Tedium - Electric Ink Analysis 🖋

Today in Tedium: For years, there’s been a deep interest in using the paper-white surfaces of electronic paper in a more general computing context. Blue light drives some folks nuts; and using a laptop outside just isn’t as easy to do as reading a sheet of paper. So when I was offered the chance to check out the latest generation of e-readers, I was thrilled. But in many ways, I wanted to think about these devices as more than consumption tools. I wanted to create with them. With that in mind, today’s Tedium dives into the Onyx Boox NoteAir and the Onyx Boox Nova3 Color. Can you use an e-reader as an e-creation device? — Ernie @ Tedium

Editor’s note: This piece was written on an Onyx Boox NoteAir, in an attempt to get the a feel for the writing experience on e-paper. The GIF is a clip from Santana’s “Smooth,” played on YouTube on the NoteAir.

Don’t be fooled by the e-paper. This is really a tablet.

NoteAir: An Android tablet hiding inside an e-reader

By sheer chance, when I got the NoteAir, I had just made the decision to work an iPad back into my workflow after a long hiatus, with its primary use case as a secondary monitor for my desktop setup (and as a secondary use case, a way to run native iOS apps when there is a professional need to do so, as I’m primarily an Android user these days).

Despite that device being slick and snazzy, I found myself grabbing the NoteAir more, in part because of its more experimental, less in-your-face nature. It has potential, and potential is often more attractive to me than the full package, because I at least know then there is room to tweak.

I used this retro magazine cover as my base image for comparison of the devices. Here’s what the cover looks like on the NoteAir.

Under the hood of this device is a full Android tablet with three gigs of RAM and 32 gigs of internal storage (along with a Snapdragon 636 processor, still usable if not cutting-edge), and it is good enough for taking notes, drawing sketches and even some light web browsing.

The hardware, with a 227ppi display, works great when set up properly, and is well-suited to light work tasks like writing, note-taking, and even a little grayscale drawing.

The problem is that, to get to that point, it requires a little tweaking. Not like any in-depth under-the-hood stuff, but you have to tell it to do things that you might not have to do on your phone—namely, the process of setting up the device for Google Play is a bit inelegant. And like a desktop Linux install, you might find yourself changing little settings here and there to match your personal preferences. But once you do get it set up, things aren’t so bad.

The NoteAir allows you to change settings on a per-app basis, which you’ll likely want to do, as e-paper tends to benefit from different refresh speeds in different settings.

Some interesting features include NeoBrowser, a built-in web browser with some uniquely useful features for tablets, along with a persistent navigation ball that works as a combination of the accessibility tool in iOS and a similar model used by Wacom drawing tablets. A bookstore is also included though it largely includes public-domain works; you likely will want to install Kindle, Koreader, Nook, or the library app Libby through the built-in app store (which is separate from the Google Play store).

On the hardware side, this device has two separate backlights, a warm and a cool one, which can be combined to provide a good balance for whatever lighting setting you’re in. (You will have to change them manually, though.) There is just one button, a power button on the side of the device, which makes more sense when reading like a book than when balancing on a stand.

(One idea for next time: Include a fingerprint reader or even a small camera just for QR codes, as it would make it a lot easier to integrate with password tools like 1Password. Just a thought.)

I tried this device in a few offbeat settings for a e-paper, including connected to my Mac using the screen-sharing application Duet Display. It was not a good experience—while possible, dark mode isn’t exactly a strong suit of this device—but the fact that it could be done at all was a major feather in the device’s cap.

Writing on this with iA Writer was good, but the limitations of the bluetooth keyboard made it a little tougher than it should have been.

The writing experience with the bluetooth keyboard can get a bit laggy at times, to the point where, in one instance, I was running a few words ahead of the screen refresh, even on the fastest mode, X-Mode. I found a reboot of the device fixed the problem, but it made me worry about whether this was a potential long-term problem for the tool (or if the somewhat meager amount of RAM was really enough, something I also worried about because of the occasional crashing).

The bad part of this equation might be the accessories, particularly the keyboard. The included keyboard worked with the device, but it was a bit short for the NoteAir’s design, which features a prominent chin (or folio, depending on how you hold it), along the lines of the Remarkable or the Kindle Oasis. Additionally, it was not long enough for the case, so as a result, it would not stick in. The easy solution to this would be to design a keyboard that actually fit the case. But barring that, any Bluetooth keyboard will do.

What do you mean you’ve never tweeted from an e-reader before?

The case is elegant from the outside, but held on with double-sided tape, rather than the magnet driven approach of many competing tablets. The addition of magnets would make the case far easier to recommend, but there are a few other options on Amazon.

The onscreen keyboard worked fine, though its layout was a little awkward. But if you prefer writing with handwriting recognition, it’s your best option. Since this is Android, you can easily swap out the onscreen keyboard for your preferred choice--which is how I got to use Gboard and its swiping capabilities. It wasn’t perfect; for one thing, the swiping didn’t always take, but it generally worked fine enough. The bigger annoyance was that when the Bluetooth keyboard was attached it didn’t initially hide itself from the screen. It was possible, but the setting was buried.

The pen is a perfectly capable device and conveniently attaches to the side with magnets, but seemed to struggle with pressure sensitivity, which is unfortunate as the device itself seems to support it. The pen for the Nova3 Color, which does have pressure sensitivity but not the magnetic storage capability, offered a more delicate touch as a result.

A compare-contrast of the Boox Nova3 Color and the iPad Pro. No, you’re not going to get inky blacks on a color e-reader, sadly.

Boox Nova3 Color: Better than I was expecting

Speaking of the Nova3 Color, I actually found it the better of the two devices, with a well considered form factor that could prove the perfect introduction to a new technology.

Now, it’s basically unfair to directly compare the color e-paper of the Nova3 Color to, say, an IPS panel. They represent different lineages and as a result have differing capabilities. Color e-paper updates more slowly, but can be more crisp depending on the screen mode. The color of an IPS panel is richer; color e-paper reminds me a lot of newsprint, a medium I know well.

From my experience, I found the display particularly effective at solid colors and some light gradients, which means that it works well for drawing. It struggled more with photography; the small size of a Twitter avatar, for example, tended to look a bit like a low-res inkjet printout. (Which makes sense; it prints dots at about 100ppi in color mode.) The colors are more toned down than vibrant.

The problem with reading a Linux magazine from a virtual library is they don’t give you the live CD.

But one thing I was not expecting was for the device to update its image relatively quickly. Part of the reason I was able to see Twitter avatars on the machine was because it was fast enough to run Twitter in a usable way.

Ghosting was more of a problem with this device than the NoteAir, but Onyx made me aware of this, and even added a feature to account for this in an update, a “regal” mode that minimized ghosting by more fully refreshing during use. It makes using the device more like an early-gen e-reader, but at least the images look nice.

The most surprising discovery I found involved using the YouTube app. While definitely not 4K60, when it was properly set, it was a fairly fluid, watchable experience, and did not slow down if I was willing to live with a little ghosting. It was sort of like watching a photo in a newspaper move.

There were differences between the two devices, however subtle; despite being the higher-end option, the NoteAir has a worse pen than the Nova3 Color. The NoteAir’s pen integrates better with the device, sticking on the side, while the Nova3 Color attaches to the case more manually via a loop. The pen on the larger device is also more elegant-feeling.

Something I drew on the Nova3 Color—not that I’m a great artist or anything, but I found the pressure sensitivity on the device to be pretty good. But this offers a good example of the ghosting you may see from time to time.

But the problem is that, technology-wise, the Nova3’s pen appears to be more capable from a pressure sensitivity standpoint, adding nuance to drawings that turn a good illustration into a great one.

While the NoteAir can refresh more quickly thanks to its X-mode, the Nova3 color seemed slightly snappier to me, strangely enough. I don’t know whether it was the smaller size, the screen’s lower resolution, or that my expectations had been lowered to the point that it actually impressed me, but I was actually kind of surprised I liked using the device as much as I did.

Given the overly bright nature of OLED these days, it’s the perfect wind-down device, putting less blue light in your face just before you go to bed.