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Despite being a fairly disorganized person, I've spent the last few years testing a ton of productivity-enhancing notebooks and tablets, and the best of them work so well, they make me want to be the kind of person who actually organizes their notes. While I expected to slot the XP-Pen Magic Note Pad into that category—it's an LED Android tablet with three screen modes that purport to take it from full color to e-ink mode, transforming it from a notebook, to a media player, to an e-reader—it's actually most impressive as a drawing tablet.

Unfortunately, I cannot draw, but this thing made me wish I could. It's marked down 41% during Amazon's Big Spring Sale, from $440 to $260, and $25 less than it was during Prime Day 2025.

XP-Pen Magic Note Pad $259.99 at Amazon $399.99 Save $140.00 Get Deal Get Deal $259.99 at Amazon $399.99 Save $140.00

The Magic Note Pad has three screens in one (sort of)

Ostensibly, the Magic Note Pad's biggest selling point is its "X-Paper" screen (which appears to be a rebranded version of TCL's NXTPAPER display), which has 1920 x 1200 resolution, a 90 Hz refresh rate, and maximum 400 nits of brightness (in comparison, the entry level iPad offers a 60 Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness). It has an etched surface to reduce glare as well as three different color modes, controlled at the operating system level, that are purported to take it from full color LED tablet to a black and white e-reader. There's a dedicated button on the top of the device that allows you to choose between:

• Nature Color Mode, or the standard you'd expect from any LED screen

• Light Color Mode, which makes bright whites look creamier and mutes other colors, akin to the effect of reading on newsprint (or a color e-ink reader like the Kindle Colorsoft)

• Ink Paper Mode, which purports to replicate a grayscale e-ink display

If you're familiar with the various technologies involved, you'll see that it's quite impossible for a backlit LED screen to transform into an e-ink screen simply by adjusting the color settings. The device is TÜV SÜD Low Blue Light Certified, indicating it reduces blue light by 25%. It also carries a Paper Like Display Certification, which I guess means it is more paper-like than other LED screens, offering a "more comfortable and natural reading experience." The etched screen does reduce glare, and reading in Ink Paper Mode will tax your eyes a bit less if you're reading in a dim room, but take it outside, and it's unquestionably still an LED tablet—you can't magically read in direct sunlight just by switching the display mode.

Digital artists love the Magic Note Pad stylus

The Magic Note Pad's real draw (no pun intended) is actually less productivity and more artistic: A ton of digital artists have reviewed it on Reddit and YouTube, and they uniformly praise it for its super-responsive stylus, which offers four times the pressure sensitivity of an Apple Pencil—16,384 pressure levels for the XP-Pen's included stylus, versus a mere 4,096 pressure levels for the Apple Pencil.

More pressure levels give you more control over what actually winds up on the screen, so you can sketch and "paint" with far more accuracy—giving you all the control you'd have in the real world in a digital environment. It's enough to make me want to sign up for a drawing class.

The Magic Note Pad is a good value, even as a media tablet

At the current 35% discount, the Magic Note Pad drops from an "artists only" $400 to a more affordable $260, which is a decent deal even if all you're looking for is an above-average, stylus-supporting Android tablet to use as a digital notebook or e-reader and to stream media. It has a Mediatek MT8781 Octa-core processor, which appears to be a reliable mid-range chip, with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and an 8000mAh battery, which will last a few days between charges based on typical usage. There's also a front-facing camera for video calls.

In short, if you want a tablet for drawing and have been sweating over the combined cost of an iPad and an Apple Pencil, here's a great opportunity to save some money.

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