Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have become a critical part of our modern lives. Even though we know how harmful they can be to our bodies when used excessively, few of us can tear ourselves away from these screens, especially if our work and hobbies depend on them. The least we could do is to minimize the damage to our eyes, which is where alternative display technologies come in.
E Ink or E-Paper Displays (EPDs) are the darling of eye-friendly screens, often used in e-book readers and some monitors. But while these screens have started to adopt some color, they still pale in comparison to regular displays, figuratively and literally. TCL’s NXTPAPER technology is offering a middle ground, and it’s bringing the latest iteration of that “eye comfort” tech to its newest tablet that could become your favorite all-rounder entertainment and productivity device.
Designer: TCL
Technically speaking, TCL’s NXTPAPER is still based on the same LCD we know and love, except it adds a few extra goodies like nano-etch glass to recreate the look and feel of paper without going into E Ink territory. Along with other features that help reduce eye strain, NXTPAPER tries to offer the best of both worlds of eye-friendly EPD and colorful screens. The new NTXPAPER 4.0, in particular, steps up the game with “nano-matrix lithography” glass etching to improve display clarity and color accuracy, one of the biggest pain points of these types of displays.
Flicker-free DC Dimming
The first device to enjoy this new tech is the TCL NXTPAPER 11 Plus, the brand’s first 11-inch tablet that slots in between its 14-inch and 10-inch NXTPAPER slates. In terms of raw specs, it’s easily outclassed by the competition, running on a mid-range MediaTek Helio G100 processor with 8GB or 12GB of RAM and an 8000mAh battery that feels a bit too modest for a tablet of this size.
Of course, the real reason you’d even want to get your hands on this device would be its screen. The 11-inch 2200×1440 NXTPAPER screen promises multiple modes to fit your needs, from full to muted colors. Whether automatically set by AI or personally calibrated to your tastes, it offers no small amount of settings to tweak for a comfortable reading experience. And with the optional stylus, you can enjoy writing down your thoughts or sketching out ideas with some of the familiar scratchy texture of paper.
There are also some AI features pre-installed, unsurprisingly, though the ones TCL is advertising revolve mostly around translations, note summaries, and other activities related to reading or productivity. No launch date has been revealed yet, but the TCL NXTPAPER 11 Plus is expected to retail for €249 (around $260), which puts it squarely in the realm of affordable E Ink readers.
