BOOX Tablet Note Air 4 C 6G 64G E Ink Tablet Color ePaper Notebook

I owned the Remarkable Paper Pro for a few weeks and although the hardware was amazing, the software was simplistic, restrictive, and underwhelming. A device that costs $650 should be able to do everything you want it to do. So I retuned it and I was looking for a device that can do it all, and then I found the Onyx Boox Note Air4 C.This little tablet can do everything the Remarkable Paper Pro cannot do. You can upload directly to any cloud service of your choosing without a subscription service. You can download apps. You can markup PDFs. You can download Kindle and read your books. You can do split screen multitasking. In the Notes app, there is a tool to create shapes and fill in shapes. You can draw in several different colors. There are frequent software updates. There’s a lot more pre-installed templates in the Notes app. You can change how frequently the display refreshes and you can choose how vivid and saturated you want the colors.On the hardware side, there’s a fingerprint sensor for easy unlock. You can choose how bright you want the display and you can adjust the warmness of the display. There’s a microSD card slot so you can expand how much data you can put on the device. There’s also Bluetooth and audio. The pen that comes with the device works well. It feels like writing with a small felt marker and I like that. If you don’t like that feeling, you can always buy a different EMR-compatible pen. You can make this device to be as distraction-free or as fully functional as you like. You have that choice.There are some potential cons to this device. It’s a Kaleido 3 display so it’s a little more brittle than other displays. Don’t worry, you don’t have to baby it, but try not to drop your device and buy a good case. If you’re worried about breaking the device, definitely pick up the Asurion plan offered by Amazon. You can pay for that monthly. The display can be darker than others. The battery life is so-so, but enough to last a few days if you turn off Bluetooth and WiFi.If you want an e-ink device that can do it all, and can do it all in color, I definitely recommend the Boox Note Air4 C.

This is my first Boox (or any E-Ink Notebook). Love the idea of colored e-ink notebook with a flexible operating system. But there’s lots of compromises and I’m still on the fence about this. I’ve only had a few days so this is more of an initial impression.I’m not as susceptible to eyestrain from LCDs so the main advantage is the screen feel, but personally I can write and draw perfectly fine on iPad glass without any paper like screen protector. If you use it long enough, you will adjust to it. But having more textured feel is definitely nicer.The native note taking app is great if you’re a linear notetaker, but I’m more of a mind map notetaker and unfortunately this doesn’t have infinite canvas. This may be the main reason I’ll return this product. There are 3rd party apps in the Play Store but they’re not optimized for e-ink and this fork of Android. And compared to an iPad, iPad does everything faster and smoother and is more out of the way (for me since I don’t have any games or social media apps installed on my iPad).As an e-reader, I find the page turn slower than Kindles and Kobos. That’s true on the native Neo Reader and the dedicated Kindle app. Fast mode helps but there’s lots of ghosting. Fore BW text, best to leave it on Regal, HD or Balance. One of the reasons I opted for Boox was thinking it’ll be convenient having a native Kindle App, but Neo Reader is much better as you can write and annotate directly on pages with lots more customization to your reading experience, it just requires you to transfer your books, and you’ll lose syncing if you read on multiple devices. I don't read PDFs but I imagine it's better at handling PDFs than books.For comic books, I find the rendering in Neo Reader not as good as the Kindle App, and you’ll have less setting options. You'll still have to tweak the refresh settings when using the Kindle App, to view without ghosting you’ll have to view in Regal mode and increase the animation filter time, not fast but serviceable. Speed is worse if you view comics in guided mode, however 10.3 is just enough where you won’t need guided mode. I find using Neo Reader for books and Kindle for comics is best for me (haven’t tried other comic apps since my library is with comixology).Video playback...... is a thing. Yeah.