Full description not available
U**N
4.5/5 Review, great for comics/manga, notes software basic.
So you are one of the few who discovered this review of the Likebook Alita. If you discover this e-reader, you will most likely be looking for something that can take notes and take advantage of the e-ink screen. It also helps that you are looking for something that is an Android device with a SD Card slot.Lets get it out of the way, while this is an Android 6.0 Device, it is not good for games, watching videos, or applications that requires a swift refresh rate. However, if you want an Android device that’s an e-Reader that’s great for reading text, light web browsing, reading comics/manga and access your Kindle library, and take notes, then this is the product to get.I got the device partly for note taking, but I really got it for the e-ink screen for reading manga. So I want to talk about the note taking part first. The 10 inch screen helped a lot with regards to the size of being near paper. The note taking software does have different types of “paper” overlay to simulate the paper writing experience (ruled paper, graph paper, etc.). The glass screen that’s flushed feels very similar to an actual paper, but it isn’t quite there. I don’t blame it on Boyue at all due to it is just how the device was built. The WACOM pen that’s included with the Alita is good enough. Some will say that it feels quite cheap, I say it is more than enough to get the job done. I done so much writing with the pen already that I feel it is up to the task for me to write important notes on my job and save it onto the Alita. One minor thing on the software side is that I feel that the writing software is basic. It doesn’t give you options for shapes and stuff like that. However, it does save my notes when I need it on the device, and I can open Google Drive and upload it there if needed. For others, I don’t believe this device supports Dropbox. It is either some services or the services that are popular in China. With that being said, the note taking works fine for me. However, your mileage may vary.Now to the good stuff, how it is when reading text/reading comics? The major point on why I gotten the Alita is a bigger screen than my Kindle Oasis 3 and that is an Android device. I’m big into the Amazon ecosystem, so I must have access to the Kindle/Comixology apps at all times. The 10 in screen just makes comics/manga pop. While I love my Kindle Oasis 3, the comic/manga experience is great here. Of course since this is an e-ink screen, it’s only black/white. This is great for manga, but for western comics it is limited. Not Boyue’s fault, it’s more on the tech itself.By default Google Play Store isn’t active, but you can turn it on by going into Apps in the system menu, and activity Google Framework. After that just log in with your Google account info and you are in business. As stated before this is an Android 6.0 device, so it is pretty dated at this point for Android Apps. Boyue has promised that they will update the device to Android 8.0 in the future. I believe this is important since it will make this product have a long lifespan. Spec wise it is more than enough for doing important tasks, including 32 GB internal storage, 4 GB of RAM, and one of the bigger plus of the unit besides the 10 in screen: A MICROSD CARD SLOT! If you read tons of scanned comics/manga, the SD Card Slot is your best friend. Boyue claimed the Alita can accept up to a 128 GB MicroSD Card, but I put a 256 MicroSD Card in the Alita and it works just fine.The Alita also has Wi-Fi in 2.4GHZ band (which to be honest is enough for an e-reader), Bluetooth for headsets if you need it (remember the Alita is an Android device, who is stopping you from running a music app and Bluetooth to a headset?), and external speakers. I do love once again that the 10 in screen is flushed to the bezel. I had the smaller Likebook Mars and I hated that the screen was not flushed. Battery life is great, provided if you don’t use Bluetooth and Wi-Fi all the time. If you do, battery life goes down quite fast. With my normal mixed used, I was getting almost two weeks before I was below 10%. If you don’t always use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, battery life will be better than two weeks. Almost forgot, the screen does have a front light with both cool and warm lights. You can have one type of light on the time, and you can’t mix the cool light with the warm light. Personally I always use warm light since it doesn’t put any pressure on my eyes at all (unlike cool light). Since you are reading this review, you are also in the camp that looking at LCD screens at any device (computer, phones, etc.) hurts after looking at it for awhile. You are looking at the Alita because you might also want to read without the screen glare. Yes, you can use the Alita for hours without any pressure on your eyes. It frees me from any LCD screen device.While other Android Apps will work just fine for the most part, this is an e-reader screen. Personally I only use the Notes Apps that was included in the software, the Kindle App from the Google Play Store, the Comixology app from the Google Play Store, and Tachiyomi by downloading the APK file and installing it in the Alita. Getting Comixology manga releases with the HD scans is a dream on this. Jojo Bizarre Adventures just pop with the Alita on the detail front. Using Tachiyomi for scanned manga releases is a dream (on top of using Tachiyomi for adjusting how you want to turn page each different manga release). Can’t rave enough about the screen and these apps for reading. However, since we are running Android apps that aren’t native to an e-ink screen, I recommend adjusting the screen refresh setting in the Settings menu of the Alita to refresh at every 1 screen and to adjust it to Regal Mode. This will make using Comixology a lot nicer since it will have few jerky page animation. On Tachiyomi you can turn off page animation altogether. On the Kindle app you can’t, but it is limited.If you purchase the device knowing that it is an e-ink screen, then you will like it a lot. If you are a manga lover and you also want to take notes, then this will do as well. While I think the note taking software is more basic than competitors, I believe it gets the job done. However, I would research the note taking ability to see if the Alita meet your requirements. If you are the a manga fan or just want a bigger e-ink screen for reading in general with the benefit of the MicroSD Card slot, I don’t think you can do better than the Alita. I’m only giving this product 4.5/5 due to while the note taking software is basic, it gets the job done. It is also getting a 4.5/5 due to the OS is still running on Android 6.0. Boyue really needs to make sure they update this to Android 8.0 in order to have the Alita to have a long and useful life. Some will give bad reviews because they don’t understand the tech of an e-ink screen. If you know what you are getting yourself into, and know why people get these e-ink screen devices, then there’s a lot to love in the Alita. If you are a hardcore digital manga reader, I don’t think you can do any better than the Alita due to the MicroSD card slot can handle huge manga scan collections.EDIT 5/24/20: After months of using the device, its deliver on its expectations for me. Boyue has continue to improve the OS so there is more functionality with firmware updates. Now you can set up each app's refresh screen setting. So I have the Wall Street Journal and The Economist apps on the Alita. I can set it up where I can have both programs run in A2 screen refresh mode without manually putting it on in the settings. Furthermore, you can adjust the screen refresh settings with regards how many "page turns" before the screen refresh. As I stated before, if you use Wi-Fi you will drain the battery a lot faster than putting it off. So when I read the news and websites I can go from 90% to 70% in about less than two hours. Not really that great, but the battery life is great when you turn off Wi-Fi and the screen doesn't adjust all the time when you are scrolling apps like Chrome (which you can install it if you want) and my news app. They improved on the front light where you can now mix cool/warm light to you liking.Being a product from China, they will be a few weird quirks like any software that is made in China. However, I been impressed on how many FW updates and improvements Boyue has done on the Alita. As of today we are still missing Android 8.0, but they continue to promise an Android 8.0 update down the line. However, running on Android 6.0.1 on the Alita hasn't really blocked me from running the apps that I want on the device.I still like the device, and the Micro SD Card slot is a life saver on putting on plenty of comics/manga and Kindle/Comixology downloads to the Card Slot. The writing apps has improved but honestly I still think it is basic and I think this is where the Onyx devices are better than the Likebook devices, the note taking and importing files to a computer.Still, do your research and understand the limitations of an e-Ink device before buying one. You are silly if this will be good for video or for games. This device is aimed for readers.
W**L
Decent compromise. Not great but definitely not bad. A jack of all ereader
When I purchased the Likebook Alita, I was looking for a E-ink device which met the following requirements:1. E-ink screen2. Decent battery life3. Stylus for notes4. Ability to markup documents (PDFs)5. Internal SD Card support and/or USB-HOST6. Wifi.In this regard, the Likebook Alita did not disappoint. The E-ink screen is fairly readable and has a supported light for when it gets darker. The battery life is decent, not as long as a dedicated ereader but I was able to get atleast 2 weeks before it got below halfway. I have a feeling enabling the google PLAY store services brought the battery life down.The ereader supports an internal MicroSD card. I inserted a 256GB card and some other users have had success with a 512GB card. You can either add the SD card as a separate drive or add to the main android space by expanding it as one giant space. The tablet has a stylus which is fairly comfortable and has a working eraser. The tablet also support wacom pens and I can swap pens between my Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 or use third party pens like the Staedtler digital pen.Writing experience, The pen works well for basic note taking. You only get a minimum of pen types (2) and 2 colors (white or black). You have 20 different line setttings but have no layers. The writing experience is pretty basic, you can start a new note or open a previous one. You can create folders for the notes. You get an 2 page assortment of different templates for notetaking (grid, blank, meetings, etc. ). The AI function seemed pretty useless to me. I never got it to work well. I would liken the writing experience to writing on a Samsung tablet. Not bad but nothing special. You can take notes on actual PDF files . This works fairly well. You can also open a document in landscape split screen and take notes on one side while reading on another side. The main annoying thing about the writing experience was that the home/return key was centered on the bottom of the reader in portrait mode. My forearm keeps hitting it while I write and it saves and exits constantly. Very annoying so I write with the tablet angled a bit to avoid my forearm hitting the button.Reading: The reading experience is pretty good. The text was readable and the page clear and easy on the eyes. I found the customization to be somewhat limited. Very little fonts and some basic line spacing and page orientation.There is a night and day mode however. The multi-language dictionary which worked with the books was a nice addition and the wiki lookup was nice but needs to be online . You can easily activate Google Play and download your android apps to the device. The device works will with comics and manga too. . With the addition of the sd card, you can literally house a library of books on this one device. The device also has speakers so you can play audio.Overall the device is a decent compromise. Its a good ereader and note taker. The writing experience is nothing like a remarkable but then again, the remarkable also can't hold half a terabyte of knowledge without ever accessing the internet (assuming you have that much data) You can connect to your pc and the device is seen and it's easy enough to copy files over. If you are looking for a jack of all trades ereader this one is decent. but you have to compromise . The reading experience isn't the best, the writing experience isn't the best but both get the job done satisfactorily and still manages to get decent battery life. Im pretty happy with my decision to buy this.Pain points: Start up is a bit slow but not sure if that is because I used the 256GB card to expand the space on the device, although my Microsd card was a Extreme v30 card meant for 4k video. The placement of the home key is problematic. I wish the moved it to the left or right or to the top . Randomly, my default language changed to chinese. I had to figure out which menu to navigate to in chinese to get back to English. There is literally barely any How To Use documentation or manual or videos. You have to figure most of functions out if someone hasn't already posted it online.
D**L
Excellent for writing on PDFs - Exceeds expectations (4.5/5 stars)
The media could not be loaded. Update August 2020: The updates have improved the note taking functionality and experience a great deal. Battery still very good. Would still recommend.Summary: I needed a device with an e-ink display for reading and writing PDF files. After twenty days of using the Alita for research articles and marking essays, I am very impressed. I had read a range of positive and negative reviews so I was expecting a ‘mixed bag’ but I was surprised at how well this device performed. It does everything I expected it to do and more. Highly recommended.(+) Transferring, annotating, exporting notes on PDF is easy and works well(+) Android system means that you can use third party apps (E.g. Babbel). Keep in mind that these need to be suitable for an e-reader display.(+) Customer service from seller (Mica House) is excellent, fast and informative (Amazon caused several issues but the Mica House team resolved them quickly).(+) and (-) Pin to lock device but only after powered off(+) and (-) The fonts that are loaded onto the device are few compared to other devices but you can manually add fonts onto the device.(-) Only two pen options available for notes and can only draw a straight line (sort of) so if this is your main use, you may want to consider other devices.(-) A problem reported on Onyx Boox reviews is that the device has occasional translation issues I have only spotted a few (e.g. ‘samll’ or the blended light app) but these have never limited me using the device.(-) Home button can get in the way sometimes when writing. Would be nice to have an option to disable it when palm rejection is active.I would like this review to be helpful to you so have written about how this device is useful in practice. I spend much of my time at work using a backlit display, whether it be reading research articles, writing, admin or holding video calls. Eventually, all this time working and relaxing in front of a backlit display tires the eyes.As I was looking for a device to read and note on research articles, I decided to go for a 10.3 inch screen. The three I considered were the Onyx Boox Note Pro, the Remarkable and the Likebook Alita. I spent a lot of time reading up on these and all three devices have mixed reviews. The Remarkable is praised for its note taking experience but it requires use of their cloud storage or app to transfer files which rules it out for me (GDPR issue). Deciding between the Note Pro was Alita was difficult because they appear to be quite similar. For me, this came down to the SD card slot – although the Note Pro has 64GB compared to Alita’s 32GB, the Alita can be expanded up to 128GB and allows me to back up the files even if I damage the screen.Using the device:Transferring the files to the Alita is easy. Connect it to your computer via the provided USB-C cable and you drag and drop your files. Within minutes of receiving the device, I had transferred 1602 PDF files (research articles, occasional textbook) and my entire e-book library. I even added an audio book which I can listen to using the built-in speakers (not tested these much yet) or a Bluetooth headset.Navigation of folders is straight forward. I didn’t read the Alita guide and it didn’t take me long to find my way around the storage. Clicking on the device icon sends you to the root folder which I personally find easier as this is the same as what you see on the computer screen. You can organise these folders (and subfolders) in any way you like. One word of warning – although you can copy files and folders, the handwritten notes do not copy across with the file. I learned the hard way after cutting and pasting a file and I lost two hours work. Otherwise, I have had no other problems. You can exit the file, turn off the device and the notes remain. When you want to move or export the file, click ‘export the book’ and the Alita saves it as a separate file. Apparently, this may change in the next update, but I although I appreciate some may not like this additional step, it isn’t a deal breaker for me.Reading:What struck me instantly is the quality of the text. It’s like reading from paper. While I’m used to reading on my Kindle Paperwhite, it couldn’t handle PDF files this well. For me, this alone makes the device worthwhile. I’ve not had much opportunity to read mobi files (ebooks). I think I will continue to use my Kindle Paperwhite for those as it is easier to hold in one hand. But I will update this review in a few months after I have had chance to try it out.Although the device does not have as many Fonts as its competitor, it has the ability to add additional fonts. This is really easy to do – simply drag and drop into a folder called ‘fonts’, reboot the device and then you can select than font for your e-books. The dictionary is super easy to install too. Connect your device, drop in the dictionary files (or even the folder) in the ‘Dict’ folder and restart the device (see my YouTube video for links and guide).Writing:As for note taking, this device does everything I wanted it to. The pressure sensitive pen exports into PDF and PNG files just fine. The pen responds well. I have already found this useful for writing notes during meetings. The Alita has a minutes template and a checklist template which are useful. There are fewer templates available than the Onyx Boox Note Pro and I would like an option to add my own – this is something I hope will come about in a update. There are also fewer drawing options than the Note Pro so if this is a focus for you, the Likebook Alita may not be for you. At the time of writing, all e-readers only offer black and white displays so I imagine that a traditional tablet would be more preferable anyway.From an applied point of view, this device is perfect for annotating on PDFs (e.g. research articles) and e-books (textbooks). I used the device for annotating on transcripts (over 176 pages worth) which I found faster and more convenient than if it was printed out. I can then send the notes to co-authors without having to type my notes into a word document. This is where I find value in the Alita. It is worth noting that at the moment, the Alita only exports one pen type (different sizes) and doesn’t support the pressure sensitive notes in PDF. However, I contacted Boyue about this and within 24 hours they responded to say that this is an upcoming feature in the next update. The Alita has palm rejection which you can manually toggle on and off.Apps:A bonus for the Alita device is that as it runs on android so you can add additional apps. Setting up Google Play is easy (User settings – apps – click on the cog on the top right – enable google framework). Once I logged in, I was able to download apps straight away. Of course, the low frame rate on an e-ink displays limits what you can use but I’ve still found it useful. For example, those who require Company Portal for security reasons at their work or want transfer files using OneDrive. I’ve not tested out cloud storage yet but I will add in a note about this when I update the review. I tested out Babbel (an app for learning languages) and when in A2 mode, this functioned surprisingly well. I’ve started using the Alita with bluetooth headphones instead of using Babbel on my phone.Finally, value for money. In my view, this comes down to how much you will use this type of device. Do you really need a 10.3-inch screen? Do you really need to write notes? Can you get by with a traditional tablet? For me, I wanted to get away from screen glare to give my eyes a break. But to do this, I needed a decent sized e-ink screen and a stylus. If you are working with PDF files or want to take notes – yes, I think you would be better off with the Alita than a tradition 8-inch e-reader. If I manage to get my hands on a smaller device such as the Likebook Ares, I will do a comparison review but my gut feeling is that 10.3 screen is preferable. The flexibility of this device is not only contained in the software but in the hardware – you can use any WACOM stylus which are cheaper to replace. You get three extra tips but as these are plastic, they don’t wear down quickly. If drawing is your main focus, then you may want to look at the Remarkable or Onyx but for annotating PDFs and e-books, I think you will be very happy with the Likebook Alita.Highly recommended.
Trustpilot
2 weeks ago
1 week ago
