Viwoods Firmware Version 3.8

Current sub-version: 3.8.5

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

Version 3.8.5 (August 25)

• General bugfixes, performance improvements, etc.

Version 3.8.4 (July 25)

• Paper and meeting (note-taking apps)
  • Record voice and transcribe it into text
  • Pen color is preserved between sessions
  • Undo option for shape-perfection (returning to the unperfected hand-drawn shape)
• Learning (e-reading app)
  • Customize the size of images in ePubs
  • Various improvements to the display interface
• Picking
  • Quick-access picking menu (floating ball and in Control Centre)
• Daily (calendar)
  • Synchronize subscribed events (previously these weren’t synced)
  • Recurring events now have a ‘loop’ icon next to them
• AI
  • Knowledge Base module (for saving chats that you may wish to refer back to)
  • Added Gemini back-end
• Control centre (Quick Access Drop-Down Menu)
  • Toggle switch for auto-ghosting removal tool
  • Enable/disable the Picking floating ball
  • Volume adjustment (if headphones connected)
• Files
  • Support for Baidu cloud drive
  • Now possible to export encrypted files
• Global
  • Now possible to share files with other Android apps (using the long-press, Share option)
  • Handwriting can be copied/pasted
  • Pen types unified across all native apps (previously some apps did not have access to all the pen/brush types)
• Third-party
  • Handwriting support for GBoard and Xodo
  • General bugfixes and performance updates

Reviewing the Viwoods firmware after a new update (which seem to have a monthly frequency) is a double-edged sword for me. On the one hand, I’m always excited to see the plethora of new and useful features that Viwoods have implemented. On the other, Viwoods pack so much into each and every update that it sometimes feels quite overwhelming to go check out and document each of the improvements! It is always a rather mammoth task, so I’ll apologise in advance if I’ve omitted anything.

The big new feature for me in this update is the ability to record voice audio in notebooks and have it transcribed into text, which is great for taking notes with your voice.

For those that use a lot of AI features the integration of the Gemini model, along with the ability to save, filter, and categorise AI Chats will be very useful.

The new floating ball menu will be useful for those that have found the existing way of accessing picking a bit fiddly. Personally, I found it a bit difficult at first – you have to swipe directly downwards from the top-right corner of the screen with the stylus (not finger) – but after a little practice, it became second-nature. Although the floating ball can be dragged around, it did get in my way a lot, so I disabled it.

I’ve not had chance to check out the new anti-ghosting option, but in all honesty I’ve never really had much of an issue with ghosting on Viwoods products, so probably wouldn’t notice much difference anyway.

Now that Viwoods devices have the ability to long-press share files with other apps (using the underlying Android system) it is even more versatile than before and has the potential to integrate with third-party apps in a better way. And it seems that Viwoods are gradually ensuring that handwriting is compatible with a lot more third-party apps than their competitors.

As well as all this, Viwoods have made various improvements to performance and user experience. The only downside I’ve experienced is that with all the new features and complexity, the user interface feels a bit ‘busy‘ and complex, but this may just be because I haven’t used it enough to become familiar with it.

Overall, in the space of around a year, I feel Viwoods have become a major player in the e-ink note-taking space and am excited to see where they go next…

Operating system

• Runs on Android 13
• Supports installation of third-party apps (no Google Play Store by default, but it can be configured – see below).

Home screen

• The home screen has a global search option in the top right (filenames and tags only)
• Alongside the search bar is synchronize button for syncing files with third-party cloud drives (see below)
• There is a toolbar strip down left-hand side with icons for:
  • Home
  • Paper (notebooks)
  • Daily (write-on calendar)
  • Meeting (special notebooks designed for meeting notes)
  • Library (PDFs and E-Books)
  • Pickings (screenshots and handwritten book notes)
  • Viwoods Files – File browser for local Viwoods files (Paper, Daily, Meeting, Learning, Picking, Memo) and Cloud Drives
  • Viwoods Feedback and Feature Requests
  • Email (Gmail, Google Workspace, Outlook, MS365, IMAP, or POP)
  • Apps
  • Settings
• The home screen is split into six sections with widgets for Paper (Notebooks), Library (E-Reading), Daily (Calendar), Meetings (Meeting Notebooks), Pickings (Screenshots and Book Notes), and Apps.
• Each section displays the two latest respective documents and the option to 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 – it is possible to pin regularly-accessed app icons to the apps section)
• 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 input)
• 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 right (with a finger, not stylus) brings up the Control Center.
• The Control Center has options for:
  • Battery indicator
  • Date/time
  • Settings
  • Toggle on/off wifi/Bluetooth (long press to configure respective connections)
  • Manual screen refresh
  • WLAN screen cast
  • Contrast (4 levels)
  • Memo – quick link to the Memo app for quick handwritten notes
  • Button Lock (turn off one, two or all three physical buttons on lower bezel)
  • WLAN Transfer (transfer files to/from another device on the same network using a web browser)
  • Picking – enable/disable the floating ball picking menu
  • Refresh mode (Best, Fast + Ultra-Fast)
  • Auto-ghosting removal toggle
  • Screenshot (can also be activated by a four-finger downward swipe)
  • Frontlight Brightness (AI Paper Mini only)
  • Volume controls (only if headphones are connected)
• Note that a swipe down from the top-left of the screen performs a manual refresh (to get rid of ghosting)

On-screen keyboard.

• The on-screen keyboard is clear and simple to use
• It supports 14 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.

Filesystem

• It uses the Android filesystem, but there’s no app or utility for direct access to browse it
• However, the Viwoods Files app allows you to browse Viwoods-specific local folders and files, such as your PDFs, ebooks, and notebooks (in PDF format).
• As of firmware version 3.7, you can also view other system files: Pictures, Download, Documents, out_notes (exported notebooks), and e_book (ebooks transferred via USB)
• The Viwoods Files app can also be used to browse third-party cloud drives (Google Drive, MS OneDrive, Baidu, or Dropbox), and you can import files from the cloud onto the Viwoods tablet.
• As of firmware version 3.7, synchronisation can be scheduled (every 24 hours, 3 days, or 7 days)
• Long-pressing on any image file gives an option to set it as the sleep screen/wallpaper
• When connecting the tablet to a computer, there are only three folders are visible: Documents, e_book, and Books.
• Third-party file explorers can be installed from the Google Play Store
• 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 Share, move, rename, lock, favorite, tag, and delete
    • Notebooks can be shared in PNG or PDF format either by QR code, Email, ViTransfer, or Bluetooth
    • Tabs for Folders and Quick Notes
  • Meetings (special notebooks, with their own templates, designed for taking meeting notes)
    • Organized with tags, or 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 share, rename, lock, favorite, tag, and delete
    • Notebooks can be shared in PNG or PDF format either by QR code, Email, ViTransfer, or Bluetooth
  • Learning (your PDFs and ebooks)
    • Tabs for Library, reading notes (reading notes are screenshots of pages that you have annotated, and excerpts of text you have highlighted), and folders
    • Button for importing ebooks from the Viwoods cloud (see below)
    • List or grid view
    • Search by title
    • Long press provides options for move, rename or delete
  • Pickings (your screenshots, annotated screenshots, and note pages taken in third-party apps)
    • Tabs for Pickings (handwritten notes) and screenshots
    • Long press: rename, delete, share (multiple screenshots can also be merged into a single file)
    • Search by title
  • There are also folders for Daily and Memo

File Transfers

• All ‘Papers’ (notebooks, meetings, pickings etc) are stored on tablet in Viwoods own proprietary format
• There’s no native synchronization to the Viwoods cloud, however, from firmware version 3.6 your notebooks and ebooks can be synchronized with a third-party cloud.
• 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, not individual pages)
  • As of version 3.8, files can be shared with third-party apps installed on the device
  • 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 pages that are typed in text – it does not convert handwriting)
• In all cases, files can be shared via email (if you have set up 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 (you can change this expiry length to 24hrs, 2hrs, or 30mins). 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. You can also import files from a third-party cloud drive.

Companion App

• The companion app is called ViTransfer and can be accessed by logging on to my.viwoods.com via a web browser.
• Although this is technically cloud storage, it is only temporary because files are deleted after a set period.
• 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.
• Up until firmware version 3.6, there was no way to automatically backup your files. With version 3.6, synchronization with third-party cloud drives was introduced.
• Files 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 icon on 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:
  • User (your Viwoods account – required for ViTransfer)
  • WLAN (configure wifi connections)
  • Bluetooth (pair with other devices)
  • Language (English US/UK, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian and a few more)
  • Display (configure text size, sleep timer, and frontlight brightness)
  • Pen Settings (manually configure the pressure sensitivity of the stylus)
  • General (date/time, lockscreen wallpapers, reset device, configure Google Play Store). NOTE: Custom lockscreen wallpapers are not supported but you can write on (add a signature) to one of the preset wallpaper options, or set a transparent wallpaper that shows whatever is on the screen at the time it locks
  • Security (set up lock screen code and fingerprint scanner)
  • About (device details)
  • Update (firmware updates and release notes)

Note-Taking App (Paper)

• 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 (as of June 2025, an another pen/brush selection button has been added so that you can flick between two brush types quickly)
  • Eraser
  • Textbox
  • AI functions
  • Lasso-select
  • Undo/redo
  • Record Audio (voice input can be recorded and transcribed into text)
  • Tags
  • Page overview
  • Layers
  • Template
  • Lock / Encrypt
  • Rename file
  • Add page
  • Share
  • Associate with daily (link to Calendar)
  • Move the toolbar to the right side
  • 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
• Apart from the highlighter, there’s a choice of four colors for each brush (light gray, medium gray, dark gray, and black)
• By holding the stylus on the screen after drawing a line, the edge will be straightened. Shape perfection (squares, triangles, circles etc) is also provided using the same method.
• There are 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.
• The on-screen keyboard supports handwriting-to-text conversion (so you can write something on the screen with the stylus and it will be converted to text and placed in the textbox)
• 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 notebooks
• 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.

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 use AI to summaruse the 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.

Reading App

• Viwoods native reading and PDF annotation app was originally very basic but has improved with recent firmware releases
• It can open TXT, PDF, ePub, Mobi, and AZW file formats.
• You can write straight onto the page of an ebook/PDF
• A long-press of the text has options for highlighting, copying, sharing and AI instructions. There are also buttons for a dictionary, and translation tool (both driven by AI)
• Highlighted text can be exported in PDF format (you can choose all highlights or just select the ones you want)
• Pages are turned by swiping left/right
• 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
  • Annotations (screenshots of all pages with pen marks on them)
  • Display settings
  • Bookmarks
  • AI
  • Share (single page only)
  • Configure page-turn gesture (swipe or tap)
  • Text search
  • Landscape Mode (PDF only)
• 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, page margins (wide or narrow), and line spacing
• Note that when you change the display settings for ePubs, the text reflows, but your handwritten annotations stay fixed in place, so they no longer line up with respect to one another.
• PDFs have display options for zoom (11 levels), sharpening, bold font, contrast, and display/hide borders
• Display settings can be set for just the book you are reading or globally for all books.

Other Native Apps

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

Meeting Notes

• Meeting notes are a special type of notebook (in the first release of the software, they were the only notes that could be linked to the Daily calendar, but this functionality is now possible with regular notes)
• Meeting notes have their own set of templates and preconfigured AI commands.
• Layers are not supported with meeting notes.
• Custom AI commands can be used for up to 5 pages simultaneously in Meeting Notes

Calendar (Daily)

• The native calendar can be synchronised with Google and Outlook calendars (however, this is only for events created in typed text – handwriting is not synchronised)
• However, you can hand-write an event in the other apps (Paper, Meeting, Learning etc.) and have AI convert it to text and add it as an event in your calendar
• Events can be added by tapping the + icon in the top-right corner. A long-press on this icon also allows events to be created using voice-to-text transcription
• 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)
• There is a daily view, but this cannot be written on.
• If a 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 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, or there is text event for that day
• The bottom half of the Calendar has three tabs for tasks, notes, and others (notebooks/pickings/meeting notes/ebooks that were opened on that particular day).
• 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
• A summary of all tasks and notes (in reverse chronological order) can be viewed by tapping the icon in the top-right

Pickings

• Using the pickings tool (swipe-down from the top right with 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)

AI Chat

• Has various models to choose from, including ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and Gemini
• Chats can be saved and categorised for future reference

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, Outlook, MS365, IMAP, and POP mailboxes
• 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 should you choose to use them

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.
• 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.
• Viwoods have now also added support for the Google Play Store (although you do have to go through a manual process to get this working)
• 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