Onyx Boox Note Air 3C – e-Ink color tablet

A few weeks ago, Onyx Boox released the Note Air 3C, a tablet with a powerful CPU and a color e-Ink screen. How does it perform, and how does it compare against competing models? Let’s find out…

Hardware: the latest technological innovations

It’s hard not to be impressed by the hardware that Onyx (the Chinese company behind this product) has put in this little device. We find an ARM Qualcomm CPU with 4 cores running at 1.90 GHz and 4 cores clocked at 2.80 GHz (probably a Snapdragon 680 chip). The device has 4 GB of RAM, a fingerprint sensor and a color e-Ink screen (Kaleido 3) with adaptable backlighting.

The advantage of an e-Ink screen over a conventional (LCD) display is that it makes it possible to comfortably use the device in direct sunlight, and is less tiring for the eyes, when reading on it for long period of times. Historically, e-Ink screens had one limitation: they were in black and white. For some time now, color screens have been available. Technologically speaking, they have nothing in common with LCD screens. How do they work?

In fact, here is still a 300 ppi B&W layer (i.e., with a very large number of pixels and high resolution), but this is complemented by a extra layer of slightly lower resolution (150 ppi) capable of displaying around 4,000 different colors. Black and white therefore is crisper than color, which is a good thing: the text we read on it but also the device’s menus are in black. Of course, color isn’t as bright as on an LCD or OLED screen, but that’s not the point: the device can be used in full sunlight, and that’s what sets e-Ink tablets apart. There’s a negative side to the addition of a color layer. The contrast isn’t as good as it can be on black-and-white models, as the color layer adds a little thickness, which can be noticeable.

What’s important with this kind of device is not just the screen, but also its outer layer, the one you write on. In this respect, Onyx has done a very good job. If, a few years ago, the reMarkable 2 was the king of “digital notebooks”, this has gradually changes. Lately Amazon, with its Kindle Scribe, revolutionized the market, offering a device produced by a major player in this industry and setting the bar pretty high in terms of note-taking and writing comfort. How does the Note Air 3C compare? Not bad at all: the writing experience is very pleasant, you don’t feel like you’re writing on a piece of glass.

Using the Note Air 3 C: versatility and speed.

Like all the devices produced by Onyx (and a good proportion of e-Ink tablets on the market, with reMarkable now the exception to this rule), the Note Air 3 C is running an Android-based operating system. While some manufacturers, such as Supernote, use Android as a base which they lighten as much as possible before building “their” system on top of it, Boox offers a user experience close to what we can experience using any Android tablet. It is therefore possible to install apps from the PlayStore, including the Kobo and Kindle apps, which is handy for those who have a book collection with one of these vendors. It’s also possible to browse the web, reply to e-mails, follow RSS feeds… in short, we can do on a Note Air 3 C everything we can do with a tablet equipped with an LCD screen. Except that this is an e-Ink screen. The refresh rate isn’t as fast. Is this a problem? Not really, even if the device is of course more comfortable for reading and annotating pdfs than for watching YouTube videos. The system is optimized for all uses, and it is possible to watch videos, and even to play video games, even though that’s not what this device excels at.

If we focus on the tasks for which this kind of device is interesting, i.e. reading and writing, the possibility of installing additional applications is interesting but isn’t a necessity : the apps provided by Boox are great to read and annotate most documents (ePub, Mobi, PDF, DOC, etc.) comfortably. The fact that the device has a color screen makes it possible to highlight text in different colors. This highlighting can then be exported with the document, as can annotations, to then be opened on a computer, extracted in Zotero, etc. It is of course possible tp split the screen in two, to read on one half of the screen, while taking notes on the other side.

The device’s versatility is pretty neat, but can be a source of distraction. Once again, we’re not really dealing here with a e-reader, a minimalist device with an e-Ink screen for comfortable reading, but with a real tablet. This means that while this device can be great to work on books or academic articles, it can also be used to surf the web or watch videos online. This can be a drawback for users, who are looking for a work/study device and would prefer something more minimalist to help them stay focused, avoiding most sources of distraction.

With its color screen, its powerful CPU and the possibility of using it like any other Android tablet, the device suffers from a shortcoming: it’s power-hungry. The battery, despite delivering over 4,000 mAh, struggles to last more than two days of intensive use. If you only use the device for reading and writing, with Wifi switched off, you can use it a few days between two recharges, while e-readers, or even more minimalist e-Ink tablets like the Supernote A5X, can last several weeks on a single charge!

Conclusion

The Boox Note 3C is a powerful device. It comes with the very latest technology, including a Kaleido 3 screen with over 4,000 colors. Reading both PDF documents and eBooks is satisfying, as is note-taking. The texture on which we write is nice to use, the apps provided by Onyx are well thought and include all the features needed to work on various files.

With the Boox Note Air 3 C, Onyx Boox shows that it has become a key player in the small world of digital ink. Easily available on Amazon, and therefore available in most countries, with the assurance of a good return policy and serious customer support, the device offers at around 500 USD, a good value for the money.

That being said, there are a few important points to keep in mind before rushing to buy this device: first of all, the limited battery life of the device implies regular recharging for intensive use. Then, the long-term software support isn’t guaranteed. Until now, Onyx Boox has been quick to lose interest in devices released in the past, focusing on the production of new devices on a very regular basis. Indeed, no fewer than 20 devices have been launched in the last three years ! Regarding the Boox Note 3 C, Onyx claims that updates will be available for 3 years, but if what happened in recent years is anything to go by, up to now there has generally been no update one year after the device’s release…

At the time of writing (end of December 2023), the device has just received an update, and the Android security patch is dated August 2023. For the time being, the device is up to date, which is reassuring for a device with which you might have to surf the web. But for how long will this be the case? Would it be a real problem is Onyx stops providing software updates for the Boox Note Air 3C?

The probable cessation of updates in a few years’ time is not necessarily a problem for those who wish to use their device over the long term, if this use is focused on reading and writing. In that case, you’ll simply need to keep the device offline, and it’s highly likely that the functionalities offered by the tablet will be sufficient for many years to come: as they are now, the writing and annotation capabilities of the device are more than sufficient for note taking and reading digital books. If you intend to use the device to browse the web or to check and reply to your emails, this can become problematic at some point in the future and a tablet that offer better support on the long run might be a more interesting buy.