Quirklogic Papyr Review
Secure Collaboration for Businesses and Excellent Interactive Teaching for Educators
Thinking and Decision making
6/10
Professionals think with a pen in their hand. Infinite canvas and pinch to zoom, make a quirklogic workbook an ideal space for your thoughts. The combination of touch interactions and pen input are well thought out, and once you get used to them, you wonder why other eink tablets don't use something similar.
Communication
5/10 There's no email here, there's no options for other android apps, which would allow communication via things like chat apps. However workbooks can be shared, so this is a valuable way to communicate in meetings and for professionals to present to one another, or for formal education.
Collaboration
8/10
Here's where quirklogic began, the idea is a team of professionals, working wherever they are from shared workbooks. You can access the workbooks on other platforms via the quirklogic apps, but it's most seamless on the devices. If a team were invested in this technology, their plans can be shared and adapted in real time.
Reading and Learning
6/10
Reading is just fine on the Papyr. But there is no light. However for any type of academic and professional document, the full A4 size is brilliant. I love being able to annotate off the sides of an A4 .pdf as well, and at any point you can bring back the centred page view with a double tap.
Planning and Organisation
7/10
This strength of the device is where I want to see the company develop. If the Papyr 2 can add a powerful set of tools, for instance kanban boards, mind mapping, spreadsheets and other office functions the space can become everything a team needs to share ideas and organise production.
Innovation and Creation
7/10
When an idea comes a professional reaches for a pen. When an idea develops thinking people need to lay out their ideas on a page. They need to take that germ of an idea and bring it into being something concrete. This is where the device is capable of bringing people together, around those ideas. I just wish that they had more serious tools for the writers and the artists among us!
Papyr Review
Best use cases for Quirklogic Papyr
Handwriting recognition is missing from the Papyr. They have a workaround which involves exporting to google docs, but that doesn't really fit the bill, or go anywhere near as far as the competitors.
I'm looking for offline and reliable. I'm looking for something which I can write line by line, and quickly and easily correct and move on to the next sentence.
Reading on the Papyr is a little quirky, it only really has pdf and even that is converted to Quirklogic's file format on the device. Although they have, at the request of their customers now added a dedicated reading app.
Importing things on the device is absolutely fine, it's good that you can do that, from your google drive, on the device, without needing the computer.
I'm afraid I wouldn't draw on the Papyr. There is no pressure sensitivity and the pen often gives wobbly lines, I think this depends on the angle of the pen, but it might be the charge too. It looks just fine for handwriting, it looks good in fact, but drawing is a no-go.
For work, if you can convince your whole organisation to invest in a full set of Quirklogic devices, including the Quilla, this is the way to go. If you believe from top to bottom your organisation would benefit from each having an eink tablet, and collaborating around ideas, notes, presentations and plans in real time, all on a secure server that you control. Go with the Papyr!
Personally I love the device for teaching, for presenting, it's fantastic. I like having my private notes in one side and casting the other.
Split screen is amazing, but only the Papyr can make use of this for presenting. I can be working in two documents here, one which is shared with the screen at the front by the web app, and the other which is my own notes.
Lastly, the design. I really like the thin, light plastic construction of the papyr. And the screen feel, the choice of nibs is great.
Having the two buttons is great. I'm hopeful the Papyr 2 will be with us soon, and can keep the amazing features, give us some of the much needed ones, but above all, keep innovating and making the quirky, but oddly logical solutions that they are coming up
