Apps take a moment to load and taps take a moment to record. Performance is perfectly functional, but not sprightly. Benchmarks never go well on E Ink tablets, so my assessments of performance have to be intuitive. The Note Air uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, a step down from the Lumi's 4GB and 64GB. The colors look gray on the grayscale display, but they show up correctly if you export your notes to a device with a color screen. In Onyx's sketching program, you can only draw in four shades of gray, plus three colors: blue, green, and red. The thicker, textured pen is easier to grip than other Onyx pens. The pen clips onto the side of the tablet magnetically, and though the magnet is relatively weak-shake the tablet or jostle it in your backpack and the pen will fall off-it gives you a decent place to keep the pen when the tablet is sitting on a table rather than just having the darn thing rolling off everywhere. Kicking the Air into one of its higher-refresh screen modes shows off the pen's marvelous responsiveness. The new pen, a pressure-sensitive Wacom, has a textured body with one flat side, and it's thicker and more comfortable to hold than the Lumi's pen. The Note Air comes with a better pen than the Max Lumi does, along with a better way to hold it. You don't have to go into a special mode just grab the pen off the side of the tablet and start circling or underlining things. I read through some riveting court decisions, offhandedly underlining parts I liked, and had a very paper-like experience.Ībout that underlining: One reason this is the ideal academic device is the native software's ability to fluidly annotate PDFs on the fly. Yes, the documents end up slightly reduced in size (to 5.8 by 8.3 inches, to be exact), but they're still fully readable, and I think the tradeoff is worth it given how easy this tablet is to hold in one hand. The frontlight goes from a warm yellow.to a cool blue.įor displaying documents-including letter-size PDFs-this screen is terrific. The Note Air has a color-changing frontlight that goes from very yellow to very blue, with plenty of steps in between. The 226-ppi resolution means it's higher-density than the 206-ppi Max Lumi. It has 16 gray levels, a 450ms refresh time, and an anti-glare coating that works very well. The screen is E Ink's VB3300-KCA, a 10.3-inch panel with 1,872-by-1,404 resolution at 226ppi. Luckily, you can use any Bluetooth keyboard, including the superior Logitech K480. The keyboard is okay in a pinch, but its small keys feel a bit loose. The Note Air also lacks the Max Lumi's fingerprint scanner, but you can put in a password or passcode to lock the tablet if you like.Īs for accessories, Onyx sells a fabric cover ($39.99) and a wireless keyboard ($35.99) with a dedicated slot for the tablet. (The device also supports Bluetooth and USB-C headphones, which deliver better audio.) Unlike on the Max Lumi, there's no hardware Back button you use a software Home button that pops up when you tap a dot on the screen. There's only one button on this device, and only one port: a Power button and a USB-C port, both on the left side along with the underwhelming single speaker. The Note Air's slim metal build feels truly premium. It's worth noting, though, that unlike the Kobo Forma, the Note Air isn't waterproof. The back is navy, with occasional orange accents. This one is a cold, solid metal slab with a beautiful flat-front design. They're easy to hold, but don't feel premium. Previous Onyx tablets have been made from lightweight plastic. by 0.22 inches and weighs 14.8 ounces, the Note Air has the best build quality I've ever seen from Onyx. If that's a necessary feature for you (and it's worth $300), jump over to our Max Lumi review. There is one key feature that the Max Lumi has and the Note series doesn't: the ability to act as an E Ink monitor for your PC. Onyx says that many of those features are eventually coming to Note 2, but I don't recommend products based on promised future features. The Note Air replaces the Onyx Boox Note 2 the new models (Note Air and Note 3) have much better software than the Note 2 did, with better third-party app support and features such as split-screen dual app support. I think that will make the Note Air most people's pick. The difference here comes down to hardware and price, with the Note Air delivering noticeably better build quality for less money. There's also now an Onyx Boox Note 3, which is closer to a 10.3-inch Max Lumi for $549. The Note Air has very similar software to the Onyx Boox Max Lumi ($880), which we've previously given an excellent review.
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