When it involves e-paper units, the Kindle is in fact the primary model folks consider, although I’ve completed my finest to unfold the Kobo and reMarkable gospel as effectively. Chinese e-reader maker Boox is a comparatively new entrant to the house, and its units are experimental however helpful choices within the area of interest market of monochrome tablets. In reality, they make my new favourite small system.
A model from guardian firm Onyx, Boox has a big selection of units, some may say too vast, starting from pocketable to medium-sized e-readers to A4-sized tablets. Its branding just isn’t notably memorable and barely up to date variations come out fairly recurrently — one system I hoped to check was really being changed by the point I acquired round to writing this text.
The unifying side is the OS, a modified model of Android 10 with a number of special-made apps for studying and productiveness. Made with Chinese customers in thoughts, the providers in all probability aren’t ones you’ll have heard of.
I examined a number of units from Boox, the best being the Poke 3 e-reader, then the bigger and extra advanced Note2, adopted by the svelte Note Air and large Max Lumi. Most lately I’ve been wanting on the Nova3 Color, which makes use of E Ink’s newest Kaleido Plus colour display.
The reality is in the event you didn’t flip them on you in all probability wouldn’t be capable to inform that these units have been all from the identical firm. They have fairly completely different {hardware} types, although in fact there’s solely a lot room for expression in a black pill with a display in shades of gray.
Little and large
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechSwitch
Let’s start with the best and most acquainted format, the 6-inch e-reader. In this class now we have the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Clara HD. The former might be the most effective one Amazon makes, however I desire the latter, despite the fact that its construct high quality is, frankly, poor.
Boox on this house has (amongst others) the Poke 3, not precisely the catchiest identify, but it surely makes up for that with its type issue: just about the platonic superb for a small reader like this. I appreciated it a lot I broke it out right into a separate evaluation, however listed here are the fundamentals.

The 6-inch, 300-PPI display is of equal high quality to the Kindle and Kobo, and just like the Clara HD has a temperature-adjustable frontlight. The entrance of the system is totally flush, simply the way in which I prefer it, and has simply sufficient bezel to grip with out it turning into an excessive amount of or too little. The seamless design makes it pocketable and proof against crumbs and spills (although it makes no water resistance claims). There’s an influence button up high (thanks) and a single USB-C port on the backside.
Regarding the {hardware} I discover it tough to provide you with any criticism in any respect. It may, I suppose, be lighter, however its dimensions couldn’t be smaller than they’re with out adversely affecting the ergonomics; a millimeter may conceivably be shaved off the thickness however it might be barely noticeable.
The OS is a extremely personalized model of Android, with all the professionals and cons that comes with. I’ve at all times loved the simplicity of Kobo’s interface, although they appear bent on complicating it. Boox’s OS is highly effective however busy, uneasy in its choices of what choices to make accessible and distinguished to the person.
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechSwitch
The reader app, NeoReader, helps tons of file codecs and has an enormous set of controls for altering your view, highlighting and notating books and PDFs, and so forth. This is extra extra the bigger units than the small ones, which actually solely want font adjustment and different primary stuff.
If all you wish to do is learn e-books you have already got sitting in your laptop, it’s as straightforward as dragging them into the “Books” folder on the system’s storage. That tab is what you’ll see once you activate the system, and it’s at all times straightforward to get to. There’s a built-in retailer that takes up a complete tab, although it isn’t accessible within the U.S. — then a file supervisor tab for rooting round in directories — and a tab every to your apps and settings.
The apps are one other customized state of affairs: This being a Chinese system, it comes with out the same old Google-authenticated App Store, no matter it’s known as as of late. Instead, it has its personal retailer with dozens of the most-used studying apps, from Pocket and GoodReader to the Kobo and Kindle apps. But these are basically side-loaded: as an example, the Kindle app is a number of months previous. That’s removed from a catastrophe, however you do must decide to a specific amount of belief in Boox and its proxy app retailer in an effort to use the system as-is.

Of course, you too can allow Google Play providers within the settings, which provides the official retailer into the combo. But for most individuals that is already far an excessive amount of work. We are each spoiled and disadvantaged in our e-reader choice in that they’re usually easy and very easy to make use of. Someone who just isn’t accustomed to Android, utilizing this system and a Kobo or Kindle, would in all probability go for one of many latter.
Yet the probabilities are many for individuals who want to make the leap. For my half, I like the shape issue of the Poke3 so effectively that I’ll courageous any OS to make use of it. Besides, you spend 99 p.c of your time on this stuff in a ebook, so so long as that half works the remaining is simply icing on the cake.
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechSwitch
At the 6-inch scale, this all looks as if means an excessive amount of. But on Boox’s bigger units, the flexibleness begins to make extra sense. The concept with the Note 2 (now 3), Note Air and Max Lumi is to offer virtually all of the capabilities of an Android pill, however with the advantages of an e-paper display. Admittedly that makes enjoying racing video games one thing of a non-starter, but it surely could possibly be very engaging to the varieties of folks for whom their reMarkable is used greater than their iPad.
If you learn loads of paperwork, doing so on a vivid pill display — or a dim one, for that matter — sucks. An e-paper display is best for the duty, however the most effective system for that, the reMarkable, can be very intentionally restricted in what it may possibly accomplish, because the entire philosophy of the corporate revolves round focus. So there are positively individuals who need the capabilities of an Android system with the readability of an e-paper one. Or at any charge Boox thinks so.
The Note 2 and Max Lumi appear associated: They’re unremarkable black tablets of spectacular dimensions and, in my restricted explorations of their {hardware}, what appeared to me wonderful construct high quality. The Note Air, it should be stated, is the alternative of unremarkable — actually, after I noticed it, I believed it was a clone of the reMarkable 2!
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechSwitch
This first impression turned out to be lower than beneficiant on my half, as whereas the 2 share some vital design components, they’re actually fairly completely different and Boox’s facility in creating different units has led me to present them the good thing about the doubt right here. The blue and orange motif isn’t the best, but it surely does assist set it aside, and all of the units (particularly the Air) are skinny and effectively designed.
All the tablets characteristic frontlights, and I’m completely happy to say that my skepticism that it could possibly be completed with such huge screens was pointless. It works effectively and just like the Poke 3 the sunshine is adjustable in each brightness and temperature (although it’s a bit fiddly).
Color e-paper nonetheless isn’t fairly there
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey
The Nova3 Color has a 7.8-inch display with the newest colour e-paper tech from E Ink. I’ve at all times been excited for the probabilities of this aspect of the expertise, however colour e-paper screens have at all times suffered from poor distinction, low refresh speeds, ghosting, and different shortcomings. While this newest iteration does go a way in direction of amending these (and a software program replace helped additional), it’s nonetheless sadly an excessive amount of of a compromise.
The {hardware} is much like the opposite Boox units, strong and unassuming. The distinction is all within the display, which reveals in colour even when the system is off. Color e-paper works by combining the microscopic black and white beads that type pictures with a layer of colour filters that may be modified. This one, just like the others, has a frontlight and it helps rather a lot with making these colours pop, since with out it they’re all fairly muted.
There continues to be the problem of ghosting, although in the event you’re studying, say, a comic book, you’ll be able to simply set it to refresh each web page (it takes solely a fraction of a second) and the issue is gone. It’s much less straightforward to do that with extra dynamic content material like a webpage, although in fact navigating the online on an e-reader is already one thing of a novelty.
The colour e-paper show nonetheless lacks saturation, if not distinction.
More troubling to me is the lower in distinction and efficient lower in decision that the colour layer brings. When colour content material is proven, there’s a definite display door impact to it, no fairly like peculiar LCD aliasing however nonetheless seen. And when you have got greyscale content material you generally see moire and different interference patterns in mid-tones.
Books look all proper however not practically as clear as an peculiar monochrome E-Ink show; the display door impact is at all times current and reduces distinction. It’s nonetheless very readable, however when cheaper units do the job higher, it’s laborious to justify.
Text is much less clear and excessive distinction on the colour display than on the monochrome one.
I recognize Boox making the newest display from E-Ink accessible, and it could be helpful to some who need somewhat extra pill DNA of their e-reader (at this level the 2 classes usually are not very distinct). But for most individuals the colour doesn’t add sufficient, and subtracts an excessive amount of.
Does all of it, or stretched too skinny?
The OS is identical on all of those so far as I can inform, however on the these units the main target shifts to interactivity fairly than merely studying. Boox makes a Wacom-like pen that can be utilized to jot down on the floor of those bigger tablets, and it serves its function advantageous, although with nowhere close to the responsiveness or accuracy of reMarkable’s.
That stated, the ultimate consequence when sketching or writing was a delightful one, although the OS takes a second to catch up and anti-alias the marks. I believed the comb specifically had good gradations.
One factor the Boox tablets have on others like them (that’s to say, the reMarkable, the defunct Sony Digital Paper Tablet, and a handful of different area of interest units) is within the PDF dealing with. The Boox units allow you to navigate and mark up PDFs with ease, and the unique recordsdata are merely saved over together with your doodles and notes added. Though marking up a doc is simple on the reMarkable, its barely clumsy app makes sharing and sorting them a little bit of a chore. I desire the easy strategy: modify the unique file (there’s at all times a replica someplace) and electronic mail it immediately from the system. It’s that straightforward!
Besides the reader and pocket book, there are a handful of included apps that any pill person may discover helpful. There’s a browser that’s about as purposeful as you’d count on — it’s Chromium-based and renders effectively however ghosts terribly; a voice recorder, a music participant, a calendar… and naturally you may obtain lots extra from the built-in or Google app shops. If you wished to, you may make these fairly well-rounded units.
I’m not totally positive simply how massive the market is for this sort of e-paper pill. But I really feel these units provide one thing fascinating and distinctive, even when they’re additionally… effectively, it’s laborious to get round the truth that you may get an iPad for half the worth of the bigger Boox tablets, after which do a lot of the identical stuff and extra.
These e-paper units have a sure draw, although, and in the event you plan to learn and mark up lengthy paperwork, it’s means higher to take action on certainly one of these than on an iPad, for a lot of causes. With Boox’s lineup within the combine there are extra choices than ever, and that’s positively an excellent factor.