The Supernote A5X is a 10.3 digital note taking device that came out in January. Ratta did not have a huge inventory of this e-note when it initially went up for pre-order, due to component chip shortages in China. The writing slate has now faced another delay, and it won’t be available until June 2021. You can place a pre-order for the June release date on the Good e-Reader Store.
This Supernote A5X features a 10.3 inch E INK Mobius touchscreen display with a resolution of 1404×1872 with 226 PPI. This device is geared towards taking digital notes, editing PDF files and reading ebooks. The A5X does not have a front-lit display. Underneath the hood of the A5X is a quad-core Cortex A35 processor, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. You can access the internet via WIFI 2.4/5 and it has Bluetooth 5.0. It is powered by a 3,800 mAh battery. It supports USB-C for transferring documents and charging. It is running Android 8.1, whereas the previous generation Supernote A5 was running Linux. Supernote mentioned they went with Android, because it is easier to develop firmware updates and push them out quickly. You cannot sideload in any apps, but Supernote does push the odd one out via firmware, such as Amazon Kindle.
Why is the Supernote A5X delayed? The same reason why AMD/Nvidia graphic cards are in short supply and the new XBOX/Playstation consoles are hard to find. It is all about component shortages in China. This is a major problem because of the US and China trade war, where the US government has prevented China from doing business with USA companies, such as Qualcomm. All of the big companies in China such as Xiaomi, ZTE and Huawei are buying up all of the components for their own products within China, and is putting a constraint on smaller companies, because there isn’t much supply left. This is often why the Amazon Kindle is out of stock, or various other e-readers/e-notes, key components are hard to come by.
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.
