Fujitsu has just released the second generation Quaderno A5 with a 10.3 inch screen and A4 with a 13.3 inch screen. These devices are primarily geared towards digital note taking, freehand drawing and viewing/editing PDF files. The major selling points is that it is thinner, more lightweight and has a WACOM screen, so pen latency has been improved by over 30%. In addition, it is using a new E Ink display and a new CPU and reaction speed such as page turning has also improved by about 20%.
The Fujitsu Quaderno A4 is using E INK Carta 1250, which is the first device to use this new screen technology. The device features a 13.3 inch E INK display with a resolution of 1650 x 2200 with 207 PPI. The Quaderno A5 is 1404 x 1872 with 227 PPI. Both of the screens are capacitive, so you can use your finger to interact with it and for the first time, Fujitsu is utilizing a WACOM display. You can assign your favorite functions to the side buttons and tail switch of the stylus pen. You can freely select from five functions: red pen, eraser, highlight, range selection, and enlargement. For example, if you assign an eraser to the tail switch, you can erase handwriting in a natural way.
Underneath the hood of both the A5 and A4 is a Cortex A53 Quad-core 1.8 GHZ processor, 32GB of internal storage, which is good for storing around 10,000 PDF files and 4GB of RAM. It has a USB-C port, which is great for people who want one cable for all of their devices. It has WIFI, Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC support for FeliCa (screen unlock) and NFC Forum Type 4 Tag (easy connection with QUADERNO Mobile App). You will easily get up to 4 weeks of usage before you have to recharge it.
The Fujitsu A4 2nd generation is available now from the Good e-Reader Store for $799.99 and the Fujitsu Quaderno A5 is available for $569.99, also from the Good e-Reader Store. There is also a new stylus that Lamy designed that is compatible with both the A4 and A5, it has a neat gunmetal silver color scheme and also buttons that can be mapped to do different things. There is also a number of new accessories such as cases, replacement stylus and extra nibs.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.