ZDNET’s key findings
- He Onyx Boox Note Air 3 C It is a color e-ink tablet designed for note-taking that costs $500.
- The tablet is packed with templates and productivity features while still offering an impressive pen-to-paper experience.
- It lacks a bit in video or web browsing, and the e-book library isn’t very extensive.
As a writer, it’s always worrying when you fall into a productivity or creativity crisis. I recently found myself in that situation, and in a desperate attempt to organize my life and regain my creative spark, I bought two softcover notebooks. I carried them around with me for a while, opened them a handful of times, but ultimately they didn’t do much to awaken my inner muse. Then, I tried the Onyx Boox Note Air 3 C.
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This color e-ink tablet finally revitalized my productivity with its array of note-taking templates. I found my creativity rekindled when using the stylus, which is virtually lag-free and feels as smooth as your favorite pen on a smooth pad of paper. The display has a 1240 x 930 (150 DPI) color resolution and a 2480 x 1860 (300 DPI, the same as the Kindle Scribe) black-and-white resolution.
While it doesn’t have as sharp a color display as a traditional tablet as a iPadThe purpose of this tablet is to take notes and it does an excellent job. Forget fancy note-taking apps; the Onyx Boox Note Air 3 C has all the best features of the best apps, such as templates, audio recording, color coding, inserting links and attachments to notes, and more. Plus, the note-taking feature artificial intelligence It allows for text recognition, shape perfection, and a strikethrough erase feature that makes erasing much easier.
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From organizing to-do lists to writing daily agendas or simply acting as a space to write my thoughts in a journal, this tablet replaced all of my bulky notebooks in a slim design (it weighs less than a pound). I still get the satisfaction of writing things down on paper. I even downloaded a coloring app from the Google Play store (you can download almost any app you want) that replaced my daily habit of scrolling with a much more mindful experience.
The tablet has several features that make it a productivity machine. For example, there is a split-screen feature that allows you to switch between two different apps. I found this useful when planning the layout of my vegetable garden: on one screen, I could draw out which herbs I would plant and where, while on the other screen, I searched the web for which herbs grow best together and which herbs to avoid growing near each other.
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Also, if you need to use this tablet for work or schoolYou can easily send files to the tablet from your computer or smartphone using BOOXdrop. It only takes a few seconds and you can annotate PDFs and other Word documents with ease. I found it extremely useful for editing stories and planning content for my daily work.
While you can use the Note Air 3 C as an e-reader, Boox’s library of available books is severely lacking. Thankfully, you can download the Kindle app, which lets you access more titles and color highlights within your books. Since it’s a color E Ink display, I found it great for reading magazines. Just remember that you won’t be able to use features like handwritten notes or adjusting page appearance in the Kindle app (and most third-party apps).
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As with all E Ink displays, there is sometimes ghosting due to a delay in the refresh. I noticed this only in certain apps, especially third-party ones. Browsing the web works well enough, but then again, this is an E Ink tablet. There is a built-in speaker which was useful for watching a YouTube video about growing rosemary, though the sound was a bit harsh and provided little bass.
ZDNET’s buying advice
If you’re looking for a tablet to take notes and get back into your groove, I couldn’t recommend this one enough. Onyx Boox Note Air 3 C Plus, its E Ink color display puts it ahead of the rest. Kindle Scribe and the ReMarkable Tabletsand the writing experience and availability of templates make it easy to organize your thoughts.