Onyx Boox Note 10.3 is available Now

[Waiting4somethin]

I’m considering buying this device to use as a tablet—ie browse web, write email etc—as well as read PDFs. I’m not bothered about the “EPD limit”. (Lcd is bad for your eyes imo.)

Did anyone else buy this for a similar usage?

[JawadLeLogeur]

How does it fare with OneNote? (either drawing with the stylus or typing with a bluetooth keyboard)

[Otamono]

I have one additional question: I dont remember about getting a case for the tablet, do i get one if i preordered in January from ereader.store?

[Randy11]

Originally Posted by laurenth

Hello, first post here, but long time mobileread reader [...]
So far so good. My two cents to people who ordered from booxtor is to keep calm and relax... Excuse my english it's not my native language, I'm french (so excuse my french ;-)

Bonjour Laurenth,

Bienvenue dans ce forum ! Pas de souci avec le français, cela me convient parfaitement, pour moi c'est l'anglais la difficulté

For Booxtor, good advice : 'My two cents to people who ordered from booxtor is to keep calm and relax...'.

[blue_skies]

Originally Posted by Otamono

...I will test the device this friday vs the ReMarkable of a friend. Most likely it will win in writing notes and lose on the rest (annotations, apps and so on)...

I'm looking forward to your comparison of the Note vs the ReMarkable! Thanks for posting.

Originally Posted by Otamono

I have one additional question: I dont remember about getting a case for the tablet, do i get one if i preordered in January from ereader.store?

The following was posted here a couple pages back:

Originally Posted by Orb_dude

It also says this at the bottom of the webpage: Attention to pre-orderers from January and February! The cover is still in production and will be delivered separately in the last week of March!

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by blue_skies

Does the led light work well to illuminate the whole screen? Would you mind posting a picture of it?

I would love to buy the Note, but I really need a front light (for night reading, but also for the increased contrast) and I'm hoping they eventually make a device like this with the built-in light.

I haven't felt very confident that an attachable led light would be a very good substitution for a built-in front light... but maybe I'm wrong. I would love to see a picture.

My first impression of the clip on light was that it was a bit clunky and cheaply built. However, thought I would give it a try.

It actually did a fairly good job of illuminating the entire screen in a dark room and I could angle it in such a way that there was no glare from the screen. Reading was quite comfortable.

However, because the bezels at the sides and the top of the screen are so narrow, you can really only clamp it on at the bottom where the bezel is wider. It also slides around a bit, but that will probably not be a problem when the protective case arrives as it will likely provide a grippier surface for the light to hold on to. Until the cover arrives, I may just use a thin strip of rubber on the underside of the ereader if I want to use the light.

In a well lit room, the contrast is fine for my eyes. I really wouldn't want to be using the clip on light all the time as it could become a bit awkward when writing/sketching.

Hopefully, they will eventually come up with a solution and be able to provide an integrated frontlight on large screen eink devices. That would be the ideal solution.

[Waiting4somethin]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Hopefully, they will eventually come up with a solution and be able to provide an integrated frontlight on large screen eink devices. That would be the ideal solution.

The 9.7” n96ml+ has a frontlight.

Can you say anything about (with refresh turned off) the browser?

[blue_skies]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

My first impression of the clip on light was that it was a bit clunky and cheaply built. However, thought I would give it a try.

It actually did a fairly good job of illuminating the entire screen in a dark room and I could angle it in such a way that there was no glare from the screen. Reading was quite comfortable.

However, because the bezels at the sides and the top of the screen are so narrow, you can really only clamp it on at the bottom where the bezel is wider. It also slides around a bit, but that will probably not be a problem when the protective case arrives as it will likely provide a grippier surface for the light to hold on to. Until the cover arrives, I may just use a thin strip of rubber on the underside of the ereader if I want to use the light.

In a well lit room, the contrast is fine for my eyes. I really wouldn't want to be using the clip on light all the time as it could become a bit awkward when writing/sketching.

Hopefully, they will eventually come up with a solution and be able to provide an integrated frontlight on large screen eink devices. That would be the ideal solution.

Thank you so much for that!

Originally Posted by Waiting4somethin

The 9.7” n96ml+ has a frontlight.

So it really shouldn't be difficult to add a frontlight to the Note, right? I wonder if a front-light version is in the works?

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by Waiting4somethin

Can you say anything about (with refresh turned off) the browser?

Do you mean in A2 mode?

Just tried out the browser again in both A2 mode and in regular mode. This time, thought I would try it with some video so took a trip over to YouTube to see how it would perform. Then did a little bit of surfing.

In A2 mode, it actually handled videos fairly well. Both the sound and the video image were a bit choppy, but they were viewable. Of course, the experience pales in comparison to the fluid experience of a tablet. Although you probably wouldn't want to watch a movie on the Note, you could watch stuff in a pinch unlike in regular mode in which the experience was very unpleasant.

Surfing regular sites, whether in A2 or regular mode, such as news sites, libraries and Amazon was not much of a problem. I found that pages were relatively quick to load and easy to navigate. The ads tended to not be as annoying as I have found them on previous eink devices where the loading and navigating of pages was much slower.

[citytrader]

I'm interested not in taking notes but more like using it like a book, how responsive is this Boox Note reading PDFs and Epubs?... is pinch to zoom responsive or laggy? is it possible to install XODO pdf reader and FBreader?... Thanks in advance for the info!

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by blue_skies

Thank you so much for that!



So it really shouldn't be difficult to add a frontlight to the Note, right? I wonder if a front-light version is in the works?

There is no indication that E Ink has any frontlight devices bigger than 9.7" by anybody so far. E Ink itself does offer screens with frontlight built in but it is possible for the companies to do it themselves which seems to be what Amazon is doing. Technically there are obstacles in larger screens. The front light article in our wiki shows how it is done. There are no flexible screens (E Ink Mobius) that have front lights.

Dale

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by citytrader

I'm interested not in taking notes but more like using it like a book, how responsive is this Boox Note reading PDFs and Epubs?... is pinch to zoom responsive or laggy? is it possible to install XODO pdf reader and FBreader?... Thanks in advance for the info!

So far, reading has been a very pleasurable experience, whether in PDF or epub. Using the native reading app, I was even able to open an AZW3 file from which I had removed the DRM using Calibre and which I then sideloaded onto the device as a test.

Pinch zoom is very responsive. Love it.

Was able to install the free version of FBreader which worked fine for epubs. The free version does not allow you to open PDFs.

Also installed the free versions of Librera and Moon+ Reader, both of which allow you to read either epubs or PDFs. Also installed Cool Reader, but haven't played around with it much yet.

Moon+ Reader is so far the only reading app which I have tested which can properly handle furigana when reading in Japanese so it is my go to app for Japanese books. For Chinese books, the native app, Neo Reader V2, works very well.

Was able to install Colordict without any problems and it is working well with Moon+ Reader for looking up words when reading in Japanese.

Haven't tried the dictionary function with any of the other apps apart from the native reading one. Was able to sideload about 7 or so Chinese Stardict dictionaries onto the Note and they work tremendously well with the native reader for looking up unfamiliar words when reading in Chinese.

Right now, it doesn't seem possible to install apps from the Play Store which you have already paid for. Hope they work that out soon as I would like to install the pro version of Moon+ Reader.

[Waiting4somethin]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Do you mean in A2 mode?

Just tried out the browser again in both A2 mode and in regular mode. This time, thought I would try it with some video so took a trip over to YouTube to see how it would perform. Then did a little bit of surfing.

In A2 mode, it actually handled videos fairly well. Both the sound and the video image were a bit choppy, but they were viewable. Of course, the experience pales in comparison to the fluid experience of a tablet. Although you probably wouldn't want to watch a movie on the Note, you could watch stuff in a pinch unlike in regular mode in which the experience was very unpleasant.

Surfing regular sites, whether in A2 or regular mode, such as news sites, libraries and Amazon was not much of a problem. I found that pages were relatively quick to load and easy to navigate. The ads tended to not be as annoying as I have found them on previous eink devices where the loading and navigating of pages was much slower.

Many thanks for this reply.

[orpheus2011]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

So far, reading has been a very pleasurable experience, whether in PDF or epub. Using the native reading app, I was even able to open an AZW3 file from which I had removed the DRM using Calibre and which I then sideloaded onto the device as a test.

Pinch zoom is very responsive. Love it.

Was able to install the free version of FBreader which worked fine for epubs. The free version does not allow you to open PDFs.

Also installed the free versions of Librera and Moon+ Reader, both of which allow you to read either epubs or PDFs. Also installed Cool Reader, but haven't played around with it much yet.

Moon+ Reader is so far the only reading app which I have tested which can properly handle furigana when reading in Japanese so it is my go to app for Japanese books. For Chinese books, the native app, Neo Reader V2, works very well.

Was able to install Colordict without any problems and it is working well with Moon+ Reader for looking up words when reading in Japanese.

Haven't tried the dictionary function with any of the other apps apart from the native reading one. Was able to sideload about 7 or so Chinese Stardict dictionaries onto the Note and they work tremendously well with the native reader for looking up unfamiliar words when reading in Chinese.

Right now, it doesn't seem possible to install apps from the Play Store which you have already paid for. Hope they work that out soon as I would like to install the pro version of Moon+ Reader.

Second this. Neo Reader , the stock app, is very good for almost everything. Needs A2 to go through multi-column stuff properly though. Librera e-ink edition slightly better in that regard, but falls short on annotations. The Onyx-modified Kindle apk does not work, but Koreader does. Not much of an improvement over Neo Reader.

[citytrader]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

So far, reading has been a very pleasurable experience, whether in PDF or epub...

Thanks a lot for your feedback!