Onyx Boox Note Air 4C Review

November 23, 2024

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Onyx Boox has a new colour e-paper e-notebook that is now available to order, the Onyx Boox Note Air 4C. This device is designed for note-taking and also reading in full colour. The central selling point is the 10.3-inch Carta 1200 colour e-paper display with Android 13 and full access to the Google Play Store. Coming to price, the new Note Air4C is currently available to order for $499.99.

Hardware

Onyx Boox introduced the new Note Air4 C with an I10.3-inch E Ink Carta 1200 display with a Kaleido 3 panel. The resolution is a lovely 2480 x 1860 with 300 PPI when viewing B/W content but gets halved to 1240 x 930 or 150 PPI for colour content. When viewing PDF files, journals, comics or web content, all of this can be viewed with 4,096 colours. The screen is flush with the bezel and protected by a layer of glass. Reading at night is possible, thanks to the warm and cool lights.

Further, with the onboard Boox Super Refresh or BSR tech, you have ultra-clear displays and fast page refresh times. There are zero remnants of previous displays to mar the viewing experience. The accompanying stylus, which Onyx refers to as the Pen Plus, offers a natural paper-like writing feel. The Pen Plus is ideal for expressing creativity in notes, annotations, or drawings. The capacitive pen sensitively supports 4,096 levels of pressure.

Underneath the hood is an Octa-core processor, 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It has an SD card slot capable of 1TB of extra storage if you need further storage. There are dual microphones for audio dictation or voice communication apps. Dual speakers are good for audiobooks, podcasts, music or audio playback, but they have Bluetooth 5.1 for wireless earbuds or headphones. WIFI is available to install apps and access the internet. A USB-C port can be used as an audio jack and has OTG, also used for charging. A 3,700mAh Li-ion Polymer battery powers it. The dimensions are 226 x 193 x 5.8 mm (8.9″ x 7.6″ x 0.23″) and weighs approx. 420 g (14.8 oz)

The industrial design is similar to the Remarkable two or Kindle Scribe 2. It is black along the bezels but has a dark grey ledger on the left. The back of the device is also black. The power button with a fingerprint sensor is at the top. The speakers, USB port, and Micro SD slot are on the bottom.

Software

The Boox Note Air 4C runs Google Android 13, which makes it one of the few e-notes or e-readers on the market with such a recent version of Android. This includes not only performance increases but also major security updates. Onyx is one of the few companies that include Google Play and Play Services on all its devices. Bigme is another brand that does this.

Users can sign into their account and start downloading apps that have already been downloaded or purchased on other Android phones or tablets. Onyx runs Boox OS, a customized launcher that optimizes e-paper e-readers, e-notes, and tablets. The company constantly pushes out firmware updates to refine the reading, writing and general performance. They do this every few months, which is suitable for users who can invest in the Onyx platform, knowing that it will be supported for at least five years.

This is the fastest Onyx product we have ever reviewed. If you launch an app, it automatically opens. Navigating around Google Play is instant; even animations play correctly. Browsing the UI and settings menu is lightning-fast. This is the same as the standard speed model. I don’t know what Onyx did underneath the hood on a software level, but compared to the Leaf 2 with Carta 1200 or the Nova Air 2, this blows them out of the water with performance.

A year ago, Onyx revised its user interface to make it more user-friendly. The navigation bar is at the bottom, and the UI elements change depending on what you have open, such as the Note taking app, reading app, Google Play, or the internet browser. The home screen gives shortcuts to the library, note-taking app, file browser, and settings. You can click on things to launch specific elements that support gesture control. If you swipe upwards from the bottom of the Ultra, below the icons, you will automatically go to the home screen. If you swipe down from the top, you get the typical Android notifications. Swipe downward to where the WIFI is and click the symbol, and you will launch the main settings drop-down menu. If you long press on the main home screen, you can now add widgets, which is exciting. There are a few stock ones, such as calendar, weather and clock, but you can download additional ones from Google Play.

The main drop-down is called Control Centre. This is where you can establish a WIFI network and Bluetooth connection, access the E INK Control Centre, rotate, screencast, mute notifications, turn on/off the touchscreen, split screen view, screen recording, Boox Drop, Screenshot, Do Not Disturb mode and screen refresh. You can also adjust the volume of the two stereo speakers or if you are using Bluetooth headphones. The front light and colour temperature system can also be changed here. A tiny gear setting also allows you to turn on or off any options on the Control Centre.

E INK Control Centre is beneficial. You can control the dark and light levels of the entire device. This helps with contrast. I prefer the icons and text slightly darker than the default setting. You can also augment the light and dark values per app. So, you downloaded the Kindle app but found the UI and text a bit dark. You can access the Control Centre and adjust the darker values; they will always be there whenever you launch the app.

Onyx Boox has the refreshed technology they mention on all their premium devices. This system is designed to make the e-paper display function more like an Android tablet. You can access this from the drop-down menu or the settings menu. HD, the default standard, and Balanced gives you a nice blend of increased performance with slight image degradation. Fast offers kick the Ultra into overdrive, making it even quicker. At the same time, Ultrafast is ideal for watching streaming videos or listening to audio from sources such as YouTube or Spotify.

Onyx has also changed the settings menu. The main navigation bar is now on the right side, and all data from the fields is now on the right side. This gives you a standard Android interface. Some of the most notable functions here are controlling the new gesture controls and how you gesture to do specific things. You can swipe in particular ways to refresh the screen, which helps eliminate the ghosting from the faster speed modes. Desktop settings allow you to add your screen saver or power off images. The display is where you can change the system fonts and text sizes. Brightness, screen timeout, and auto sleep are also helpful. Onyx has added a new feature called total refresh frequency. This is controlled by tapping the screen with the stylus or your finger. The default value is 5, but you can change it to whatever you want; I like 3. So if you quickly tap the screen three times, no matter where you are on the device, the net will refresh.

Our personal lives are entirely of colour. Our eyes can see colour everywhere we look. Computer monitors, smartphones and iPad tablets display billions of colours but have harmful blue light, and some people have sensitivity issues. This is where the Note Air 4C comes in; no light is shining into your eyes but evenly distributed across the screen. All of the apps you install are in full colour and the same, with icons all over the screen.

Reading

The Note Air 4C makes a perfect e-reader for reading books, comics, manga, PDF files, and other digital content. This is because it has a 10.3-inch and tons of real estate for all text to fit evenly across the screen. Flipping pages is ultra-fast and even faster if you engage in any speed modes from the E INK Control Centre. The image quality is very pronounced, so if you are looking for a multipurpose tablet to read, this one’s for you.

The e-reading experience starts with the stock app Neoreader, where you can side-load all your content with many options for font sizes, font type, alignment, line spacing and margins. It supports PRC, RTF, Doc, Text, DJVU, PDF, Mobi, FB2, EPUB, CBR and CBZ. CBZ and CBR support is excellent for sideloading Manga files since this is the most popular online format. However, Amazon delivers manga in AZW3 and Kobo/Google via EPUB. You don’t need to worry about forms if you install apps such as VIZ or manga apps.

This device excels at reading PDF files, whether replicas from a newspaper, Dungeons and Dragons source material or even reading office documents. You can quickly sign your tax returns or contract documents with a flourish of the stylus or use your fingers for handwriting. You can quickly fill in boxes and write in fields. Manga is also excellent. However, your mileage might vary depending on whether you use a dedicated app or side-load your content.

The Note Air 4C shines when you access Google Play and download your favourite apps. This gives you tremendous flexibility and freedom to use whatever reading or news apps you usually use on your smartphone or tablet. I know many people always install Libby to read eBooks or listen to audiobooks borrowed from the public library. The Kindle reading app is the most popular since it was initially developed for smartphones and tablets. The page turn animation always looks nice and pretty, but it struggles on E INK devices due to the refresh issue. This is why Onyx made enhancements to the app on a system level to eliminate animated page turns, so it is seamless and robust when you turn a page. Over the years, they have optimized many other apps but tend to focus on the writing experience on their extensive line of e-notes. The company has also made enhancements to several productivity apps.

The Note Air 4C is not billed as an e-reader but primarily as a replacement for paper and a note-taking device. However, I would dare recommend this product not to be drawn but to view all your digital content in full colour on an E INK screen. You won’t get any reflections from the sun, and battery life is measured in weeks, not days.

Notes

The Note Air 4C is a dedicated digital note-taking device that allows you to draw freehand, make notes, or doodle in colour. Eighteen colour combinations can be selected, just the primary colours. When you are finished drawing, you can save the notebook to the device, export it as a PNG or PDF file, and copy it to your PC/MAC. Once it is opened on your computer, you can view the document in all the colours you made. A total of 4096 colours can be displayed for colour content.

When you want to draw something, you can use a variety of pens, pencils, and other tools, such as a mechanical pencil and highlighter, fountain pen, paintbrush, ballpoint pen, or text. You can also set the line thickness to get thinner or thicker lines, and the stylus has pressure sensitivity, too.

One of the features I like is using layers. This system is similar to popular photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop. As an essential feature that users frequently require, layers can help people take notes without ruining the templates and draw details while retaining the original layout. The built-in Notes app currently supports you in adding up to five layers. As the template is the base layer, you can simultaneously have up to six layers. By selecting a template as the base layer, you can give your work comprehensive layout instructions. You can choose from local space, cloud space, or custom templates in png format to give a page a specific look.

But what else can it do? You can use screencast to connect whatever is on your Note Air 4C to your PC. This is useful during meetings or to show people what you have been working on rather than crowding around the e-reader. Onyx also has a companion app Android, and they are working on an IOS version. This is optional to use. It lets you sync everything on the Ultra C to your smartphone or from your smartphone to the Note. Onyx also provides 10GB of cloud storage for everything in their cloud. You only need to use the companion app if you want smartphone integration.

There are a few essential features worth mentioning. Documents can have 500 pages on them to have extensive notes. I also like saving your favourite pen settings to the entire UI, so you can select each one by tapping your finger on it or using the stylus. For example, Pen 1 can have a pencil with thick lines and be back. Pen 2 can be a highlighter with RED and thin lines; Pen 3 can be a brush with thick lines. I also like how you can import pictures from Dropbox or Google Drive into the notes, resize them in a message, and edit them.

You can start drawing on PDF files as soon as they are loaded and save the edited file as a different file name or overwrite the original. You get a different interface when editing PDF files than the standard drawing experience on the note-taking app. Even with the Normal HD mode, I have never seen an Onyx Boox product perform so well with PDF files. Page turns are instant, there is no latency, and it is like using an iPad. Suppose you try pinching and zooming a PDF; a small notification window pops and asks if you should turn the function on. Other Onyx models have this feature but are buried in various sub-menus.

The Notes app provides more powerful tools with constant firmware updates than ever. You can use handwriting recognition (AI tool) to quickly transform your handwritten notes into text. You can also insert recordings, pictures, attachments, and links to an internal page or an external website to make your messages look vivid.

Wrap Up

This is by far the company’s most ridiculous release. It is the fourth generation—yes, you heard that correctly—of the Note Air Cline.

There are only three differences from the previous generation Note Air 3C: You have an updated version of Android, which is 10 Grams lighter, and you get 2GB of extra RAM. That’s it. Furthermore, they did not increase the price, uncharacteristic of the brand, which baffles me, as Onyx has increased the cost of every incremental upgrade.

The differences are negligible: 10 G of weight savings is unnoticeable by the human hand, two gigs of RAM were virtually identical under pretty much any stress test process we used on the unit, and the latest version of Android only applies to high-profile games, etc.