Shenzhen-based Onyx is back with a new e-ink tablet that’s lighter, with a more powerful processor than before. Named the Boox Note Air 4C, the tablet does its advertised job: offer an e-ink display that is less stressful on our eyes, and a tactile friction on the screen that makes the glass feel much more like paper than a typical iPad screen. It’s also got tremendous battery life — the tablet can go over 10 days on a single charge and only needs charging once every two weeks or so.
But at $499, it’s still pricier than I’d like, and the problem is made worse by the fact that Huawei has released several conventional tablets with a screen that can double as an e-ink screen. Of course, the Huawei tablet is more expensive, but it can also do much more.
Design
The Note Air 4C is a very lightweight device compared to conventional tablets, weighing 420g, or about 0.9lbs. And at 5.8mm (about 0.23-inch) thick, quite thin as well. The tablet is well constructed, with an aluminum body with a silky black coating. There are two speaker grilles, a USB-C port, and a power button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner.
The star of the show, of course, is the 10.3-inch color e-ink display, with a resolution of 2480 x 1860 in monochrome mode and 1240 x 930 in color mode. In black and white mode, the screen looks sharp, with text appearing clean without jagged edges. In color mode, however, the visuals are a bit softer, and the colors are also quite muted, but that’s normal for color e-ink displays, which are designed to be much healthier for our eyes due to having no backlight.
Onyx includes a stylus and a folio cover case with the package. The stylus is great — it’s comfortable to hold and the tablet can register up to 4,000 degrees of pressure. The screen texture also feels paper-like, much more so than a typical iPad screen. However, as mentioned earlier, Huawei has already developed technology that allows its tablet to offer similar tactile feeling.
Still, sketching or jotting notes on the Note Air 4C is a joy, giving the sensation of pencil on paper.
An issue that plagues e-ink screens is there are often signs of ghosting — faint shadows of whatever was shown on the previous screen remains on the screen for a short period of time. This is noticeable here too, but much better than older generation Boox tablets or many other e-ink tablets, including the Kindle. That’s because the Note Air 4C uses a dynamic refresh rate to adapt to the action.
All of this is handled by an octa-core processor. While this processor is powerful for an e-ink tablet, it’s worth mentioning it’s still very weak for a conventional tablet. This isn’t noticeable if you’re doing e-ink stuff like reading or jotting notes, but if you try to do more, you experience lag.
Software
The Note Air 4C runs Android 13 (yes it’s an older version) so you can technically install any Android app on here. This is mostly good news, as I can access my Gmail, Google Docs, and heck, even scroll through Instagram. But as mentioned, the processor isn’t quite capable enough to handle these more graphically intensive apps smoothly, so when you open Gmail, expect a few seconds loading time before you can even see the emails. In Instagram, you can watch Reels, but there’s a bit of animation stutter, not to mention the muted colors.
I’m being nitpicky of course, you really shouldn’t be using an e-ink tablet to browse Instagram. If you’re doing other productivity tasks like reading word documents or signing digital contracts, this tablet does a good job.
Boox has designed its own UI, with some first party apps for running basic files like PDF and word files. There’s also an e-book app that lets you import e-book files for reading. Of course you can also just download the Amazon Kindle app.
Conclusion
Overall, the Boox Note Air 4C is a good looking, comfortable to use e-ink tablet that does a bit more than just being an e-ink reader. In a vacuum I can see those with sensitive eyesights or an avid notetaker or reader would want one, but unfortunately, with the existence of Huawei tablets that can do a convincing job of doubling as an e-ink tablet, it makes the appeal of this tablet limited. At $499, it’s a bit of a tough sell, I wish this had been $375.
