iFLYTEK AINOTE Air 2 Review – E-Ink Tablet with Live Voice Transcription

Last year I reviewed the Plaud Note, and more recently the Plaud Note Pro, two ChatGPT-powered voice recorders that capture a meeting and then transcribe and summarise it after the fact. I sit through a lot of product briefings, and I also have ADHD, so a tool that records what was said and saves me from writing it all down by hand has been one of the more useful things I have tested. I later looked at the iFLYTEK Smart Recorder, which promised live offline transcription with no subscription. It worked as a basic dictaphone, but the accuracy was poor next to the Plaud, and it did none of the AI summary work.

The iFLYTEK AINOTE Air 2 sits in a different category to those small recorders. It is an e-ink note-taking tablet, closer in spirit to a reMarkable or a Boox, that also records audio and transcribes speech live on the screen. It is the smaller sibling of the AINOTE 2, which I reviewed recently, and the two devices share most of their software. If you have read that review, much of this one will feel familiar, because the Air 2 is best understood as the AINOTE 2 made smaller, cheaper and a little less powerful, with a few additions of its own that I will come back to.

I have spent a few weeks with both tablets side by side. The Air 2 is not a flawless device, and like the AINOTE 2 it feels less refined than a reMarkable in a handful of places. What keeps me reaching for either tablet is the live transcription, and that feature is the main reason I would pick one over a plain e-ink notebook. The Air 2 adds a front light and a smaller body, which makes it the more travel-friendly of the pair. It also costs less. Whether that is enough to recommend it over its larger sibling, or over a more established e-ink tablet, is what the rest of this review tries to answer.

iFLYTEK AINOTE Air 2 AI Paper Tablet Writing Tablet, 8.2-inch Digital Notebook with Pen, Voice-to-Text Transcription, Multi-Languages Chatgpt Support

• 【AI Note-Taking & Meeting Summary】iFLYTEK AINOTE Air 2 – The ultimate digital notebook and note-taking tablet with real-time voice-to-text, multi-language translation, meeting summaries, and schedule management to enhance your productivity. A digital notebook perfect for various meeting scenarios.
• 【8.2" AI Note-Taking & Summary Tablet】 iFLYTEK AINOTE Air 2 — an ultra-slim 8.2-inch digital notebook with real-time speech-to-text, multilingual translation, and ChatGPT-powered meeting summaries. Ideal for meetings, healthcare, and lectures
• 【Multilingual Speech Transcription】 Instantly transcribes 15 languages (EN/ES/CN/FR/VN/SA/KR/RU/DE/JP/HK/TH/HU/ID/MY) and converts handwritten notes into 85 languages — a true global productivity tool for business professionals, doctors, and students.
• 【Paper-Like Writing Experience】 4,096 pressure levels and near-zero latency on an 8.2-inch E Ink screen replicate natural handwriting, making it comfortable for long writing sessions.
• 【AI Notetaker & Smart Planner】 Generates to-do lists and manages schedules automatically with intuitive AI features, turning your notes into actionable plans. 【Eye-Friendly Reading】 E Ink display with dual-color adjustable reading light for comfortable viewing in any environment — perfect for reading PDFs, eBooks, and reference documents. 【Long Battery Life & Large Storage】 2600mAh battery provides days of continuous use.

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Specification

How the Air 2 compares to the AINOTE 2

Before going into detail, it helps to set out where the two iFLYTEK tablets differ, because the comparison runs through everything else.

The AINOTE 2 is the larger device, with a 10.65-inch screen at 1920 x 2560 and 300 PPI. The Air 2 drops to an 8.2-inch panel at 1440 x 1920. Because the screen is smaller, the pixel density barely changes, landing at 293 PPI against 300 PPI, so text looks similarly sharp on both. The Air 2 is easier to hold for long periods and slips into a smaller bag, while the AINOTE 2 is the better surface for marking up A4 documents and long-form writing.

The bigger functional differences sit underneath. The AINOTE 2 runs a Rockchip RK3576, an octa-core chip with four fast cores and four efficiency cores up to 2.2 GHz, paired with 64 GB of storage. The Air 2 uses an unspecified quad-core part at 1.8 GHz with 32 GB of storage, of which around 21 GB is usable. The AINOTE 2 ships with the Google Play Store built in, so you can install apps directly. The Air 2 has no Play Store, so you sideload through APKPure instead, using one of the bookmarks iFLYTEK preloads. The AINOTE 2 can also be paired with an optional keyboard folio over pogo pins, turning it into a light productivity tool, which the Air 2 cannot.

The Air 2 is not simply the lesser device, though. It adds three things the AINOTE 2 does without. It has an adjustable warm and cool front light, so you can read in the dark. It has a single speaker, so you can play back a recording or use text-to-speech without reaching for Bluetooth headphones, which is a clear gap on the speakerless AINOTE 2. And it has a 5 MP rear camera for scanning documents into a note. The Air 2 also feels more solid in the hand, which I will explain in the build section.

The two tablets handle note creation differently, and this is the one workflow difference that bothers me. On the AINOTE 2, you open a note and can drop voice recordings into it as you go. On the Air 2, you choose up front whether you are making a voice note or a written note. There is no option to create a standard written note and then add a recording inside it later. It is a small thing, but the AINOTE 2 approach is more flexible, and I prefer it.

Subscription costs and the offline transcription problem

This is where I have to be blunt, because it is the single biggest issue with the Air 2 and it has got worse since I looked at the AINOTE 2.

When I reviewed the AINOTE 2, I praised the fact that the headline features were not locked behind a subscription, and I flagged a warning sign: the offline language packs for transcription carried a VIP label, which hinted they might become a paid feature later. That has now happened. On the Air 2, the subscription page makes it plain that offline voice transcription is reserved for the paid Pro tier. The free Starter tier gives you unlimited online transcription minutes, but the offline mode, the part that lets the device transcribe with no internet connection at all, sits behind the paywall.

That is exactly backwards from how I think it should work. Offline transcription runs on the hardware in your hand. The device is doing the processing locally, with no server cost to iFLYTEK once the language pack is downloaded. Walling that capability into a subscription, when the silicon is plainly capable of it, is the kind of decision that turns a one-off hardware purchase into an ongoing relationship you did not ask for.

The pricing itself is reasonable on its face. The annual plan is listed at 59.9 US dollars, which works out at roughly £47, or you can pay monthly at 5.99 US dollars, around £4.70, with the annual option saving about 16 per cent. The device also ships with a complimentary Pro plan that runs for a fixed period before it lapses, so out of the box you get the full feature set for a while. Once that trial expires, keeping offline transcription means paying.

A few other things are gated to Pro, and they are worth knowing. Creating notes inside the desktop and mobile companion apps is Pro-only, as is unlimited cloud sync, with the free tier limited. There is also an AINOTE Care+ option, exclusive to the annual plan, that covers a one-off replacement-for-repair within two years. The handwriting conversion, the note templates and online transcription are all available on the free tier, so you are not locked out of the basics.

One detail on the subscription page is worth a sceptical note. It lists speaker labels as available on both tiers, suggesting the device can separate who said what in a transcript. In my testing, that is not what happens, and I will come back to it in the transcription section. The page also lists the AI models the device can call on, with the higher tier offering newer large language models. That tells you the AI side is server-backed, which matters for both privacy and offline use.

Design and build

The first thing I noticed picking up the Air 2 after the AINOTE 2 is that it feels more solid, which surprised me given it is the cheaper tablet. The reason is the screen. The AINOTE 2 uses a flexible plastic Mobius Carta panel, which keeps the weight down but gives the lower half of the device a faintly hollow feel when you tap it. The Air 2 uses a glass Carta 1000 panel set into an aluminium alloy body that wraps the back and all four sides. The front does not flex, there are no creaking sounds under pressure, and it feels like a well-made object. The trade-off is that glass is more fragile than the plastic panel on the AINOTE 2, so a case is still a sensible purchase from day one.

It is a thin and light device. The body is around 5 mm thick across most of its area, rising to about 6.5 mm along the top edge where the camera sits. iFLYTEK has made the whole top strip slightly thicker rather than adding a protruding bump, so the tablet still lies flat and stable on a desk. It weighs around 230 g on its own, about 246 g with the stylus clipped on. That is light enough to hold one-handed for a long reading session, though the larger screen compared with a 6-inch or 7-inch e-reader does eventually make itself felt on your arm.

The design is clean and understated, with narrow bezels and a tidy metal frame. One quirk of the flush screen is what some reviewers call a sunken-screen effect, where the bezel can cast a faint shadow around the edge of the display depending on the ambient light. It is minor, and I stopped noticing it after a while.

The supplied case is made of PU leather and feels durable, with a built-in pen holder. It uses small internal hooks to grip the device rather than magnets. I am not a fan of that approach. The hooks hold the tablet securely, but a magnetic attachment of the sort reMarkable and the Kindle Scribe use feels more seamless, and the same goes for the pen. The case does support auto sleep and wake, so closing it puts the device to sleep and saves battery, which is a small but welcome touch.

Around the device you get a USB Type-C port for charging and data, a power button on the top edge with a built-in fingerprint reader, microphones, the single speaker and the rear camera. The fingerprint reader is genuinely handy. You rest a finger on the power button and the device unlocks, with no passcode to type each time.

E-ink display and the front light

The Air 2 uses an 8.2-inch monochrome panel described as Carta 1000, sometimes called Carta HD. This is older screen technology, first seen around 2014, and it is not as crisp or as deeply black as the Carta 1200 panels on some newer tablets. In side-by-side terms the difference is visible if you look closely, but in normal use I did not see pixelation, and at 293 PPI the panel is more than sharp enough for reading and writing. The background is clean and the contrast is good.

The headline display advantage over the AINOTE 2 is the front light. The Air 2 has a dual-tone reading light with both warm and cool settings and 24 brightness levels, adjustable quickly from the pull-down menu. The AINOTE 2 has no front light at all, which means you cannot read on it once the lights are off. For me this is the most meaningful reason to choose the Air 2 over its larger sibling. I read a fair amount at night, and being able to dim a warm light rather than rely on a bedside lamp makes the Air 2 the one I would keep on the nightstand. The display is also glare-free, so reading in bright conditions is comfortable.

As with the AINOTE 2, there are no fast-refresh modes of the kind Boox and Bigme offer. The native note-taking and reading apps feel responsive, but scrolling and animation in third-party Android apps can look choppy, and page turns in heavier PDFs are slower than I would like. This is normal for e-ink, but devices with adjustable refresh handle it more gracefully, and the Air 2 gives you no way to trade screen quality for speed.

Writing feel and responsiveness

I do not write much by hand, so I came to both iFLYTEK tablets expecting to be unmoved by the writing experience. As with the AINOTE 2, I was won over. Writing on the Air 2 is one of its strongest points. The screen has a light texture that adds a pleasant amount of friction, palm rejection is reliable, and latency is low enough that the ink feels like it is sitting right under the nib. There is a little lag, as there is on any e-ink device, but it never gets in the way, and the device makes you want to keep writing on it. The writing feel is close to the Boox tablets, so anyone coming from one of those will find it immediately familiar.

The stylus is a Wacom passive electromagnetic pen, which needs no charging and uses no battery. It has a customisable side button, which is a nice extra. The pen is fine rather than special. Next to a reMarkable stylus it feels a step down in materials, a touch light and hollow, and the same criticism applies to the Boox pens. It does the job, but it is the part of the package that feels most ordinary. Because it is a Wacom EMR pen, you can swap in third-party tips or a better third-party pen if you want to improve the feel.

For written notes you get the same template system as the AINOTE 2. Beyond the basic blank, lined and grid pages, there are weekly planners, meeting layouts, work logs, and study templates such as Cornell notes and SWOT grids, and you can import your own. There are four pen styles to choose from, namely brush, pencil, fountain pen and ballpoint, though the practical differences between some of them are subtle.

The smart gestures are the same neat idea I liked on the AINOTE 2. Drawing a circle around a piece of handwriting turns it into a task, and adding a star marks it as a priority that collects under a focus area in the schedule. One feature I particularly like is that when you create a note, you can write its title by hand and it is converted to text straight away. There is a small learning curve to the gestures, but once they click they become second nature, and for keeping track of things across several notebooks they are useful.

Performance and hardware

iFLYTEK does not publish the exact chipset in the Air 2. It is listed as a quad-core part running at 1.8 GHz, with 4 GB of RAM. By contrast the AINOTE 2 uses the Rockchip RK3576, an octa-core design with four Cortex-A72 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores. On paper the Air 2 is the slower device, and in use it shows.

Both tablets are a little sluggish moving between functions, but inside a note the writing tools stay responsive on each. Where the Air 2 falls behind is in the surrounding software. It feels slower overall than the AINOTE 2, and I suspect the weaker chip is behind some of the connection problems I ran into with Google and OneDrive, which I will cover shortly. Opening third-party apps is noticeably slow, with delays both when loading and when navigating, and the device itself warns you about limitations with third-party software. For the core tasks of writing, reading and transcribing, performance is fine. For anything heavier, the quad-core chip struggles, and this is not a tablet to push into demanding apps.

AI features

The AI tools are what separate both iFLYTEK tablets from a plain e-ink notebook, and they cover transcription, summaries, handwriting recognition and an AI assistant. iFLYTEK describes the underlying models in grand terms, and that marketing language is worth treating with a pinch of salt. What matters is how the features behave, and as on the AINOTE 2 the picture is mixed. The live transcription is the standout. The chat-style assistant and the broader AI tools are slower and less consistent.

There is an important point to make about how the AI is split. The live transcription can fall back to downloaded offline language packs, so the feature I value most can work without a connection, which is the part I care about. The cleverer AI work, including the chat assistant and the summaries, runs on iFLYTEK’s servers rather than on the tablet. That means it needs an internet connection, and it means your data is sent off the device for processing, which some people will be wary of for sensitive meetings.

It is worth clearing up what the Air 2 does and does not have here, because the two iFLYTEK tablets are closer than I first assumed. iFLYTEK markets the Air 2 with a large language model assistant on the quick bar, AI meeting summaries and an AI search tool for reading, alongside the transcription and translation. In practice the difference between the Air 2 and the AINOTE 2 is less about whether the AI exists and more about how much of it you will actually use. The part that felt pared back to me, compared with the AINOTE 2, was the wider set of content-creation and drafting tools that the larger tablet leans on. I did not miss them. The chat assistant is present, but, as on the AINOTE 2, it is slow and rarely smart enough to be worth the wait on an e-ink screen, and other reviewers have reached the same view of it. The reason to buy either device is the transcription, not the chatbot.

Handwriting recognition

Handwriting recognition, the conversion of your writing into typed text, underpins a lot of the device, and it runs offline. iFLYTEK lists support for 83 languages. In practice the accuracy is the weak spot, as it was on the AINOTE 2. With tidy English writing it does a reasonable job, and my own tests in English were good. Results in other languages are more variable, with individual words recognised but full sentences picking up mistakes, which lines up with what other reviewers found when testing languages such as Polish and Farsi. My handwriting is not the neatest, so your results may differ, but I would not lean on it for anything where an error would be costly without checking the output. Where it earns its keep is in the task list and in handwriting search, which lets you find words inside your handwritten notes, a feature many e-ink devices lack.

Live offline transcription

This is the feature that justifies the Air 2 for me, and it is the same one that makes the AINOTE 2 worth owning. You start a recording, the device transcribes the speech live on the screen, and when you stop you can drop the transcript into a note. The accuracy for clear English is strong. I find it genuinely useful for the way I work, because as someone with ADHD I struggle to take reliable notes and stay focused in a long briefing at the same time. Having the words appear on screen as they are spoken means I am not trying to write and listen at once, and I can fix a name or a figure on the spot rather than after the fact.

There is a second touch I like a lot, and it is the same one I praised on the AINOTE 2. With the recording running, you can jot a note by hand, and afterwards tapping that note jumps you to the exact point in the audio where you wrote it. For going back to the moment a decision was made, it works very well, and it is the kind of small feature that suits a scattered memory.

The transcription is not flawless, and it is worth being even-handed about its limits. One other reviewer with a strong accent found it unreliable, with too many words wrong to trust for clean text. I have a northern accent myself and do not always enunciate as well as I should, and working in IT I deal with a lot of acronyms and technical terms, which trip up any on-device transcription engine. For clear, well-spoken English in a reasonable environment it is excellent. For heavy accents, crosstalk or jargon-heavy meetings, expect to do some editing.

My main criticism is the same as on the AINOTE 2. It does not identify or label individual speakers. iFLYTEK makes a lot of the four-microphone array, and the subscription page even lists speaker labels as a feature, but in my use the transcript came through as a single block of text with no attribution of who said what. This is the area where the Plaud Note has the edge.

Comparing the two is worth doing, because the Plaud Note Pro is the transcription tool I have come to rely on. The Plaud transcribes after the fact, uploading the recording and running it through OpenAI’s Whisper model and Azure’s speech services, and the accuracy in good conditions is close to perfect. It also does speaker labels, getting the right person most of the time once you have named them, and it offers a deep set of summary templates. What it cannot do is transcribe live on screen. You record, then transfer, then transcribe. The Air 2 wins on immediacy and on working offline, while the Plaud wins on raw accuracy and on telling speakers apart. Both ultimately send your audio to a server for the AI work, so neither is a clean answer if absolute privacy is the priority. For my use, watching the words appear in real time and being able to correct them as I go is the more useful behaviour, which is why an e-ink tablet that records has earned a place alongside the little Plaud recorder rather than replacing it.

Summaries, audiobooks and AI search

Once a recording is transcribed, the Air 2 can summarise it into a tidy set of points that you can copy out or email. For getting the gist of a long meeting quickly, it is a real time-saver, although the Plaud still does this better thanks to its wider choice of summary styles. While reading, you can highlight a sentence or paragraph and send it to an AI search for a deeper explanation, which is a reasonable way to dig into a dense document, provided you have a connection.

The speaker also unlocks a feature the AINOTE 2 cannot manage, namely text-to-speech that reads an ebook or PDF aloud. It is currently limited to a handful of languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, but for turning a document into something you can listen to, it is a useful extra on a device this portable.

Email

Email is where the experience dips, and it does so on both iFLYTEK tablets. On the Air 2 I had the same trouble I had on the AINOTE 2 getting a Google account to behave. It took a while to accept my password and then sat on the configuration screen for a long time before it eventually went through. One reviewer found that after adding a Gmail account they could send mail but not receive it, while the separate Outlook app worked properly, which matches the general impression that the email side is unfinished.

Even once it is set up, using it is a chore. There is a noticeable delay every time messages load, which makes working through a full inbox unpleasant on an e-ink screen. I also expected email to tie into the rest of the device, for example letting me create a task from a message, and it does not. Given how neatly notes, tasks and the calendar work together elsewhere, email feeling bolted on is a missed opportunity. I would treat it as an occasional convenience rather than something to rely on.

Schedule and tasks

The scheduling side suits me well, and it is one of the reasons I keep coming back to these tablets. I try to keep an up-to-date calendar and a lot of task lists, partly because of my ADHD, and having that on the same device as my notes and recordings helps me remember things that would otherwise slip. The way the notebooks tie into the schedule is one of the things the Air 2 does well.

Tasks are the highlight. You can handwrite a task, the device recognises the text, and you confirm it, which is a quick and satisfying flow. You can also flag something inside a note by circling it and push it across to the task list, or mark it with a star to make it a priority. There are pop-up reminders for upcoming tasks, which is the sort of nudge I need. The calendar can sync with Google Calendar, which is the integration I wanted. The frustration, the same as on the AINOTE 2, is that adding an entry to the calendar does not use the handwriting recognition that tasks do, so you end up typing rather than writing. On a device built around the pen, that inconsistency stands out.

There is also a nice detail in the schedule view where the calendar shows you which notes you created on a given day, so you can track your work by date. For individual notes and recordings you can set a separate password, so even if someone unlocks the device, those files stay protected.

Reading

As an e-reader the Air 2 is solid, and the front light makes it the better of the two iFLYTEK tablets for reading in poor light. It opens a wide range of formats, including PDF, EPUB, TXT, MOBI, AZW3 and the Office types, and WPS Office comes preinstalled for documents. The clean, high-contrast screen is easy on the eyes, and the customised Android build does not throw notifications or pop-ups at you while you read, which keeps things calm and distraction-free. That last point matters more than it sounds for anyone who finds a phone or a standard tablet too easy to get pulled away from.

The size is the thing to weigh. At 8.2 inches the screen is comfortable for novels and most documents, but it can feel small for PDFs that are dense with text or graphics. You can zoom and scroll, but it is not the most convenient way to read a complex A4 page, and for heavy PDF annotation a larger device such as the AINOTE 2 or a 13-inch tablet is more comfortable. Page turns in heavier files are slower than I would like, owing to the lack of a fast-refresh mode, though for ordinary reading they are fine.

Getting books onto the device is easy and there are several routes. You can transfer over USB, pull files from OneDrive, or use a Wi-Fi import where you enter a web address on your computer and send files across wirelessly. Mac users should note that Android File Transfer is needed to treat the device like a drive over USB.

Apps and sideloading

Unlike the AINOTE 2, the Air 2 does not include the Google Play Store. You install apps by sideloading through APKPure, which is available from the bookmarks iFLYTEK preloads. That covers the obvious additions, and you can get the Kindle app on there so your existing library travels with you, or a keyboard such as Gboard for glide and voice typing, which is a help when feeding text to the AI. Two caveats apply, the same as on the AINOTE 2. E-ink is not the natural home for every Android app, and without a fast-refresh mode some apps scroll and animate poorly, so set your expectations accordingly. The built-in cloud drive supports OneDrive, though I had trouble connecting it at first before it settled down. iFLYTEK has said it is working on adding Google Drive, Dropbox and Evernote, but for now OneDrive is the only option.

Connectivity and Wi-Fi

Connectivity is the area that frustrated me most, and it is the same story on both iFLYTEK tablets. The Air 2 is advertised with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. Bluetooth was fine, and pairing headphones was straightforward. Wi-Fi was the problem. As far as I can tell, the Wi-Fi only operates on 2.4 GHz, and I could not get either device to connect to networks broadcasting 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz together. Both of the networks I tried run on UniFi kit, so that may be part of the problem, but it is not the behaviour I would expect from a device sold as Wi-Fi 6. To test it further, I tethered to my phone’s hotspot. The 2.4 GHz band connected without issue, but the 5 GHz band did not even appear in the list. If you run a single combined network name across both bands, as many people do, this is worth checking before you buy, because the AI and transcription syncing depends on a stable connection.

Battery life

The Air 2 has a 2,600 mAh battery, which is about average for an 8-inch e-ink tablet, and it charges over USB Type-C. How long it lasts depends heavily on what you do with it. Note-taking is the heaviest drain, at roughly 10 to 13 per cent per hour, while reading sits much lower, somewhere between 1 and 4 per cent per hour depending on how often you turn the page. Wi-Fi adds around 2 per cent per hour on top.

The single biggest factor is the front light. With it off, you might get a couple of days of mixed use out of a charge. With it on at a medium level, that drops to a day and a bit, and at full brightness the drain roughly doubles compared with having it off. The practical advice is to keep the front light on a lower setting, which you can adjust quickly from the pull-down menu. It is worth setting expectations against the AINOTE 2 here. The larger tablet has a 4,000 mAh battery, so despite the bigger screen it can go longer between charges under heavy note-taking, while the Air 2’s smaller cell and front light pull its endurance down. iFLYTEK and some reviewers quote multi-week figures, but those assume very light use, and if you record meetings and write a lot, plan to charge every couple of days.

Price, accessories and alternatives

iFLYTEK AINOTE Air 2 AI Paper Tablet Writing Tablet, 8.2-inch Digital Notebook with Pen, Voice-to-Text Transcription, Multi-Languages Chatgpt Support

• 【AI Note-Taking & Meeting Summary】iFLYTEK AINOTE Air 2 – The ultimate digital notebook and note-taking tablet with real-time voice-to-text, multi-language translation, meeting summaries, and schedule management to enhance your productivity. A digital notebook perfect for various meeting scenarios.
• 【8.2" AI Note-Taking & Summary Tablet】 iFLYTEK AINOTE Air 2 — an ultra-slim 8.2-inch digital notebook with real-time speech-to-text, multilingual translation, and ChatGPT-powered meeting summaries. Ideal for meetings, healthcare, and lectures
• 【Multilingual Speech Transcription】 Instantly transcribes 15 languages (EN/ES/CN/FR/VN/SA/KR/RU/DE/JP/HK/TH/HU/ID/MY) and converts handwritten notes into 85 languages — a true global productivity tool for business professionals, doctors, and students.
• 【Paper-Like Writing Experience】 4,096 pressure levels and near-zero latency on an 8.2-inch E Ink screen replicate natural handwriting, making it comfortable for long writing sessions.
• 【AI Notetaker & Smart Planner】 Generates to-do lists and manages schedules automatically with intuitive AI features, turning your notes into actionable plans. 【Eye-Friendly Reading】 E Ink display with dual-color adjustable reading light for comfortable viewing in any environment — perfect for reading PDFs, eBooks, and reference documents. 【Long Battery Life & Large Storage】 2600mAh battery provides days of continuous use.

Buy on Amazon

Buy from AmazonBuy from iFLYTEK

The Air 2 is not cheap, which is the recurring problem with iFLYTEK’s tablets. In the UK it costs £469 on its own. There are two bundle options:

• £509 with a protective case
• £516 with a protective case and a set of extra stylus tips

For reference, US buyers pay around 479 US dollars from the official store, with European pricing higher again. The case on its own is inexpensive, and extra pen tips are cheap, with the device taking standard Wacom EMR tips if you would rather source your own, in which case the felt or plastic ones are the ones to get.

The most obvious comparison is the AINOTE 2 itself, at £650. It is the better productivity tool thanks to its larger screen, faster chip, built-in Play Store and optional keyboard folio, and I prefer its note workflow. The Air 2 undercuts it by a fair margin and adds the front light, the speaker and the camera, so the choice is less about which is better overall and more about which set of trade-offs suits you. If you mainly want to write and record at a desk and may want a keyboard, the AINOTE 2 is the pick. If you want something smaller to carry and read on, especially at night, the Air 2 makes more sense.

Beyond iFLYTEK, the obvious cross-shop is reMarkable, which is more refined as a writing and reading device but does not do live transcription at all. The current line-up runs from the reMarkable Paper Pure at £359, through the colour Paper Pro Move at £399, to the Paper Pro at £559. There are also Boox and Supernote devices, which tend to offer more mature firmware and, in the case of Boox, faster third-party app performance, if a polished general-purpose e-ink tablet matters to you more than transcription. I have not used them myself, but from what I can tell the Viwoods AiPaper offers transcription, and the Boox Go 10.3 can transcribe but needs a network connection, where the iFLYTEK devices can do it offline.

Put plainly, you are paying a premium for the Air 2, and what that premium buys over a reMarkable or a Boox is the live offline transcription. If you do not need that, the value case is much harder to make, and a Boox or a reMarkable will give you a better all-round e-ink tablet for the money. There is also the cheaper route of pairing a small recorder such as the Plaud Note with a separate e-reader, which I keep coming back to, because the Plaud handles transcription so well for a fraction of the price.

Overall

I have come to like the Air 2, in the same way I came to like the AINOTE 2, and for the same reason. The live transcription is the thing that earns it a place in my bag. Watching a meeting transcribed on screen, jotting a note that links back to the audio, and pulling a summary out afterwards is a combination that suits the way my attention works, and it is the main feature I want from a device like this.

It is not a clean win, and there is plenty to be even-handed about. The glass panel and metal body feel better made than the AINOTE 2, and the front light and speaker are real additions, but the chip is slower, the Wi-Fi would only run at 2.4 GHz for me, the email client is sluggish, the handwriting recognition is inconsistent, and the price is high for what is, in places, an unfinished piece of software. Most of those complaints are firmware issues that a future update could fix, so the device may improve with time.

The decision against the AINOTE 2 comes down to size and use. The Air 2 is the more flexible companion for reading and carrying around, helped enormously by the front light, while the AINOTE 2 is the stronger writing and productivity tool. The bigger reservation applies to both, and it is one I cannot ignore now that it has come to pass. iFLYTEK has moved offline transcription, the best feature on either tablet, behind a paid tier, and that is a poor decision for hardware plainly capable of doing the work itself. If you want the most polished e-ink writing and reading experience, buy a reMarkable or a Boox. If what you want is live transcription and AI summaries on an e-ink device, and you can live with the subscription and the quirks, the Air 2 is a smaller, cheaper way into that than the AINOTE 2, and for night reading it is the one I would reach for.

James Smythe( Owner / Editor )

I am James, a UK-based tech enthusiast and the Editor and Owner of Mighty Gadget, which I’ve proudly run since 2007. Passionate about all things technology, my expertise spans from computers and networking to mobile, wearables, and smart home devices.

As a fitness fanatic who loves running and cycling, I also have a keen interest in fitness-related technology, and I take every opportunity to cover this niche on my blog. My diverse interests allow me to bring a unique perspective to tech blogging, merging lifestyle, fitness, and the latest tech trends.

In my academic pursuits, I earned a BSc in Information Systems Design from UCLAN, before advancing my learning with a Master’s Degree in Computing.

I’m proud to share that Vuelio has consistently ranked Mighty Gadget as one of the top technology blogs in the UK. With my dedication to technology and drive to share my insights, I aim to continue providing my readers with engaging and informative content.

I work directly with the companies he reviews products for or their chosen PR agency.

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