Viwoods Firmware Version 3.2

Current sub-version: 3.2.2

This page takes a deep dive into the firmware that is pre-installed on Viwoods e-ink tablets to help potential customers decide if Viwoods tablets have the software functionality that they need.

New with this release

• Four color options with highlighter (red, yellow, blue, green)
• Cut/copy/paste between notebooks
• Hierarchical folders in library
• Gestures for undo (two-finger tap) and redo (three-finger tap)
• AI assistant commands in tasks area of Daily section
• Mail client supports @msn.com and @live.com Outlook accounts
• Greek, Dutch, Polish, Swedish languages added
• Battery indicator in Control Center
• Settings option to disable three physical buttons

Operating system

• Runs on Android 13
• Supports installation of third-party apps (but no Google Play Store) – see below.

Home screen

• The home screen has a global search option in the top right (filenames only)
• There is a toolbar strip down left-hand side with icons for:
  • Home
  • Paper (notebooks)
  • Daily (write-on calendar)
  • Meeting (special notebooks that can be associated with calendar)
  • Pickings (screenshots)
  • Library (apps and Epubs)
  • Browser (chrome)
  • Email (Gmail or Outlook)
  • Apps
  • Settings
• The home screen is split into six sections with widgets for Notebooks, Library, Calendar, Meetings, Pickings, and Apps.
• Each section displays the two latest respective documents and the option the create a new one (apart from Daily, which shows the task list for the day, and Apps, which shows the eight most recently opened third-party apps)
• There are three touch-sensitive buttons on lower bezel:
  • Back button
  • Home button (long press for app switcher)
  • AI Assistant Button (long press for voice)
• The AI assistant is essentially a floating generative AI window that you can interact with using the on-screen keyboard or microphone.

Pickings

• A swipe down from the top right (with stylus) brings up the universal pickings menu which has options for:
  • Crop – Take a cropped screenshot
  • Annotate – Draw/write on the screen in any app
  • Record – Open a floating note page to write on (with an option to make it semi-transparent so that you can see the content below)
• The pickings menu is accessible from any app

Control Center

• A swipe down from the top left (with a finger, not stylus) brings up the Control Center.
• The Control Center has options for:
  • Battery indicator
  • Settings
  • Toggle on/off wifi/Bluetooth (long press to configure respective connections)
  • Manual screen refresh
  • WLAN screen cast
  • Contrast (4 levels)
  • Button (turn off three physical buttons on lower bezel)
  • Refresh mode (Best, Fast + Ultra-Fast)
• It also shows the date and time, but oddly does not display the remaining battery life; you have to go back to the homescreen to see that.

On-screen keyboard.

• The on-screen keyboard is clear and simple to use
• It supports 9 different languages.
• There’s also a handwriting button, which allows you to write anywhere on the screen, and your handwriting will be converted to text, and inserted into the selected textbox. However, I;ve found the accuracy to be a bit hit and miss.

Filesystem

• It uses Android filesystem, but there’s no app or utility for direct access to browse it.
• Even when connecting the tablet to a computer, there are only three folders are visible: Documents, eBook, and Others.
• However, third-party file explorers can be installed
• Your documents are categorized into four areas accessible via the respective icons on the home screen:
  • Paper (your notebooks)
    • Organised using tags, folders, and favorites
    • Search by filename or tags
    • Sort by title, most recent, or date created
    • Filter by tags, favorites, or locked
    • Long pressing on a document provides options for move, rename, lock, share, tag, favorite, and delete
    • Tabs for PDF Templates and Quick Notes
  • Meetings (special notebooks, with their own templates that are linked to your calendar)
    • Organized with tags and favorites (no folders)
    • Search by filename or tags
    • Sort by title, most recent, or date created
    • Filter by tags, favorites, or locked
    • Long pressing on a document provides options for rename, lock, share, tag, favorite, and delete
  • Learning (your PDFs and ebooks)
    • Tabs for books, reading notes (reading notes are screenshots of pages that you have annotated), and folders
    • Button for importing ebooks from the Viwoods cloud (see below)
    • List or grid view
    • Search by title
    • Long press provides options for rename or delete
  • Pickings (your screenshots, annotated screenshots, and note pages taken in third-party apps)
    • Pickings (notes) and screenshots
    • Long press: rename, delete, share (multiple screenshots can also be merged into a single file)
    • Search by title

File Transfers

• All ‘Papers’ (notebooks, meetings, pickings etc) are stored on tablet in Viwoods own proprietary format
• There’s no native synchronization to windows cloud or third-party cloud drives
• Files can be shared by long-pressing on the thumbnail, or selecting ‘Share’ from within the app
  • Long-pressing thumbnail: Papers can be shared in PDF, or PNG format (whole notebook only)
  • Page Overview (in native note-taking app): Individual pages can be selected for sharing.
  • Share button in the Note-taking app: Share the current page or all pages, as PDF or PNG (also an option to share as a TXT file, but testing revealed that this only works for a single page, despite having the option for all pages)
• In all cases, files can be shared via email (if you have GMail or Outlook set up with the native email client), Bluetooth, QR Code, or ViTransfer.
• ViTransfer is a method of transferring files to/from the AI Paper using the Viwoods Cloud. However, this is temporary storage, because files are deleted after 24 hours. It should be thought of as an intermediary between the AI Paper and other devices, rather than a backup system.
• Files can be transferred to the AI paper using ViTransfer, USB, Bluetooth, or third-party apps.

Companion App

• The companion app is called Vransfer and can be accessed by logging on to my.viwoods.com via a web browser.
• Although this is cloud storage, it is only temporary because files are deleted after 24 hours.
• Therefore, it should only be used for transferring files between the AI paper and other devices – it should not be considered a backup or permanent storage utility.
• Consequently, there is no way to automatically backup your files. If the AI paper breaks, only the files that you have already manually exported (and then downloaded onto another device) will be saved.
• Files are on the ViTransfer website can be searched.
• They are split into seven categories/tabs: Learning, Paper, Meeting, Picking, Daily, Memo, and other.
• Files stored within the cloud can be viewed and downloaded from my device with a web browser.

Settings

• Settings can be accessed via the left-hand strip/toolbar on the home screen, or via the control center (swipe down with finger from the top right)
• Settings are split into:
  • Account (your Viwoods account, required for ViTransfer, and AI services)
  • Bluetooth (pair with other devices)
  • Language (English or Chinese)
  • Display (configure text size and sleep timer)
  • Home (date/time, lockscreen wallpapers, reset device). NOTE: Custom lockscreen wallpapers are not supported but you can write on (add a signature) to one of the preset wallpaper options
  • Security (set up lock screen code and fingerprint scanner)
  • About (device details)
  • Update (firmware updates)

Note-Taking App

• There’s a single toolbar on the left and current page/total pages are displayed on the bottom-right (with next page/previous page buttons). The rest of the screen is the writing canvas.
• On the toolbar are buttons for:
  • Pen/Brush selection
  • Eraser
  • Textbox
  • Lasso-select
  • Template
  • Page overview
  • Lock / Encrypt
  • Tags
  • AI functions
  • Undo/redo
  • Rename file
  • Add page
  • Share
  • Layers
  • Exit Paper
• The first page of a new notebook has a header at the top for the title of the notebook, which you can write in, and the AI Paper will automatically set this as the filename of the Notebook.

Pens (Brushes), Eraser, Undo/Redo

• There are seven Pen styles
  • Calligraphy
  • Fountain Pen (pressure sensitive)
  • Ballpoint (pressure sensitive)
  • Fineliner
  • Pencil (pressure and tilt sensitive)
  • Highlighter (gray, red, yellow, blue, green)
  • Thinkers (a uniquely textured brush)
• There’s a choice of 5 thicknesses for each.
• Note that the full number of brushes/thicknesses varies between ‘annotating’Paper’ types (e.g. Meeting notes only have four brushes and 4 thicknesses)
• By holding the stylus on the screen after drawing a line, the edge will be straightened. Shape perfection is also provided using the same method.
• Three options for the eraser: area eraser, selection eraser, or erase entire page.

Text

• Inserts a textbox that can be used to input text using the on-screen keyboard.
• Textbox can be moved, resized, cut, copied and deleted.
• There are also AI options to explain the text or check spelling/grammar.

Lasso-select

• Lasso-select tool is used to select handwriting or sketches by drawing a box around it.
• Selections can be moved, resized, rotated, cut, copied, and deleted.
• Selections can be cut/copied/pasted between different nitebooks
• Selected handwriting can also be converted to text (and inserted as a textbox).
• There are also some AI functions for selected handwriting: Explaining, Spelling and Grammar, and Convert to text.

Templates & layers

• Layers are essentially several sheets of transparent paper stacked on top of each other
• Viwoods supports up to five additional layers that can be hidden, renamed, moved (up/down), and merged together
• However, layers are only supported in Paper notebooks (not Meetings, quick notes etc.)
• Templates are like a bottom layer that you can write on top of, without editing the template itself (e.g. lined paper, squares, checkboxes etc.)
• There are over 30 installed notebook templates, and 12 meeting templates.
• Custom templates are also supported.
• In addition, you can import PDF templates into the note-taking app (which retain links)
• Two PDF note templates are preinstalled – a weekly planner and a monthly planner.

Page Overview

• Page overview shows thumbnails of all the pages in the notebook.
• Tapping on a page opens it.
• Long-pressing multiple pages allows you to select them for sharing or deletion.
• If only one page is selected, it can be moved left or right, or set as the cover (thumbnail used on your list of notebooks).

Lock / Encrypt

• Viwoods provides the ability to lock/encrypt files.
• This prevents thumbnails being shown on the Notebook list and requires a passcode to open it.
• Passcodes can be recovered by contacting Viwoods.

Tags

• Individual pages can be tagged with keywords.
• Tags can be searched from the notebook list.

AI

• Viwoods provides some unique AI features that can be used to analyze, perform operations, and provide feedback on your notebooks.
• Essentially, AI services sends a screenshot of the page to AI along with an instruction (Wifi must be enabled)
• Preconfigured instructions are Analyze Content (provide an overview of what you have written), Generate Article (write a long-form article based on your notes) and AI Text Conversion (convert your handwriting to text).
• In Meeting notebooks, there is an option to write up to meeting minutes.
• You can also configure up to five of your own instructions that can be activated at the touch of a button. For example, you could create an instruction to translate your handwriting into Spanish.
• The AI features only work on single pages (or up to 5 pages for meeting minutes) and not whole notebooks.
• The text generated by AI can be copied (and pasted into another app) or shared via email, QR code, ViTransfer, or Bluetooth.

Meeting Notes

• Meeting Notes also have an option to be associated with the calendar.
• This generates a little notebook icon on the selected date in the monthly view of the calendar, with a link to the Meeting notebook.

Reading App

• Viwoods native reading and PDF annotation app is rather basic (much like remarkable’s offering).
• It can only open TXT, PDF and ePub files.
• Although you can write straight onto the page of an ebook/PDF and use the highlighter pen to manually highlight text, a long-press of the text only has options for copying, sharing and AI instructions (there is no dictionary or ability to save text highlights).
• Instead of being text-based, reading notes comprise of screenshots of all the pages you have written on (along with your annotations), which can be stitched together and exported as a single PDF.
• Pages are turned by swiping left/right, or tapping on the left/right side of the screen (for next/previous page, respectively)
• By tapping near to the bottom of the screen, a scrollbar is displayed, which can be used to navigate around the book.
• Tapping near the top of the page displays the toolbar, which has buttons for:
  • Pen
  • Eraser
  • Undo/redo
  • Table of Contents
  • Bookmarks
  • Annotations (screenshots of all pages with pen marks on them)
  • Share (single page only)
  • AI
  • Text search
  • Display settings
• Because ePubs use reflowable text and PDFs have a fixed text layout, the display settings are slightly different depending on the file format.
• ePubs have options for font, font size, font weight, and page margins (wide or narrow).
• Note that when you change the display settings for ePubs, the text reflows, but your annotations/highlights stay fixed in place, so they no longer line up with respect to one another.
• PDFs have display options for zoom (11 levels), HD Display, Denoise, and Bold font.

Other Native Apps

• Viwoods tablets ship with a selection of other native apps, which are discussed below.

Meeting Notes

• As already mentioned, meeting notes are a special type of notebook that can be linked to the native calendar (Daily).
• Meeting notes have their own set of templates and preconfigured AI commands.
• Layers are not supported with meeting notes. And not all brush types are available.

Calendar (Daily)

• The native calendar cannot be synchronised with any other calendars (Outlook, Google etc) and is only accessible from the Viwoods tablet itself.
• The top half of the calendar can show either a weekly or monthly review, and can be written directly onto (for example, you can write down what you are doing on each day)
• If a Meeting note has been associated with a particular day, there is a notebook icon on that date
• Tapping the notebook icon shows a list of the Meeting notes for that day and tapping on them opens them up.
• A dot on the calendar for a particular day signifies that something was written on the bottom half of the Calendar.
• The bottom half of the Calendar has two tabs for tasks and notes.
• Tasks are a column of checkboxes with lines for tasks to write the task title on.
• Notes are simply a lined paper to record any notes for the day.
• Both tasks and notes have some AI commands; tasks can be organised or a daily report generated and a ‘story’ can be generated using your notes. You can also create your own AI commands.

Pickings

• Using the pickings tool (swipe-down from the top right when in the stylus) you can write on the screen from any app, and save a screenshot of it.
• For example, you could save a screenshot of your highlights on a page of a Kindle book, or save a screenshot of a webpage (along with your own annotations) that has some information you may wish to refer back to
• You can crop your screenshots so that only the important information is saved.
• You can also take notes on a ‘Paper’ within a third-party app (the notepad can be made semi-transparent so that you can view the content below it as you write)
• These screenshots/notes are saved in the Pickings app, from where they can be shared/ exported.
• Multiple linked screenshots can be merged into a multi-page file. This is useful if you are doing research, because information from several different sources (as well as your own annotations) can be consolidated into a single document for later viewing.
• Gestures for Undo (two-finger tap) and Redo (three-finger tap)

Web Browser

• The Google Chrome browser is installed, and can be used to access the internet.
• Web browsing works pretty well (within the limitations of e-ink refresh rates)
• It is possible to install other native third-party web browsers (see below)

Email Client

• The native email client supports Gmail and Outlook mailboxes
• However, with Gmail, you have to have an @gmail.com address. I use Google Workspace, with an email address that uses my own domain name, and am unable to log in because the login button is grayed out if the email address does not end with @gmail.com.
• However, it is possible to install third-party email clients (see below).

ViTransfer

• Used to import/export files between a Viwoods tablet and the Viwoods cloud.

App Store

• Viwoods own curated store of third-party apps that can be installed (more info below)

Various reading apps

• Some reading apps are preinstalled (but can be removed) These include Kindle, Kobo, Marvel Unlimited, NY Times, Bookshop, Libby and Wattpad.
• Note that some of these apps may have additional subscription costs

Memo

• A streamlined note-taking app for quick memos
• Only basic note-taking functions are supported
• Notes can be tagged as ‘todo’ and have a reminder notification

Third-Party Apps

• Because Viwoods devices use Android as the core operating system, third-party apps can be installed.
• However, there is currently no support for the Google Play Store, so third-party apps must be installed from other sources.
• As stated in the previous section, some third-party apps are preinstalled, such as Kindle and Kobo e-readers.
• In addition, Viwoods have their own app store, which has a limited selection of third-party apps that can be installed, including the Brave web browser, Dropbox and OneDrive.
• ApkPure can also be installed from the Viwoods app store – this is an alternative app store with a massive library of third-party apps.
• As with all e-ink tablets (particularly those without super refresh technologies), performance of third-party apps will be variable. Apps that require a lot of on-screen movement may be unusable.

Final Verdict

The firmware is still very young, but what Viwoods have managed to pack into it in such a short space of time is very impressive.

The home screen is nicely laid out and provides quick and easy access to the different functionalities. The user interface has been nicely designed so that it looks fresh and clean, with no overwhelming configuration options – it is very easy to start using it. But there are some things that feel like oversights (and perhaps should be expected as Viwoods continue to develop their software). For example, there is no way to quickly check the current battery life without going back to the home screen (a battery indicator could easily be added to the Control Center dropdown).

The note-taking app is very good for such an early release, with most core functions catered for. The option to import PDF templates is a useful feature that many established brands are still yet to implement. And the inclusion of custom AI features brings a whole new dimension to what you can do with your handwritten notes (translations, summaries, convert to bullet points etc.). However, AI features only work at the single-page level. And because handwriting-to-text conversion uses AI, you can only convert one page at a time, rather than whole notebook, which obviously limits its usefulness. Confusingly, if you go to share a notebook, there is an option to export all pages as a TXT file, but this does not work (the ‘All pages’ option should probably be grayed out if TXT format is selected).

I really like the Meeting notebooks, which can be linked up to the Viwoods calendar. Rather than meetings, I’ve actually been using them as a kind of TODO list. I’m currently doing a lot of article writing, so I created a Meeting notebook for each article I am writing (and organised them with tags, including a Completed and TODO tag to signify the status). After working on a document, I associate it with the date on the calendar. Then my calendar shows a running log of what I’ve been doing each day. I found this system really useful…until I came to convert my handwriting into text and realised that I had to do it one page at a time.

Similarly, the calendar itself is a really useful, with the option to make notes for each day. It’s just a shame that there is no way to export, backup or synchronise the information, because if the tablet breaks down completely, my calendar information will be lost forever.

Like the reMarkable 2, the reading app is very limited, only providing the very basic options, and not even being able to make and export text highlights or lookup words in the dictionary. This only leaves the manual highlighter pen to make highlights, but if you do this in an ePub and then change the font settings, the highlight no longer corresponds to the original text. reMarkable have managed to get away with this limited functionality for several years by concentrating on the note-taking rather than the reading features, so perhaps Viwoods intend to travel the same path.

The decision to use Android means that third-party apps can be installed, and whilst not all third-party apps play nicely with e-ink screens, it does mean that there is additional flexibility. Other reading apps work well, and web browsing is okay. The three refresh modes provide some limited control over the performance of third-party apps, but not to the level of sophistication of some other e-ink brands, particularly those that offer Super Refresh technology.

The worst thing about the Viwoods firmware is that, whilst testing it, I witnessed a worrying security/privacy failure. One day, I attempted to send a file via ViTransfer to my Viwoods Cloud Drive but it didn’t go there. I then realised that the Viwoods account bound to the AI Paper was not my own – it was some random email address that I’d never seen before. Straightaway, I logged out but was unable to log back in with my own account because this random user account was now bound into my AI Paper. I contacted Viwoods support, who quickly rectified the issue within a couple of hours (they needed the serial number of my tablet) but this should never have happened in the first place. Viwoods explained that they had issues with their cloud servers due to a surge of new users, but I don’t see how this could account for incorrect links between user accounts and tablets (unless my AI Paper had been returned by the random user, resold to me, and Viwoods were using a database that was out of date).

Although the aforementioned user account issue is very concerning, I feel that it was a genuine mistake made by a young company, from which many lessons will be learned. Understandably, there will be teething problems as Viwoods find their feet (and they have a lot to do to fully gain my trust in using their systems) but I do see a lot of potential in their firmware. In a short time, they have developed very capable note-taking software, with their own unique features (such as AI and meeting notes that link to the calendar). It is actually better firmware than many more-established brands. But, it is early days, and there is still a fair bit of work for them to do to catch up with the likes of Boox, Supernote, and even reMarkable. It shows a lot of promise.