Montblanc is going digital

[mke]

slighly off-topic, sorry

 

https://www.pcmag.com/news/montblancs-new-digital-notepad-takes-on-kindle-scribe-remarkable-tablets

 

Wonder if they will produce Meisterstueck-ressembling digital pens and if we will see every year a limited edition of the notebook?

[Opooh]

Montblanc is simply following the market and, as a luxury brand, trying to capitalize on the digitalization of the economy. The laptop or tablet has replaced pen and paper everywhere. Pen and paper have been relegated to my private life, and perhaps the occasional necessary official signature. Time will tell whether a Montblanc tablet will ever replace my iPad. For now, I'm more than happy to enjoy my Montblanc pens in my free time.

[jthole]

I guess that I will retire before I have to give up my paper notebook and pens. And I am not the only one in our department still using pen and paper (though the colleagues who do are all 55+ ).

[boilermaker1975]

10 hours ago, Opooh said:

Montblanc is simply following the market and, as a luxury brand, trying to capitalize on the digitalization of the economy. The laptop or tablet has replaced pen and paper everywhere. Pen and paper have been relegated to my private life, and perhaps the occasional necessary official signature. Time will tell whether a Montblanc tablet will ever replace my iPad. For now, I'm more than happy to enjoy my Montblanc pens in my free time.

 

I have been using an iPad ever since they have come out. I am on my third and will probably buy my fourth soon. I cannot imagine anyone competing with the iPad. There are an infinite number of apps and I am totally entrenched in the Apple environment.

 

I love writing, and thinking, with pens on paper. But when it comes to presenting and drawing in class, making videos, etc. it is with my iPad. 

[Karmachanic]

11 hours ago, Opooh said:

 The laptop or tablet has replaced pen and paper everywhere.  I'm more than happy to enjoy my Montblanc pens in my free time.

 

Uhhhh. OK!  

[Opooh]

I love my iPhone as much as I love my pens. Although there is one difference, I prefer my older pens, like 139, than the modern 149 anniversary, as for the iPhone, the most recent version always outmatches the older ones.

[a student]

It seems for the article cited by @mke that this piece of MB devices is not a substitute for an iPad; rather it is only meant to substitute for pen and paper (with some document storage capacity)!

[boilermaker1975]

An advantage of a FP, an EMP won't take it out.

[mke]

When a e-notebook maker brought out their first e-notebook they showed it on an exhibition to which I went.

Basically, I was impressed but there were a few shortcomings.

• First every import/export had to go via their server.
• Second: searching was good but scrolling was tedious. 
• Third: protected pdfs, they cannot be changed. How would one add notes then? I work(ed) a lot with secured pdfs in science so that was an important point.

Now I have some hand-written 800-page notebooks (they look like this: https://www.instagram.com/p/CUJY7HkPPCK/)

These notebooks are also tedious to scroll - and impossible to search.

 

So, digital and non-digital notebooks have their pros and cons.

 

Guess, I should go to Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, Tokyo and see how recent e-notebooks are - and also visit the Montblanc Ginza store.

Hopefully, Montblanc has used its brains and made something useful.

 

[Opooh]

On 9/24/2025 at 5:13 PM, a student said:

It seems for the article cited by @mke that this piece of MB devices is not a substitute for an iPad; rather it is only meant to substitute for pen and paper (with some document storage capacity)!

 So, it does the same as my 149 and what’s writen it on a piece of paper. Afterwards a pic of it is made with my iPhone and stored in the 1 terrabyte memory if my phone. 
Sigh, it will take MB some time to match that memory.

[a student]

6 hours ago, Opooh said:

 So, it does the same as my 149 and what’s writen it on a piece of paper. Afterwards a pic of it is made with my iPhone and stored in the 1 terrabyte memory if my phone. 
Sigh, it will take MB some time to match that memory.

 

Not at all clear why Montblanc got involved in this

 

 

[Opooh]

16 hours ago, a student said:

 

Not at all clear why Montblanc got involved in this

 

 

They are aiming another public here. My generation was the last that started writing with a slate and stylus, this was quickly replaced by paper, pencil, pen and ink. The fountainpen came in third year of primary but was quickly replaced by the Bic Orange. Here

in Belgium a bic is a pars pro toto. Every ballpoint is a bic for most people.

Nowadays, the classic writing instruments in school are replaced by laptops and tablets. For this and following generations, this device is the substitute for our notebloc and FP, BP, etc before the PC era.

[KAC]

The hardware components are all off-the-shelf items from Taiwan or China with a price premium for the MB name. The software is licensed.  There is nothing inherently valuable: it's a totemic status symbol that virtually nobody will notice.

Plus, and obviously unlike a fountain pen which is a niche product with a small but dedicated base, this knockoff iPad/Kindle device offers no distinct advantage (other than imagined status) compared to a much cheaper, and well supported alternative. One could say the same for a Bic pen vs. a 149 (or similar) but that's a spurious equivalence. The modern MB is an epigone of the old company...but, that's the only commercially viable option.

[Cyrille81]

Not yet tested it and not interested by the product, but maybe the writing experience is better with the pen/stylet created by MB compared to the stylet of Apple or other brands existing on the market.