Boox Note Air 4C Is a Color E-Reader and Digital Laptop in One

Last fall, Amazon released Kindle Colorsoft, its first e-reader with a color screen, and you’d think they were the first company to realize the concept: a device with a screen that offers all the benefits of email. – ink – without harsh backlighting, easy to read in any light – and these are not just cloudy shades of gray. But while Amazon controls the vast majority of the e-reader market, many other companies are more innovative in their device designs, and others have been switching to color e-ink for half a century.

One company is Onyx International, a Chinese technology company that has been producing e-readers and e-ink tablets since the early days of the Kindle under the Boox brand. Yes, the name suggests a cheap junk company, but Boox devices are hardly knockoffs (I prefer the Boox Palma e-reader, which I reviewed last year ). Over the years, the company has introduced features like touchscreens, front-lighting and, yes, color screens, parallel to or even ahead of Amazon.

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A striking example is the Boox Note Air series. First released in 2020, these e-readers/digital notebooks come with a screen that lets you write on paper, something Amazon didn’t offer until the release of the first Kindle Scribe two years later. The Boox Note Air 3C brought color in 2023 and the device has been improved a bit since then. And while the 2024 Boox Note Air 4C seems comparable to various Kindle devices (it has writing capabilities like Scribe and a comic-reading display like Colorsoft’s), it does a lot more than just provide reading material. It’s essentially a full-fledged tablet that can do most of the same things as the iPad, but with a completely different look.

Clear display – for color e-ink

Its 10.3-inch display offers the same clarity as the regular Kindle, with a resolution of 2480 x 1860 and 300 ppi in black and white and 1240 x 930 and 150 ppi in color. It features a temperature-adjustable front light that makes reading easier in any environment. It weighs 420g, or just under a pound, making it a little heavy for one-handed use. The “octa-core” processor is a 2.07GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G, which is slower for a modern tablet but fast enough for most tasks you’re likely to use the device for.

At 5.8mm thick, it’s stylish, slim, and the build quality feels sleek and durable. The device is quite modest, with only a USB-C charging point and a power button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner. Using the Boox Palma, I miss the device’s action button that I can assign to perform specific tasks (I always set mine to manually refresh the screen).

Battery life is short

On the downside, battery life can’t compare to a typical e-ink device, which can last a week or more between charges. If you use all the Note Air 4C’s features, you’ll find that the battery drains about as quickly as any other tablet. It doesn’t help that color screen technology requires the backlight to be at 100% at all times; in one of the faster refresh modes, you’ll lose almost all the benefits of a power-hungry e-ink display. As a general rule, if you’re a heavy user, expect to charge it every day. If you only use it for reading, it will last for a few days or a week.

E-reader and fully functional e-ink tablet.

To most, an e-ink screen means an e-reader, and you can certainly use the Note Air 4C as a dedicated e-reader, but it does so much more. The device runs on Android 13 and is not tied to any particular ecosystem, meaning that yes, you can download any e-reading apps you like – Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Libby, etc. But you can also you can download most of the other available applications. in the Google Play store.

But let’s get this straight: this is definitely a great e-reader if you need a larger screen. The dirty little secret of the e-ink world is that companies from Amazon to Nook to Boox all use essentially the same screen technology, since only a few companies actually make it. So the Note Air 4C uses the same basic color screen as the Kindle Colorsoft, called Kaleido 3 (though Amazon says it designed its own display stack to improve clarity and responsiveness).

While color on an e-ink tablet is certainly something new, it still seems like nothing more than an experiment to me. Color images on the Note Air 4C may look passable, but that’s about it: results tend to look washed out and a little grainy, and resolution drops from 300 in black and white to just 150 in color, which is a very noticeable drop. You’ll certainly never be fooled into thinking you’re reading them on an LCD or OLED display like you do on an iPad.

One thing that sets Boox devices apart is their variable refresh rate, which allows you to choose how often the screen refreshes depending on the app you’re using. The HD mode will give you the sharpest text and images, but only really works for static images, otherwise you’ll see a lot of ghosting – a residual image that persists even after you accidentally look at what’s on the display .

The other options—Balanced, Fast, Ultra-Fast, and Royal—will sacrifice some detail at the cost of less ghosting and a higher refresh rate. You can change the refresh rate manually at the system level, change it while using an app, or choose preset refresh rates for each app.

Great for comics and manga (if you’re not too picky)

The large screen and color (albeit questionable) might make you wonder if the Note Air 4C is a good choice for reading comics and manga, to which my answer is: sure. Manga in particular can look very good on this device, mainly because the art is usually almost exclusively black and white. The sharpness and clarity of the screen makes the manga really pop, and it’s nice to see the art in a much larger size than the typical tankōbon.

However, color images aren’t as nice – you can certainly load up a graphic novel and appreciate that it’s more or less in color. But the best color e-ink that modern technology can provide isn’t just ink and paper, not to mention the clarity you can get from an LCD or OLED display. At first glance everything looks fine, but at reading distance you can’t ignore the fact that colors look muted and grainy and detail isn’t very good.

If you have a large collection of digital comics and don’t want to read them on a tablet’s glossy screen, the Note Air 4C is a great e-ink option, but you need to understand its limitations.

Access to the app store, games and even YouTube (sort of)

I haven’t had a chance to use Kindle Colorsoft or Scribe, so I can’t directly compare them to the Note Air 4C, but I can note that on paper it does everything those devices do (offering a color e-ink screen and a screen with recording capability) and much more.

Like the similarly capable Palma, the Note Air 4C has an impressively responsive screen. Relatively. While, again, it’s not as smooth as scrolling on a phone or iPad, using a touchscreen to scroll and read information online is pleasantly familiar, and the slight dissonance you’ll experience while doing so is perhaps a good thing if you’re looking to get rid of fate scrolling, device dependent ways .

This means that while you can download almost any Android app you like, the experience of using many of them will be so bad that it will be mildly annoying.

All apps that fall under the broad “reading” category (including apps related to audiobooks and podcasts) work great on the Note Air 4C. It has a speaker as well as Bluetooth and will work with your favorite headphones. All of my various reading apps work great and retain their native functionality (note that Boox OS doesn’t include dark mode, but you can still use dark mode at the app level, like in the Kindle app).

Productivity apps like Gmail and Google Docs also perform well, but anything more graphically intensive will suffer. You can usually install other applications, but their performance will vary greatly. You can, for example, download full-motion video apps like Netflix and YouTube, but the experience won’t be very good. Even the “super-fast” refresh rate can’t keep up with video, and ghosting makes it difficult to see what you’re looking at.

Suitable for some games

The same goes for gaming: you can certainly try installing a game like Subway Surfers on the Note Air 4C and it will work, but the slight screen input lag and low refresh rate will make playing a challenge.

However, less graphically intensive games can run quite well at the ultra-fast refresh rate. I ran some pretty good games like Tetris and Block Blast, and card games, crosswords, and Wordle played pretty well on the color e-ink display.

Universal digital notepad.

The Note Air 4C’s real strength, especially compared to a device like the Kindle Scribe, is its versatility as a digital laptop. While it comes preloaded with some pretty capable note-taking software, access to the full app store means you can use the program of your choice as well.

To get started, the built-in Boox Notes app will likely be enough for you. You can choose from many different preset templates and change them by writing on the screen with the stylus or entering text using the touch screen. Depending on the program, you may be able to work in split-screen mode—for example, in the image above, I’m marking up a PDF while taking notes on the opposite page.

Experience writing like on paper

Writing on the Note Air 4C still feels like a magic trick to me. Using the included stylus, it provides a pleasant, paper-like writing experience, and the lightly textured matte screen provides just enough resistance that you don’t feel like you’re just gliding your pen tip across a smooth surface.

Responsiveness is quite good – there is only the slightest delay between pressing and the appearance of a mark on the screen. It’s worth noting that some users anecdotally report higher latency in non-native apps; in the video above I use the Boox Notes app which works well.

Drawing on the Note Air 4C is kind of fun – my kids love using it to play Pictionary – but I can’t imagine it would be a very enjoyable experience for dedicated artists; Color reproduction is so mediocre that it can be difficult to tell what you’re actually producing without exporting to another device.

Durability issues (or be sure to get a good case)

I’ve said a lot of good things about the Note Air 4C. Now the biggest caveat: from the looks of it, this thing is fragile as hell, and if you want to protect your sizable $400 investment, you’ll want to handle it with extreme care. I speak from experience. I tested the previous generation of this device, the 2023 Note Air 3C, and everything was going smoothly until I decided to take it with me on vacation. I inserted the device (secured into a standard faux leather Boox case) into the laptop sleeve of my backpack and filled the rest of the bag with clothes (it was a short trip and I don’t like paying for a full-size carry-on). I wouldn’t say I filled the bag full, but it was apparently full enough to put some pressure on the tablet – although certainly no more (and probably significantly less) than my laptop, iPad and various tablets have endured on Android. But the Note Air 3C didn’t do that. When I took it out to read on a plane, I discovered that the e-ink display was damaged—part of the screen had a broken effect that didn’t go away after a reboot.

I contacted Boox customer support (via a form on the company’s English website) and was immediately notified that the screen damage was not covered under warranty and that repairs would cost over $300, which is close to the cost of a new device. . (I chose not to.) Lest you think I’m just clumsy, pack poorly, or have a broken device, it’s worth noting that the r/Onyx_Boox subreddit is filled with reports from users who have encountered similar screen glitches. . Some people admit to dropping or otherwise applying fatal pressure to the device, but others report seemingly spontaneous screen failures .

I’ve been using the Note Air 4C with much more caution for about two months now and haven’t had any problems, but I’m understandably concerned about how I treat it. If I’m putting it in my bag, I always make sure it’s pressed against something rigid (like a laptop) so it doesn’t put pressure on the screen. I try to only use it at home or in the office because I’m not sure I won’t drop it while transporting it.

In short, with proper care, this device will likely last you a long time. But if you expect the same durability as an iPad or even a standard Kindle, you’ll want to get an after-sales warranty.

Bottom line

With a $499 price tag comparable to a mid-range iPad and a much more limited use case, there’s no doubt that the Note Air 4C is a device with niche appeal. But if you’re looking for the features it offers—a screen you can write on like paper, a color display for reading comics or marking up PDFs, an open Android operating system—it’s hard to imagine you’ll be disappointed with this device.

It’s not for everyone, but the people who are will be very pleased. (But really, I have to say it again, buy a good case .)

Technical characteristics of Onyx Boox Note Air 4C

• Display: 10.3 inches, 2480 x 1860 and 300 ppi (black and white), 1240 x 930 and 150 ppi (color) Kaleido 3

• Processor: Qualcomm Octacore processor

• RAM: 6 GB

• Memory: 64 GB

• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 5 (2.4/5 GHz), Bluetooth 5.0.

• Lighting: Front lamp with temperature adjustment.

• Operating system: Android 13.

• Battery/Charging: 3700 mAh via USB-C

• Size: 226 x 193 x 5.8 mm.

• Weight: 420 g

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