The tablet is finally well up in Europe so let's have a quick first look while I'm working on my full review.

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Just one thing I want to mention first since there has been a bit of controversy surrounding other e-paper devices lately.

This review unit was provided by a company with no strings attached.

And they also didn't see and won't see any contents I produce up front for approval.

Creating my videos without outside interference has always been important to me.

So having editorial independency is at the core of my reviews.

And if I can't rely on that working with the company, I simply won't move forward with such a collaboration.

But instead buy devices myself if I think they are interesting.

Okay, so now that this is out of the way, let's go ahead and check out the Hands Note 2.

Unboxing this, there's not a whole lot in the eco-friendly box.

Just a USB-C cable and the tablet itself.

It doesn't come with a stylus but has USI 2.0 support.

Which I'll test in the full review.

With only 4.9mm, the tablet itself is incredibly thin.

Not the thinnest when looking at devices like the Remarkable 2 or Bookscore 10.3, but right now the thinnest color e-paper tablet on the market.

The design reminds me a bit of the Huawei MatePad Paper with the soft touch material on the grip and on the backside.

Which gives a bit of an analog feel.

Thanks to the thin build and also the light weight of just 345g according to my scale, the Hands Note 2 feels very well balanced and is easy to handle.

The frame on the sides seems to be made of aluminum and it has this matte black finish.

On the top we have the power button, the volume rocker is on the right side, the speaker is on the left and the USB-C port and microphone are on the bottom.

The tablet has a quad-core CPU, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of non-expandable internal storage, of which around 50GB are usable.

It runs Android 13 with the UI being close to the stock Android experience.

So this is not the same customized experience than on an Engine tablet with Android, but essentially the regular Android experience.

Now let's check out the most important part.

The display.

It's a 10-inch reflective LCD or short R-LCD with 200 ppi and Handstar's proprietary EcoVision technology.

So this is not e-ink, but another reflective e-paper technology that promises three advantages compared to e-ink.

It's flicker-free and has no ghosting, it can show more it's much quicker than e-ink.

Same as e-ink, this type of display relies on ambient light.

The Hands Note 2 doesn't have a front light, but the company already confirmed to me that they will release more devices with front light soon.

So this is just the first step in Handspray's e-paper journey.

But back to the Hands Note 2.

I'd say the most important change compared to other R-LCD I've recently used is the front glass finish.

Instead of it being glossy like the one on the AIMU S1 for example, the Hands Note 2 has this matte display surface.

It's similar to many e-ink displays and reduces glare significantly.

So this is actually usable outdoors without annoying reflections.

Which sounds like a little thing, but that was actually my main complaint with other e-ink displays.

Outdoors is really the natural environment for this tablet.

Outdoor viewability of the display is really good and colors appear much more vibrant than with color e-ink.

And even though the resolution of 200 ppi isn't that much higher than the color resolution of e-ink Elite 3 devices, which is 150 ppi, the screen of the Hands Note 2 is a bit crisper than what I expected.

But I'll have to test this more in depth for my full review for final judgment.

So stay tuned for that.

But right now I'm kind of impressed at how well this works.

As you can see there's still a viewing angle stability issue that I'll come to in a second.

But even with that, just being in the shade outside looking at the display is a surprisingly nice experience.

And in direct on any regular backlit LCD tablet like watching videos, browsing the web and so on.

So you don't have to compromise as much as on an e-ink display when it comes to the refresh rate, ghosting and color fidelity.

What also makes the Hands Note 2 better than our LCD tablets I've used in the past is the very low display stack.

The contents on the screen are very close to the top glass layer, making it feel much more paper-like than any other recent reflective LCD I've seen.

So this all sounds pretty great.

But as always, where there's light, there's also shadow.

The reflectance of an R-LCD is typically lower than with e-ink, which means it needs more ambient light and a brighter environment for best readability.

As you've seen, this is not an issue outdoors where it looks great.

But indoors, just from my quick test, I'd say you need at least around 500 lux for the display to be reasonably usable.

And the brighter the room, the better.

But that doesn't mean that you can't use it in other lighting situations.

In this specific setup right here, with 3 LED lights positioned here, here and here, with roughly 200 lux and the tablet sitting flat on the desk like this, it's also usable thanks to the good contrast levels because the black levels are very deep.

The screen's background is a bit darker in such a setting though and I'd say it's comparable to e-ink Aledo 3 without using the front light.

But again, I'll do a couple of side-by-side comparisons in my full review soon.

And that brings us to the second downside, which is how R-LCDs reflect light.

As I said, I can see the screen's contents easily with this setup.

But from your perspective, the screen just looks very dark.

That's because it's not just about the reflectance, but also about how light is diffused.

Because e-ink diffuses light omnidirectional, it's much less susceptible to different viewing angles than a reflective LCD.

Because the reflected light on an R-LCD is more directed and not diffused in every direction.

That's the reason the screen looks dark from where you're sitting and looks fine from my perspective in this specific setup.

And that's also why it's important to have a generally bright environment with an R-LCD than just a single pointed light source.

So, depending on the ambient light, you might need to adjust the tilt to get optimal results with a reflective LCD.

And that is really the main disadvantage compared to e-ink.

But as I mentioned, Handsfree is actually preparing to launch multiple R-LCD devices with front lights that most likely won't have this specific drawback thanks to the built-in light.

So that will be especially interesting to see.

As for the Handsnote 2, without a front light it aims to be used mostly outdoors, which the promo material for the device also clearly emphasizes.

And after my first hands-on with the tablet, I agree that this is where the device really shines.

If you're outdoors, often struggle with the readability of a typical backlit LCD and e-ink is too slow for what you want to do or ghosting is an issue, I'd say even without having gone into too much detail yet, the Handsnote 2 is definitely worth a closer look.

Before forming a final opinion on indoors use, however, I'll need to run a few more tests because there are a bit more compromises depending on the lighting setup, for example.

But generally, I'd say the Handsnote 2 is less of an indoors device because of the darker screen and viewing angle dependency in a not so bright environment.

I'll take a more in-depth look for my full review in general soon, where I'll also talk about the Android 13 user interface, test the stylus support and check out battery drain, which should be especially interesting.

I'll also compare it to other devices in different environments, so you get a better sense of what to expect from the eCovision screen.

Like and subscribe to not miss the full review and let me know in the comments below what you'd like to have me test for that as well.

Thanks for your time watching and see you in the next one.