Montblanc has surprised quite a few people by launching an alternative to digital notebooks like the reMarkable, Kindle Scribe, or Kobo Elipsa with its Montblanc Digital Paper. The brand has taken the codes of luxury leather goods and applied them to E Ink devices.
What has been happening in this sector over the past few months is unexpected but very interesting.
Last year, we saw the rise of a French player now offering the Paperslate, we've had the launch of a new pocket-sized color reMarkable, and now the famous German company Montblanc has made a strong entry into the market with its Montblanc Digital Paper.
First, let's recall that Montblanc International GmbH is a German company founded in 1906. It leads the luxury pen market but is also active in watchmaking and leather goods. Today, it belongs to the Swiss luxury group Richemont.
Next, and in line with luxury codes (as far as I understand them), the Montblanc Digital Paper's technical sheet is fairly limited. The target audience isn't looking for utility above all else, but rather for a status symbol.
And, in a way, that makes sense.
Why go the same route as everyone else and buy a Kindle Scribe with Amazon's logo, when you can spend twice as much on a device crafted from aluminum and leather, complete with a beautiful pen tipped in white?
Because this device costs nearly $1,000. Which, let's be honest, is a drop in the bucket in a world where people fight to buy an Hermès handbag for over $15,000! (The infamous Birkin bag.)
That said, the type and size of the E Ink screen used are not specified on Montblanc's product page.
Based on my knowledge, it appears to be a 10.3-inch E Ink Carta 1300 (or 1200) display. This kind of screen is pretty standard for digital notebooks and generally meets expectations for the main use cases: document viewing and note-taking with a stylus.
The stylus is key for Montblanc, since the company is world-renowned for the quality (and price) of its pens. A special effort has clearly been made with its style and finish. While the technical aspect seems rather ordinary, its elegance is undeniably appealing.
By the way, if you lose it, you'll need to pay around $300 for a replacement stylus! So, best to keep it safe...
As for the specs, we get 64 GB of storage, a leather protective cover of sorts, Bluetooth (for the stylus), and WiFi (for syncing and storing your notes in the cloud).
Nothing is mentioned about supported file formats, nor about ebook reading capabilities. We also don't know much about the note-taking features. (Handwriting recognition? From the video lower down on the page, it seems the answer is yes.)
That's a bit of a shame, since we'll have to wait for the first hands-on reviews of the Montblanc Digital Paper to see what it's really capable of.
Priced at about $900 and available in three colors (Cool Grey, Elixir Gold, and Mystery Black), this digital notebook seems destined for corporate boardrooms of SP500 companies, or for luxury enthusiasts!
In my humble opinion, I don't think this kind of product is meant to be a bestseller capable of competing with the market leaders. But for the Montblanc brand, it's relatively affordable. It could be an add-on to the shopping cart alongside a $3,500 watch, a $1,600 leather backpack, and the Summit 3 titanium smartwatch at about $1000...
This reminds me of when luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer tried to break into the smartwatch market a few years ago. According to its CEO, the goal was mainly to draw attention to the brand rather than to actually sell connected watches.
Perhaps that's also the purpose of this Montblanc Digital Paper: to introduce this beautiful, historic brand to digital reading enthusiasts?
Website : https://www.montblanc.com/
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