The Tablet That Feels Like Paper and Performs Like an OLED

When it comes to tablets, there are countless options available these days. There is a device to meet just about everyone’s needs. Among them, there are two major categories: those with traditional LCD/OLED displays, and those with E Ink screens. If you want to browse the web, do some gaming, or watch high-definition videos, an OLED tablet is the right choice. But if you are looking for a good tablet for long reading sessions or note-taking, then an E Ink display is generally preferable.

What you can’t get is a single device that is ideally suited for both sets of use cases. At least you couldn’t in the past — but now, TCL has announced the launch of the Note A1 NXTPAPER. It is a tablet with a screen that has the look and feel of E Ink, yet it has a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz, and it can display 16.7 million colors. With these characteristics, it is equally well suited for watching videos and reading a novel.

The tablet is built around TCL’s NXTPAPER display technology. It is LCD-based, so it doesn’t offer the energy efficiency of E Ink, but it does have a paper-like anti-glare, anti-reflection, and fingerprint-resistant finish with a blue light ratio below 2.44%. The underlying technology eliminates the slow refresh rates and ghosting common to E Ink, offering a much smoother experience. And of course, the number of colors NXTPAPER can display blows E Ink out of the water. The display is covered by 3A Crystal Shield Glass to keep it safe from scratches and other damage.

TCL is marketing the Note A1 NXTPAPER as a distraction-free tablet for enhancing productivity. To support these use cases, it comes with a pencil-like stylus for precision inputs and an array of eight microphones for voice-based interactions. It also integrates with a number of modern AI tools to enable text summarization, real-time translation, transcription, and more.

The Note A1 NXTPAPER doesn’t exactly come cheap at $437; however, compared with other flagship tablet models, that’s not bad. The Kickstarter campaign is closing soon, so be sure to jump in soon if you’d like to snag one of these devices. Orders are expected to ship in February 2026.