Boox Note Air 3: Versatile e-ink tablet with impressive performance
2024-03-03 / News / 2145 Sees / 0 Comments
After extensively using the Boox Note Air 3 over the past month, I've come to appreciate its versatility and adaptability to a wide range of tasks. Designed with a focus on note-taking and productivity, this device excels in meeting diverse needs. Whether jotting down ideas during meetings, annotating PDFs, or sketching concepts, the Boox Note Air 3 provides a seamless and intuitive experience. Its responsive stylus and spacious display make writing and drawing feel natural and effortless.
Beyond note-taking, the device can handle various productivity tasks, from reading e-books to managing schedules and documents.
The Note Air 3 is not as heavy as an ultralight laptop, but it’s not featherweight either at 458g or 734g with the case and stylus that comes with it. Still, it’s a comfortable hold, a thoughtful design with rounded edges, and the thin build is beautifully crafted, evidenced by how sturdy the device feels with no creaking or cracking.
The wide grip area on the side of the display ensures holding the tablet never gets uncomfortable. However, with its weight, you'll typically only hold it by propping it up on the desk or something similar. The black charcoal textured finish is stylish and set off with red accent lines and text, including a red line around the USB-C port. To the right of this port is a slot for a microSD card tray.
At the top edge is the integrated fingerprint, which doubles as the power button. There are two speakers on the side of the device for stereo output, which is a nice bonus for listening to audiobooks.
The Note Air 3 has a 3,700mAh battery, and it’s powered by a Snapdragon 665 octa-core CPU, a lower mid-range chip that's still easily fast enough for anything you typically run on the E-ink display. It comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, which can be expanded via a microSD card. The configuration ensures smooth performance for various tasks and note-taking.
It comes with the standard digital pen that, when not in use, can be attached to the side of the tablet with magnets.
Thankfully, the pen uses Wacom passive technology, so it doesn’t have a battery to charge. I could use the pen from my Kindle Scribe since it uses the same Wacom tech. The pen latency is excellent at around 20 milliseconds. This makes writing natural and fluid, but the parallax effect is noticeable, which means there's a layer between the pen tip and the digitiser below the glass. This works great for taking notes and sketching, but it would be problematic if you needed accuracy.
Most of my testing used the pre-installed Note app and Microsoft OneNote, which worked flawlessly.
The 10.3-inch e-ink Carta 1200 screen has a 227ppi with a close-to-paper protective film pre-applied. Contrast levels are very good, and there’s backlighting, too, making it ideal for reading and writing during the day or late at night.
Having access to the Google PlayStore is great, and you can download video apps like YouTube and others, but the e-ink display isn’t ideal for viewing moving content. Playback looks more like a slideshow, and apps like Netflix don’t work. I don’t see this as a negative since this isn’t the device's intended purpose.
The Note Air3 comes with Android 12, and Boox has optimised the system for the e-ink screen very well.
As a digital notepad, the Note Air 3 is incredibly versatile compared to the Kindle Scribe. In the Note app, you can select a template matching the type of note you want to take, and there are also layers for easily organising the contents on your page.
The pen doesn’t have an eraser, but there is a handy strike-through function to erase text on the page. In addition, you can record audio directly on a page, which is useful if your notes are missing something and you want to check what was said. There's also a handwriting conversion feature that works without needing to be connected to the internet and generally performs quite well.
You can also pair the Note Air 3 with a Bluetooth keyboard, which I used to great effect in Google Docs. You can also use it with PDFs without conversion. Simply open them and start annotating.
Another productive feature is the split screen. You can have a PDF on one side and take notes or quickly Googling something on the other.
The Boox Note Air 3 provides a comprehensive e-book experience for avid readers with support for 17 e-book formats. The default e-reading app offers ample layout customisation options and note-taking capabilities for annotating passages and adding bookmarks. The text-to-speech functionality enhances accessibility and convenience, allowing users to listen to their favourite e-books on the go. The integrated e-book store also provides access to a wide range of titles. At the same time, support for public domain books and the Kindle app ensures compatibility with popular e-book formats.
Overall, I'm pleased with the battery life, but if you’re coming from a Kindle tablet, there are a few things to be aware of. Firstly, the Note Air 3 will turn off at set intervals from 15 minutes to 2 days or never. I compromised on eight hours, giving me a full day of use. It takes 30 seconds to start up when off.
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