For years, the case against E Ink notebooks was really about money. A basic iPad model did everything a reMarkable or Kindle Scribe could, plus video, email, and a camera, and it cost less upfront. That changed in June this year, however, when Apple raised the price of its entry-level iPad to $449, the same price as reMarkable’s Paper Pro Move, its smallest paper tablet.

With the price gap gone, the question has shifted from which is cheaper to which is the better deal. More specifically, which one suits which person? For my money, the E Ink wins outright in three situations.

When thinking is as important as writing

Be clear on your note-taking style

A lot of us actually combine two distinct note-taking styles without realizing it. First, there are those quick scribbles meant to clarify our thoughts, written during a meeting, a call, or while mulling over an unfinished idea, whose purpose ends the moment you put down the stylus. Then there’s the information saved specifically for reference later, organized in a way that can be searched and pulled back up months down the line.

Paper tablets are perfect for those initial, fleeting thoughts, even if they’re clunkier for cataloging information later on. The divide comes down to deliberate design friction, as reMarkable’s software completely bypasses web browsers, app stores, and pop-up alerts, so you won’t find yourself mindlessly checking messages during a torturously slow meeting.

That’s true even on Android-powered alternatives, where sluggish display refresh rates make switching between apps feel like a slog. Introduce an iPad, however, and your notebook is suddenly a simple gesture away from conjuring up every digital distraction imaginable.

When you want to read what you wrote

The display makes all the difference

The addition of annotation is where digital paper really excels, allowing you to make direct scribbles in the margins rather than forcing you into a cramped side panel. This, along with palm rejection tech, is invaluable for annotating drafts, contracts, research papers, or getting through sprawling PDFs without losing your mind.

There’s a reason recent product lineups have actually doubled down on these upsides, such as Amazon’s updated Scribe (ranging from $429.99 for the basic model to $629.99 for the Colorsoft variant with a stylus) and the Kobo Elipsa 2E, which has long competed with the Kindle Scribe in this arena.

Screen real estate is far more important than most of us realize, and a compact 7.3-inch display from the likes of the Paper Pro Move gets you an active writing surface of roughly 3.6 by 6.4 inches: perfectly fine for jotting down those quick reminders or contact details, but suddenly far too cramped when you want to review a full-size document.

That means if your daily workflow involves a lot of reviewing standard files, you probably need a screen 10 inches or larger. At the extreme end of that spectrum is the Boox Tab X C, which packs enough horsepower under the hood to handle serious tasks you’d usually reserve for a laptop (though it comes with a premium price tag to match).

When you need to work off the grid

Surviving harsh glare and long trips

Endurance isn’t the first thing we think about when shopping for a tablet or e-reader, yet it often proves to be the most important factor. Official figures put the Paper Pro’s battery life at roughly a fortnight of regular use, and the monochrome Paper Pure actually stretches up to three weeks on a single charge. An iPad, in contrast, will seriously struggle to last 48 hours under heavy use, and power management suddenly becomes yet another thing to think about before you travel.

Display lighting is an important piece of the puzzle, since E Ink relies on ambient light rather than backlighting and shines under intense overhead lights or direct sunlight. In these same environments, a reflective tablet screen suddenly becomes a glorified mirror, rendering it pretty useless.

The performance of compact, budget-friendly models like the Boox Go 6 clearly demonstrates the advantages of E Ink for readers, and the same optical properties apply when you’re writing. If you want to make sure that note-taking is possible outside or under harsh overhead lighting (think conference centers), then the legibility question is an essential one to consider.

Where the argument collapses

Search and history come at a premium

The argument for E Ink over tablets is compelling, but it’s not flawless. On a reMarkable, for example, searching through handwritten text becomes locked behind Connect, which requires you to hand over your credit card for a $3.99/month subscription, rather than being included in the hardware you paid for. You also get uncapped cloud storage and syncing across desktop and mobile apps for the fee, granted, but this stops for documents after 50 days as soon as you drop the plan.

Standard tablets don’t have these hurdles, offering built-in search, seamless exporting, syncing, and file sharing as standard features. It’s another example of friction, purposeful or not, that led our own Roger Fingas to ultimately conclude that paper tablets aren’t for him, and that they’re pretty niche in their use case. Not even the most satisfying faux-pen-to-paper feel can overcome missing features and hidden costs.

If you’re looking for a device that lets you work through ideas on paper, review long manuscripts, and escape the perils of a short battery life, then I think that E Ink is definitely the way to go. They’re great at what they do, even if they’ll never replace traditional tablets for most of us.