4 Desk Gadgets That Can Replace Your Notepad

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Even in the digital age, an old-fashioned paper notepad is still one of the best productivity tools. There are certainly some powerful productivity apps for Windows, but reaching for a pen and paper is usually faster. Need to remind your future self of a creative idea or a must-follow rule? Tear off a sticky note and place it somewhere you'll always see it. Paper notes will never go out of fashion, but what if you want something a bit more sleek and modern? Look no further, because there are quite a few handy desk gadgets that are just as good as your trusty notepad.

Some notepad alternatives can be just as, if not more, convenient. One pairs nicely with your phone, letting you carry your notes around with you to pull out when you need them. There are also those that are just as analog as notepads, but produce less waste. We managed to find just four options that do everything a paper notepad can and more. Use these alongside some other home office productivity gadgets to make the most of every workday.

This Glass Whiteboard with Wireless Charger Station from TSJ Office is a multi-functional productivity hub for your desktop. The main surface of this station is a glass dry-erase board that works well for jotting down reminders, to-do lists, and more. The kit comes with four dry-erase markers and an eraser. There's a slot for holding up a tablet, and flipping up the glass board will reveal a storage area for a wide range of office supplies.

To top it all off, this version of TSJ Office's board also has a built-in wireless smartphone charger. You can feed power into the station via the included USB-C cable, then simply place your smartphone on the station's charging pad to keep it juiced up throughout the workday. At a price of just $35.99, this Glass Whiteboard with Wireless Charger Station may make you wonder if an Anker charging station is worth it for your office setup. You can keep your devices charged for a fraction of the price while also maximizing the desk space that your paper notepad was previously taking up.

The Remarkable Paper Pro is a high-end "paper tablet" that looks and feels like writing on real paper. It's designed for digital note-taking, drawing, project planning, and document organization without the distractions that most other tablets push your way. Reviewers have praised the Remarkable Paper Pro for its screen quality, color clarity, and satisfying writing experience. It's the type of gadget that can fully replace a traditional notebook or planner.

With a lofty price tag of $799, the Paper Pro is certainly a premium productivity tablet for a premium workspace. But if you're interested in adopting a digital notepad for a more reasonable price, there are some budget-friendly options, too. We compared the Remarkable Paper Pure to the Remarkable 2, the latter of which is now discontinued, and we found that the Remarkable Paper Pure has some impressive specs for an entry-level tablet at the $399 price point. Depending on the nature of your work, this type of notebook-style tablet might pay for itself purely by reducing your annual paper waste.

The Kobo Libra Colour is an eReader that Amazon users swear by, but it has a slew of productivity features that give it the ability to serve as a digital notepad as well. When viewing any eBook or document on the Libra Colour, you can highlight, mark up, or annotate the on-screen text to serve as a noteful reminder or project guidance. The Libra Colour is also compatible with Kobo's integrated notebook and stylus features, giving you access to digital journals, planner templates, and other note-taking tools.

Reviewers have drawn attention to the Libra Colour's long-lasting battery life and convenient form factor. It's easy to hold in one hand for long reading sessions or on-the-go note-taking. It also has an IPX8 waterproof rating, so there's no need to worry about spill damage, even if you leave it sitting unprotected on your desk. At a reasonable price of $259.99, this is an accessible gadget to add to your workstation, but its dual-purpose nature makes it just as easy to take home for some leisurely reading.

The Rocketbook Core Reusable Smart Notebook isn't exactly a notepad replacement; it's simply a more tech-infused notepad designed for modern efficiency. It's a notebook that only has 32 pages, but they are made of a "premium reusable paper" material that functions similarly to a dry-erase whiteboard. The specially designed pages facilitate quick and accurate scanning via the free Rocketbook app. Once your pages are digitized, you can organize and share them with your cloud storage service of choice. Then, erase the pages with the included microfiber cleaning cloth to keep writing in the same notebook forever.

The Rocketbook Core feels like using one of those essential productivity apps, except it's a physical object you can hold in your hand. That's because of the "smart tag" feature built into each page of the notebook. Each page has seven smart tags along the bottom margin that correspond to customizable folders in the Rocketbook app, and you can draw a circle around a tag to immediately designate where the digitized page will go after you scan it. This ability to digitally manage your documents makes the Rocketbook comparable to a full-fledged notebook tablet in many ways, but at a bargain price of just $26.99 for the Core model.

To build our list of desk gadgets that can replace your notepad, we found four of the best-reviewed tech products that feel perfectly natural on any desktop as a productivity tool. Each product on this list must feel like a modern "gadget," either by having at least one electronic component or by integrating with a digital application as part of its primary function. They also must be able to replace a traditional paper notepad by facilitating quick on-the-fly note-taking with little to no extraneous features that would distract from creativity or productivity.

Each gadget on our list holds at least a 4-star customer rating on Amazon at the time of writing. We checked the top user reviews to make sure there were no frequently reported defects that would be likely to affect your experience if you purchase any of these products.