There's a "store" tab that basically gives you access to Project-Gutenberg-style free, public-domain ebooks. Like me, you probably want to read books (via whatever your favorite ereader app is) and maybe do some sketching or note-taking with the stylus. I enjoyed the device, once I got accustomed to tuning all the visual noise out and focusing on what it does really well. There are a lot of icons and menus and subcategories in the Boox Note Air's interface. That was through the included Notes app - I had less luck with third-party sketching apps. The matte coating on the display gave writing and sketching that sense of drag on paper that so many glossy screens miss. I was able to do all the same simple freehand sketching I normally do to test a touchscreen device with a stylus, such as the Apple Pencil or Microsoft's Surface Pen. There's also a built-in note-taking app that gave me surprisingly lag-free use of an included stylus. I prefer the forward and back physical page buttons on the Oasis, but swiping through pages with my finger was fine on this larger screen. The front light has two control sliders for brightness and color temperature, because without a light source, you can't see an E Ink screen in the dark. Reading via the Kindle app on the Boox's 227-dots-per-inch HD screen was a treat, especially compared with reading on a cramped Kindle or Kindle Oasis screen. A great book-reading experience should be measured, not rushed.
The other parts of the Boox's ecosystem - the menu, the responsiveness of the screen, the refresh rate - make it feel, overall, not very zippy. It's speedy enough, if you're using one of a handful of E Ink-optimized apps. The Boox Note Air runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor, also found in some Amazon Fire HD tablets. Also worth noting, if you experience an error when trying to sign in to the Google Play store for the first time on the Boox, follow the advice here, it worked for me.
I also tried a handful of popular Android apps, including TikTok and YouTube, and I suppose you could say they technically functioned, but the limitations of the E Ink screen, particularly its refresh rate, mean most nonreading apps are proof of concept only. That's why it's pitched more as a note-taking, drawing and PDF-reading device.īesides the Kindle app, you can run the Kobo and Nook apps on the Boox Note Air as well as most other ebook apps. You can't do that on the ReMarkable 2 unless you manage to break the encryption on Amazon files and convert the ebooks to PDF.
Through the Google Play store, you can download the official Kindle app and access your Kindle library on the Boox. Note that these screens appeared much closer in color temp to the naked eye. The Kindle app on the Booz Note Air, next to the Kindle Oasis. That gives it an advantage over the ReMarkable 2, a similarly priced 10.3-inch E Ink reader. But it combines a 10.3-inch E Ink display with the Android 10 operating system, including the Google Play store. At $480, it's still much more than a basic iPad or a Kindle Oasis. The Boox Note Air doesn't do much to improve on price. Amazon used to sell a big-screen 9.7-inch Kindle, called the Kindle DX, but it was short-lived and expensive, and cost $490 when it launched in 2009. The Kindle Oasis is a little bigger, but even at 7 inches it's pretty small. The regular Kindle's 6-inch screen is painfully small (at least at my age). It's really too bad that the only E Ink product most people have ever seen is the Amazon Kindle, which is a thoroughly specialized device that does one thing really well, but has its limitations. One way to get that break (besides reading an actual dead-tree book) is to read on an E Ink display, which can be easier on the eyes, especially at night.Īn intriguing example of this tech that I've been using lately is the Onyx Boox Note Air, one of a handful of larger-screen E Ink readers that target both book readers and note takers.Į Ink is great for long-form reading and decent for note-taking. It's one that feels especially useful right now, because after spending the past year glued to screens more than ever, our frazzled eyeballs need a break. It's no secret I think E Ink is one of the most underused gadget features.