Onyx Boox has announced the launch of three new e-ink devices in an October 23 2024 launch event.
Upgraded Note Air 4C: improved screen, better specs.
The company’s popular Note Air series sees an upgrade with the launch of the Onyx Boox Note Air 4C. The new tablet builds on the success of the Note Air 3 Series, and the Note Air 2 Plus reviewed here, keeping the familiar thin metal Note Series design, but with notable upgrades under the hood.
While a lot remains the same, headline upgrades with the Note Air 4C are beefed-up performance, an improved Kaleido 3 colour screen, and a welcome bump up to Android 13 for the operating system. A faster octa-core processor with 6GB of RAM (compared to 4GB in the Note Air 3 series) drives the Air 4C, promising better performance when multi-tasking, while the internal storage remains at 64GB. Of course, the Note Air 4C features Boox Super Refresh Technology for better refresh performance and minimal e-ink ghosting.
There are also some cool upgrades to the device firmware — including new AI shape recognition for Smart Scribe, and a new SuperNote-esque Table of Contents / Outline feature for organising your note books. These, and other new features in the Note Air 4C firmware, should be rolling out to other compatible Boox devices via a firmware update in due course.
Specs for the 10.3″ colour e-ink panel look the same: it’s a Kaleido 3 Carta 1200 glass screen with flat cover-lens offering 4096 colours with a B&W resolution of 300ppi, rendering colour content at 150ppi, but according to Boox the new screen:
…delivers brighter whites and softer hues for a more comfortable viewing experience.
We’ll need to see some direct side-by side comparisons between the Note Air 3C and Note Air 4C to see just how effective that is.
There’s also a new more “tablet like” user interface that promises to simplify your interaction with the device. This is a first for the Note Series, but of course is not new to the Boox ecosystem, and has been around with the Tab Series for some time. It essentially allows you to personalise your home screen to give you more efficient access to the widgets and apps you use most often.
All in all, the Note 4C could be a compelling upgrade for those with older Boox devices looking to jump into a colour note-taker with up-to-date e-ink technology. If you already own a Note Air 3C, there’s probably not enough here to justify the upgrade.
The Boox Palma 2: phone-sized e-reader gets a boost
Introduced last year, the Boox Palma was an easily pocketable mobile-phone sized e-reader that gave convenient access to a paper-like reading experience on the go. It’s the perfect size to catch up with some reading in a queue, a doctor’s waiting room, on the train… or anywhere else, without the inconvenience of carrying a more bulky device.
The Palma 2 refresh sports an upgraded octa-core processor, with the same 6GB RAM 128GB ROM and 300ppi Carta 1200 e-ink display as its predecessor. A new fingerprint reader integrated with the power button makes accessing your content and apps securely more convenient thank ever.
It’s an iterative update to what is an intriguing e-ink form-factor, one that has many in the Boox user community asking when the company is going to add a sim-slot and phone/mobile data functionality to the Boox Palma Series… watch this space!
Supersize e-ink note-taking with the Boox Note Max
The third product announced is perhaps the most noteworthy, in terms of being completely new, rather than a refresh of a previous product line. The Boox Note Max is a 13.3″ A4 sized e-ink note-taking tablet with an advanced octa-core processor, 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, exclusive Boox BSR technology, and a huge 300ppi Carta 1300 black and white e-ink display packed into a wafer-thin 4.6mm chassis.
In fact, all of those specs, and the thinness, make the Boox Note Max sound a lot like the larger sibling of the extremely well received Boox Go 10.3 released earlier this year. That begs the question of why Boox launched it as part of their Note lineup, instead of just calling it the Boox Go 13.3.
Discrepancies in naming convention aside, the larger form factor, and increased screen real-estate that provides for things like documents annotation, or split screen reading and note-taking side-by side, will appear to many. The tablet looks to be thin and light enough to carry comfortably while on-the go, despite its large screen, and the addition of a keyboard cover could make this an ideal e-ink tablet for those looking for a versatile, powerful yet eye-friendly writing device they can take with them anywhere to create without distraction.
You can watch the full Boox Product Launch event in the Youtube video below.
