Jack of All Trades: Boox Note Air 3C — Color E-Ink Tablet REVIEW

here it is the books air 3C the long awaited successor of the books air2 plus same as before it's a 10.3 in ink tablet with Android but it got a few tricks up its sleeve like the newer Android 12 version and the C as in color in its name so the note a3c is a color in tablet and we're going to have a close look at what this means if it's worth the excitement and check out what else is going on with this latest book mode air tablet before talking about the color eing screen let's start with the build quality and Hardware the book node a3c uses the same design language as the previous node air devices which isn't really a surprise because that worked perfectly for the predecessor so no need to change the overall style they just Shunk it a little which is only noticeable in direct comparison which means means that it has well-rounded edges which makes the tablet comfortable to hold unlike the heavier book tab Ultra devices with the Clean Cut edges speaking about holding the tablet let's talk about the weight book says it has approximately 430 G which technically is correct but again not entirely accurate according to my kitchen scale it has 440 G which is 10 G heavier than advert has the weight difference is not as bad as with the Box Tab mini or tab Ultra for example but still shouldn't happen having said that the books note a3c is still as easy to hold as you'd expect the grip on the side of the display is wide enough to offer enough support to hold it comfortably and books actually listen to feedback from customers and maybe even watched my not air2 plus video because they changed the one thing I thought wasn't great about the hardware the power button placement on the predecessor it was positioned on the side of the device and you could actually feel it sometimes on your hand not a huge deal but definitely something that took away from the otherwise great handling with the books note a3c the power button is now located at the top of the device and has an integrated fingerprint reader which means it's now also flat and isn't a problem when leaning the device on a desk that's a fantastic change the USBC Port is still at the same position on the side which is totally fine they also improved the magnets for holding the pen even though the note f3c also has a rounded Edge where you attach the pen it now feels much more secure than on the Note air2 plus which was actually one of my biggest complaints with the previous model because I dropped the pen a couple of times simply because it was too to LS on the device that didn't happen once with not a3c what's also better is the screen protector on the previous model you could feel the edge around the screen with your fingers that's almost impossible on the Note A3 Cena it still has a factory BL screen protector on top of the glossy screen which was done to give it a more paper like writing feel which I'll come to in a moment personally I would have preferred the scratch resistant smoother screen of the book's T devices but that might just be me just be aware that the note a3c isn't as scratch resistant as a result and just a pro tip don't peel off the screen protector if you don't need to because the screen is clossy underneath unlike the bookep ultra devices I've tested the not air3 seat doesn't Creek or crack when a little force is applied and feels absolutely sturdy and last but not least on the list of improvement s is the new met and slightly textured finish on the back of the device which makes holding a tablet even more comfortable than the predecessor it's a small detail but combined with the other mentioned points the note f3c really feels like a fine-tuned highquality tablet as you can see the one thing that got worse with this change however is that the back of the node a3c is prone to get scratched quite easily with stereo speakers and the microphone it's also well equipped for pretty much any multimedia related task you want to perform on the tablet and with Wi-Fi Bluetooth and USBC you're well connected the Box Mode air 3C has 64 gigs of internal storage of which around 48 gigs are usually accessible that's actually more than with Android 11 on the previous model and it's likely more than enough for most users if it it's not you also got the option to expand the storage with a Micro SD card which is always a great option to have I love that they keep bringing the storage expansion back to more and more devices the note f3c uses a Snapdragon 680 s so which is a first for books it's still a lower mid-range chip but that's more than fast enough for the ining screen so everything feels responsive and there's really nothing to complain about the 4 gigs of RAM also help with the good performance the boxn a3c uses a c 3 display so it has the same screen technology as the boxep ultra C that means it has a 3 PPI ining screen and on top of that sits a passive 150 PPI color filter the way it works is that the color layer is always visible and pixels of the ink screen are strategically darkened to only leave the desired colored sub pixels of the color filter out to reflect light I wasn't a huge fan of that approach in the past because it always versen the overall screen quality too much in my eyes but the bookep ultra C actually changed my mind about that it's still true that the screen's background is noticeably darker as a result because the color filter as I said is always visible and can be turned off but thank to the Boost in resolution to 150 PPI its sub pixels aren't really noticeable anymore which makes that KO generation the first one I actually enjoyed using the book note a3c is not an exception here it's great to look at both in terms of color addition and regular black and white text having said that you still need to approach this screen technology with the right mindset don't expect color saturation to be on the same level as a regular TCH tablet with an LCD screen there's a huge difference color eing is much less saturated and looks more like pastel even compared to the smaller book step mini C you can see a difference with the T mini C having the more vibrant colors but still coming from typical grayscale eing screens even though somewhat mut colors make a huge difference in my opinion even the user interface and Library look nicer but obviously colored content benefits the most I loved Koo 3 on the book tab Ultra C and T Min so much that I use those devices more than any other eing tablets at this point besides the muted colors the one thing that you need to be aware of is the already mentioned oral darker appearance of the screen because of that I don't use the note a3c or any other incal device with without the front L it's not impossible to use without the front L but in my opinion too dark to use comfortably turning up the front that makes this a nonissue though but still something to think about if you prefer in without having to turn up the build-in light speaking of the front light it lights up the display from the side and quality is good but not great the Box step Ultra C is a bit more even in D comparison the not a 3C does have a very slight brightness gradient which shouldn't be an issue for most people but can be noticeable if you sensitive to it of course it's also color temperature adjustable from cold white to warm orange and anything in between contrast levels are great with the front L turned on so no issues here ghosting however seems to be a bit more pronounced still on a very low level but from time to time I have situations where I need need to do a manual screen refresh to get rid of it something I'm almost never doing on a books tab device one weird issue the not f3c screen has is this shadow on the side of the screen can you see that it's barely visible but still noticeable and this point it seems to be Hardware related because I think books would have addressed it by now if it was just the software it's not really an issue during normal use and I personally don't see it most of the time but still for 500 bucks it should be there nonetheless one thing I'm a bit torn about is the book super refresh technology which is also present in the book node a3c on the one hand it offers great flexibility with Dynamic content on the ining screen meaning you can run pretty much all Android apps thanks So the optionally faster screen Refresh on the other hand that technology shortens battery life even if you're not using that Ultra fast mode I'll talk about battery life in more detail a bit later but just keep that in mind for now in terms of refresh settings the Box not air 3C has four different modes the three quicker than HD refresh modes come with a slight image quality decoration which is why I use the HD mode whenever possible otherwise I switch the ultra fast mode for dynamic content with that you can even watch videos which is obviously an edge case and not something I do regularly on the ining screen but having the option is still great besides those screen refresh modes you can also adapt a couple of other display settings giving you a lot of different options to even run the most stubborn Android apps on the in screen as I mentioned the Box note a3c has a pre-applied screen protector which offers a paper leg writing feel I'd say it's not as great as on the Kindle scrap remarkable too or Lenovo smart paper but not far behind I don't like that the tablet ownerships with the cheaper books pen plus and not with the pen 2 Pro because this one doesn't have an eraser and feels a bit cheaper in my opinion but it's still great in terms of performance because the Wacom touchcreen responds quickly and Pen latency is at only around 20 milliseconds so in other words writing on the Note a3c feels natural because there is almost no lag just not for the very first stroke you're making when not having used the pen for a while maybe it's a power saving measure but using the pen after a pause will result in a delayed response at first which is something other books devices also have not a huge deal but just good to know the touch screen supports 4,096 pressure levels which books has Fine tuned much better better than before that's especially noticeable with the pencil pen TP when applying more or less pressure or tilting the pen which makes the tablet better for sketching than the predecessor which finally brings us to the software the bo note a3c is the first ining device with Android 12 if I'm not mistaken that sounds a lot cooler than it actually is because besides it taking up less of the internal storage there are aren't any big changes You' notice when comparing it to Android 11 on the Note Air 2 plus it essentially looks and feels the same apart from the colors of course which isn't a bad thing because books has done a great job optimizing Android for the in screen just don't expect any huge changes but besides that having Android 12 makes the tablet more futureproof and that's a great thing obviously the one thing I would have loved to see though is the more tablet like user interface from the books tap devices I get that books wants to differentiate the more expensive more productivity Focus devices also in terms of its software but to be honest I like the classic Android Launcher on those more than the regular books launcher simply because it offers more flexibility with the Google Play Store integration you can easily install thirdparty Android apps from the Google Play Store sight loading of course works as well if you prefer of that the learning curve using the books user interface is still pretty steep to be honest simply because there are a lot of options and getting the hang of everything takes time books has added a couple of labels here and there to make the UI easier to understand so that helps making the transition a tiny bit easier than before but still don't expect the ease of use you'd get from an iPad regular Android tablet or a dedicated e- reader PDF functionality is essentially still the best you can get on eink the reading app has so many great viewing options that you can adapt it to your needs easily my favorite is the columns mode which is great for academic literature and comics and mangas alike with that the tablet Zooms in on portions of the page and moves from section to section until you have VI the whole page what's especially great are the different options you have here you can change the order in which the device jumps from one section to the next and you can also alter the zoom levels and of course you can also directly write on a PDF page same as with other books devices so making annotations is really easy and doesn't need any conversions or other special treatments just copy the PDFs onto the device and start annotating there's also the dedicated note taking app which allows you to F digital notebooks with your handwriting or sketches besides those handwriting notebooks there are now also text notebooks something we've seen on the books tab devices already those are essentially using a word processor so you can type text with a virtual quer keyboard or pair the tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard and start typing and you also have a couple of formatting options so while the note air 3C isn't positioned as a productivity tablet the same way as the book tab Ultra see is you can still use it the same way essentially just without the keyboard case that you'll be able to get for the tap device with the handwriting notebooks you also get a couple of more options compared to the note Air 2 plus and that's actually saying something because the previous generation was already pretty feature packed one neat feature are AI tools like the strike through to erase with that the missing array on the pen is a little less of an issue besides that you have different pen types many page templates to choose from layers shapes can insert attachments and record audio using the microphone all in all it's a really powerful set of features and it would simply take too long to show everything in this video so please subscribe to not miss my upcoming more detailed demonstration of how the no taking functionality works if you want to learn more you can also sync your notes with an onyx account and have the option to choose between us European and the default book servers to store notes that's something we already knew from the previous model unfortunately and that's something I suspect books doesn't like to keep hearing from me there's still the issue of the note a3c connecting to Chinese servers on occasion which I checked with wihar devices calling home is nothing special and happens with Android regularly in any case but if I have synchronization and update checks disabled I'd very much prefer the tablet to keep outset communication to an absolute minimum it might be totally innocent but it's simply not clear why those connections are happening to be fair books has a privacy policy in place which states that they adhere to the gdpr which is the data privacy Protection Law in the EU so that gives me a bit of Peace of Mind besides PDF files you can also read regular books of course the library offers a couple of useful filtering and sorting options and the reading app has the most important functions like having multiple options to personalize text sellings taking notes and looking up something in the dictionary books has made some improvements here as well adding labels to a couple of options making it easier to understand what to expect by default it uses an online dictionary to look up definitions but you can also use local dictionaries but those still have to be sight loaded by yourself which can be a pain with finding sources there's a very nice textto speech function available which makes use of the default Android speech synthesis you can download different voices languages and even dialects directly on a device and let's hear how that sounds her inquiries after her sister were not very favorably answered Miss Bennett had slept ill and though up was very feverish and not well enough to leave her room Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her immediately and Jane who had only been withheld by the fear of giving alarm or inconvenience from expressing in her note how much she longed for such a visit was delighted at her entrance she was not equal however to much conversation and when Miss Bingley left them together could attempt little beside expressions of gratitude for the extraordinary kindness she was treated with Elizabeth silently attended her and that finally brings us to Better Life the note a3c has a 3600 milliamps battery which is on the same level as the note air2 plus but much smaller than the 6300 milliamps in the book T Ultra C that comparison is important because we already know that the book super refresh technology negatively affects battery life the note a3c is no exception un unfortunately even when not using the ultra fast refresh mode the battery drain is much quicker than on the Note Air 2 plus I use the automatic page turn function on the not air2 plus and 3C to get a reliable comparison with 15 seconds between each page turn the two plus trains the battery of only around 2% per hour while the note a3c knits around 7% both without the front light as I mentioned this isn't a real use case for the node a3c because without the front Le relability isn't all that great the same test with the front Le on 100% brightness on the Node a3c and the similar level on Note A2 plus results in a 133% drop per hour on the 3C and only 3% on the 2 plus so that puts battery life at around 7 to 8 hours in test not great personally I would have preferred if books didn't implement the super refresh technology here don't get me wrong it offers great flexibility and makes handling Dynamic Android apps much better but it's a trade-off for battery life which I feel is more important in a device like this please leave a comment and let us know if you agree with that or not when using the pen battery life gets even shorter but to be fair and that's not specific to the note f3c all eing tablets with a wcom screen suffer that same fate so just keep that in mind all in all don't expect the note a3c to do much better or better at all compared to an iPad in terms of battery life and that brings us to the conclusion of this review so let's get straight to the point in my opinion the book not a3c is the best in in tablet books has released so far it has the same paper leg C color ink screen that I love using on the box tab Ultra C it's true that the display is darker overall and you need the front L to comfortably use it but having colors even if they are a bit muted makes the user experience so much better combined that with the great build quality and htics as well as the excellent Android customizations for eink the awesome PDF functions and great note taking features and you have a winner but the node a3c is not free of flws the user interface is not especially easy to get into the mentioned data privacy concerns are still a potential issue the weird shadow on the side of the screen the cheaper pen option that comes in the box and not to forget the shorsh battery life are the most important downsides to mention most of those are small issues and won't affect everyone to the same degree which makes the Box not a3c one of my easiest recommendations in the in space the not f3c continues the silent Revolution on the Inc Market that the book tab Ultra C started I wouldn't be surprised if the note air 3C even outperformed the note Air 2 Series in terms of sales just be aware of the mentioned drawbacks when making your decision like And subscribe if you found this review helpful and to not miss my comparisons to other eting tablets thanks for time watching and see you in the next one

Channel: Chalid Raqami

Views: 45,470

Keywords: Boox Note Air 3C, Boox Note Air 3 C

Id: 3oLoKFsW1jQ

Length: 23min 8sec (1388 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 04 2023