Onyx Boox has just announced the BOOX Note Air, an evolution of the Boox Note 2. Running on Android 10 and based on a recent CPU and a good mount of memory and storage, does this eInk tablet revolutionize the market?
Hardware: a high-performance eInk tablet.
The BOOX Note Air is based on a latest-generation Octa Core CPU, allowing 30% more performance than the Boox Note 2 and the Boox Max 3, while consuming 10% less power.
With a 10.3″ eInk Carta/Mobius display with adaptive lighting, the e-reader also has 3GB of RAM (DDR4), Bluetooth 5.0, 32GB of storage, USB-C, a rotation sensor (G-Sensor) and a new stylus. It is very thin (5.8mm), close in this respect to the reMarkable 2, while offering much higher performance. Boox made a lot of effort on the design, with an aluminum coating (which suggests a good durability of the device over time) and a rather discreet blue color.
In terms of hardware, the eInk tablet proposed by Boox is the fastest digital ink device on the market, which gives to the device the potential to be really versatile. Is that something that its software makes possible?
Software level: Android 10’s versatility.
The Boox Note Air has Onyx Boox 3.0 firmware, based on Android 10. It is possible install and run most of the app store’s applications. So we are far from a minimalist tablet on which it is only possible to take notes and read eBooks: the Boox Note Air can be used as an Android tablet, while enjoying the specificity of its eInk screen.
Web browsing is fluid, the integrated browser being optimized for e-Ink. The eBook reader, on the other hand, natively supports 20 eBook formats and therefore allows you to open all the files you can download, and has great dictionary and translation capabilities, making it an interesting device for those who want to translate a text or learn a foreign language.
The 3.0 Firmware has also seen the arrival of layers in the note-taking and drawing application, allowing you to overlay and edit different layers, as can be done with image editing software.
A powerful eInk tablet.
Thanks to its performance (recent Octa Core CPU, 3GB of RAM) and the fact that it runs Android 10, the Boox Note Air is extremely versatile. The 10-inch format is in my opinion the most suitable for those who want to be able to read PDFs, take notes but also read eBooks on their digital ink device: a 13.3-inch e-reader (like the Boox Max 3 or the latest Boox Max Lumi) is excellent for reading A4 PDFs or using the screen splitting function to have a book on one side and a note-taking application on the other – which is a bit small on a 10-inch device – but 10 inch is great for most books, including non-fiction.