I’ve been using the Supernote Manta as my exclusive object for taking notes and reading e-books for eight weeks. This review is a follow-up to Supernote Manta First Impressions and Supernote Manta: Review at Four Weeks.

Before choosing the Manta, my requirements for an electronic writing device were:

1. It had to be hard to use the machine for anything but reading and writing because I want it to be more like factory equipment.
2. It had to have a long battery life (like the Kindle).
3. It had to be easy to get files to and from the device (unlike the Kindle).
4. It had to be able to read Kindle books.
5. It had to be readable in sunlight (I live in Florida and read at the beach).
6. It had to be A5-sized.

It has delivered on all of these requirements, but there are some disappointments (as I mentioned in past reviews), with the main one being that the on-screen keyboard is terrible.

But there are other issues. For context, here is how I currently use the Supernote.

1. I made a PDF journal using My 2025 Journal PDF for Supernote A5. I write in this daily.
2. I use the Kindle app on the Supernote for all e-book reading.
3. I make new notes all of the time for various ad-hoc uses. Each of these becomes the start of new kind of dedicated journal. For example, my wife and I have a monthly “family meeting” to discuss our finances—my notes are now all together in a note file. Previously, they were spread throughout my paper daily journal.

So, I have to manage a bunch of files, which isn’t great on the Supernote. It has a very “functional” file manager, but it’s bare-bones. Now that I have a lot of files, I am running into limitations.

The first problem is that I didn’t think through a folder and file naming strategy before making notes, and now I just have a bunch of randomly named files. I would like to rename them, but the keyboard is so janky, that I have just put it off. On a Mac, this would take less than a minute, but it will just be frustrating on the Supernote.

Related to that, when you take the “New Note” icon, you can’t see the folders or other files. So (as far as I can see), you can’t put the new note in a folder with the shortcut and if you have a naming scheme, you aren’t reminded of it by seeing the other files. This dialog uses the entire screen, so there’s plenty of room to show the folders and files (like any typical “Save as…” dialog).

Another issue is that I can’t reliably lasso an area (select objects by drawing an outline around them). It’s a two-finger gesture in the corner along with using the stylus, but most of the time I do it, the stylus draws the shape instead of lassoing the objects. After a few tries, I do it accidentally—I have not figured out how to do it reliably, but also, I have not investigated this to find out if I am doing the gesture and pen movement as documented. It feels like I am getting worse at this over time.

This all being said, I am very happy with the Supernote. I use it all of the time. As I was writing this post, the Supernote asked to update itself. So, I hope that they addressed some of these issues. The keyboard is mostly a speed issue, so hopefully, not hard to improve.