schedule part, the calendar doesn’t get the identical handwriting recognition that duties do.

AI Offline Dwell Transcription

That is the characteristic that justifies the AINote 2 for me, and the explanation I’d decide it over a reMarkable. You begin a recording, faucet the transcription icon, and the machine transcribes speech dwell on display screen. Once you cease, you may drop the transcript straight right into a observe. I examined it throughout a pre-brief for an Honor machine, and the dwell transcription was correct, which is greater than I might say for the older iFLYTEK Good Recorder I reviewed beforehand.

There’s a second contact I like lots. With click on to talk enabled, you may jot a observe whereas a gathering is being recorded, and afterwards, tapping that observe jumps you to the precise level within the audio the place you wrote it. It’s a easy concept that works properly for going again to the second a choice was made.

My major criticism is that it doesn’t establish or label particular person audio system. iFLYTEK makes quite a lot of the four-microphone array, and a few protection suggests it may possibly separate audio system, however in my use the transcript got here by way of as a single block of textual content with out attributing who stated what. The Plaud Notice does deal with speaker separation, so if that issues to you, the AINote 2 falls brief there. The flip facet is that the Plaud doesn’t do dwell, on-screen transcription, so the AINote 2 wins on immediacy. For me, watching the phrases seem in actual time, and having the ability to repair a reputation or element on the spot, is the extra helpful functionality.

The dwell transcription can be the place the offline language packs are available in. With the ability to obtain English and a handful of different languages for on-device transcription means the characteristic I worth most doesn’t rely totally on a server, which is reassuring. I simply hope iFLYTEK doesn’t disguise these packs behind a charge later, given the VIP label they at the moment carry.

AI Content material Templates

Underneath the AI menu there’s a set of content material instruments aimed toward turning uncooked notes into one thing structured. The one most individuals will use is assembly minutes: level it at a transcribed assembly and it produces a tidy abstract. For getting the gist of a protracted assembly shortly, it’s a actual time-saver. Plaud nonetheless does this higher, primarily as a result of it provides a alternative of abstract types, whereas the AINote 2 is extra one-size-fits-all.

There are additionally content-generation templates for drafting. As a take a look at, I handled it as if I have been writing a overview of this very machine. I gave it a title and a few key factors, advised it what number of headings I needed, and it generated an overview with a title and subheadings. I didn’t use its construction phrase for phrase, however it did immediate me to rethink and tweak my very own define, in order a place to begin it has its makes use of. The machine may construct thoughts maps out of your notes, which is a fast strategy to lay out how concepts join with out leaping into one other app.

Electronic mail

Electronic mail is the place the expertise dips. On the AINote 2 I added my Gmail account first time with out bother, which was an enchancment over the smaller Air 2, the place I fought with it. There it took some time to simply accept my password after which held on the configuration display screen earlier than failing.

Getting it arrange is one factor, utilizing it’s one other. On each tablets the e-mail consumer is gradual. There’s a noticeable delay each time messages load, which makes working by way of a full inbox a chore on e-ink. I additionally anticipated the e-mail app to tie into the remainder of the machine, for instance letting me create a process from an e-mail, and it doesn’t. Given how neatly notes, duties and the calendar work collectively elsewhere, e-mail feeling bolted on is a missed alternative. I’d deal with e-mail right here as an occasional comfort fairly than one thing to depend on.

Schedule and Duties

The scheduling facet fits me. I attempt to hold an up-to-date calendar and quite a lot of process lists, partly due to my ADHD, and having that on the identical machine as my notes and recordings is useful. The way in which notebooks tie into the calendar and process checklist is likely one of the issues the AINote 2 does properly.

Duties are the spotlight. You may handwrite a process, the machine recognises the textual content, and also you affirm it. You can too flag one thing inside a observe by circling it and push it throughout to the duty checklist. The limitation I bumped into is that you simply can’t choose a number of handwritten duties without delay and have every recognised individually. In case you attempt, it bundles them right into a single process, so you find yourself coming into them one after the other.

The calendar can sync with Google Calendar, which is the mixing I needed. The frustration is that including an entry to the calendar doesn’t use the identical handwriting recognition that duties do, so you might be typing fairly than writing. It’s a small inconsistency, however on a tool constructed across the pen, it stands out.

Studying

As an e-reader the AINote 2 is stable. It opens a variety of codecs, together with PDF, EPUB, MOBI, AZW3 and the Workplace sorts, and the white, high-contrast display screen is straightforward on the eyes. The ten.65-inch panel is a smart measurement for paperwork and most books, although for full A4 PDFs a 13-inch machine is extra snug.

There are a few issues to weigh. The shortage of a entrance gentle, as coated earlier, limits low-light studying. There’s additionally no native dictionary, so phrase look-up is dealt with by way of the AI, which suggests it wants an web connection, and the interpretation choice was awkward in testing. Web page turns in heavier PDFs can really feel gradual as a result of there isn’t any fast-refresh mode. On the plus facet, you may set up the Kindle app, so your present Kindle library is on the market, and you may pull information in from OneDrive fairly than filling the 64 GB of inner storage.

The app drawer, with Google Play, WPS Workplace, Kindle and Maintain Notes put in.

Google Play and Apps

An actual benefit the AINote 2 has over the Air 2, and over some rivals, is the built-in Google Play Retailer. Meaning you aren’t restricted to regardless of the producer bundles. I put in Google Play companies, Google Maintain and the Kindle app with none fuss, and WPS Workplace comes preloaded for paperwork. The smaller AINote Air 2 doesn’t embody the Play Retailer, so on that machine you might be sideloading by way of APKPure as a substitute.

Two caveats apply. E-ink will not be the best house for each Android app, and with no fast-refresh mode some apps scroll and animate poorly, so set your expectations accordingly. The built-in cloud drive additionally helps OneDrive, however I had bother connecting it at first earlier than it settled down. As soon as linked, it’s a helpful strategy to transfer information on and off the machine.

Battery Life

The AINote 2 has a 4,000 mAh battery, which is an affordable measurement for a 10-inch e-ink pill, and it costs over USB-C at 5 V / 2 A in below three hours. How lengthy it lasts relies upon closely on what you do with it. Measured drain figures put note-taking at roughly 8% per hour, studying at about 1% per hour, with Wi-Fi including round 1% per hour on high. iFLYTEK and a few reviewers quote for much longer figures, within the area of a few weeks, however that assumes very gentle use.

In actuality, the note-taking app is pretty power-hungry, so in case you write lots, report conferences and lean on the AI and Wi-Fi, count on to cost it each few days fairly than as soon as a fortnight. In case you principally learn, it is going to go lots longer. It’s not a standout on this space, and the heavy lifting performed by the note-taking app is the principle purpose. For my sample of use, which is a mixture of conferences, notes and a little bit of studying, planning to cost it a few instances every week is about proper.

Connectivity and Wi-Fi

Connectivity is the realm that pissed off me most, and it’s value a bit of its personal. The AINote 2 is marketed with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4. Bluetooth was fantastic, and pairing headphones was simple. Wi-Fi was a distinct story on each this pill and the Air 2. So far as I can inform, the Wi-Fi solely operates on 2.4 GHz, and I couldn’t get both machine to hook up with networks that broadcast 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz collectively. Each of the networks I attempted run on UniFi equipment, so which may be a part of the issue, however it isn’t the behaviour I’d count on from a tool bought as Wi-Fi 6.

To check it additional, I attempted tethering to my telephone’s hotspot. The two.4 GHz band related with out situation, however the 5 GHz band didn’t even seem within the community checklist. In case you run a single mixed community identify throughout each bands, as lots of people do, that is value checking before you purchase, as a result of a bit of the machine’s worth, the AI and transcription syncing, will depend on a secure connection. I additionally observed the occasional pause when turning Wi-Fi on and off, which traces up with what different reviewers have reported.

Worth, Equipment and Various Choices

The AINote 2 will not be low cost. It prices £650, which does at the least embody a refill set of 5 stylus ideas. The optionally available Sort Folio keyboard is an additional £117.37. On the keyboard, I’d mood expectations. Different reviewers have discovered it really works properly sufficient as a keyboard however poorly as a folio, with the heavy keyboard panel urgent in opposition to the display screen when closed, so I’d not purchase it anticipating a do-everything case. An ordinary folio is skinny and lightweight, consistent with the pill, and provides solely modest weight, with the pill plus folio coming in at round 449 g.

If the dwell transcription and AI should not your precedence, the smaller AINote Air 2 covers quite a lot of the identical floor for much less. It prices £469 by itself, or:

1. £509 with a protecting case
2. £516 with a protecting case and additional stylus ideas

The Air 2 is smaller, drops a few the LLM-based AI options, and doesn’t embody the Google Play Retailer, you sideload through APKPure as a substitute. It does add a entrance gentle, which the AINote 2 lacks.

The apparent cross-shop is reMarkable, which is extra refined as a writing and studying machine however doesn’t do dwell transcription. The road-up is:

1. reMarkable Paper Pure at £359
2. reMarkable Paper Professional Transfer at £399, which has a color show
3. reMarkable Paper Professional at £559

There are additionally the Boox and Supernote gadgets, which have a tendency to supply extra mature firmware and, in Boox’s case, sooner third-party app efficiency, if a elegant general-purpose e-ink pill issues extra to you than transcription.

Put plainly, you might be paying a premium for the AINote 2, and the factor that premium buys you over a reMarkable or a Boox is the dwell offline transcription with AI summaries. If you don’t want that, the worth case is more durable to make.

General

General, I’ve grown to love the AINote 2. The primary purpose is the dwell transcription. For me, that characteristic is the principle promoting level, and it’s the one factor that will make me select this over a reMarkable choice.

It’s not a clear win. The {hardware} is gorgeous to carry, however it’s so skinny it undoubtedly wants a protecting case if I depart the home. There isn’t any entrance gentle. The Wi-Fi would solely run at 2.4 GHz for me. The OCR is inconsistent. Electronic mail is gradual, and the value is excessive. iFLYTEK is clearly nonetheless maturing the firmware, and quite a lot of my complaints are software program points that may very well be mounted in an replace, so the machine could properly enhance over time.

The mix of an e-ink pill you may write on, that information a gathering and transcribes it dwell, then summarises it with AI, is improbable. As somebody who sits by way of quite a lot of briefings and depends on notes and reminders to remain up to the mark, that blend has earned the AINote 2 a spot in my bag, quirks and all. If you’d like essentially the most polished e-ink writing and studying expertise, purchase a reMarkable or a Boox. If what you need is dwell transcription and AI summaries on an e-ink machine, the AINote 2 is properly value contemplating.

I’m James, a UK-based tech fanatic and the Editor and Proprietor of Mighty Gadget, which I’ve proudly run since 2007. Keen about all issues know-how, my experience spans from computer systems and networking to cell, wearables, and good house gadgets.

As a health fanatic who loves working and biking, I even have a eager curiosity in fitness-related know-how, and I take each alternative to cowl this area of interest on my weblog. My numerous pursuits permit me to carry a singular perspective to tech running a blog, merging way of life, health, and the newest tech developments.

In my tutorial pursuits, I earned a BSc in Info Methods Design from UCLAN, earlier than advancing my studying with a Grasp’s Diploma in Computing.

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