Onyx Boox has released a handful of new devices this year, including the Max Lumi and the popular Note Air. A couple of days ago the company unveiled the Note 3, which is a high spec 10.3 inch e-note with a front-light, color temperature system and Android 10. On the same day, they also announced the Nova 3, which is available now. Will you buy either of these two digital note taking devices?
The Onyx Boox Note 3 features an E INK Mobius touchscreen display with a resolution of 1872×1404 with 227 PPI. It has both a front-lit display and color temperature system. This will allow you to read in the dark and mute the white LED lights with a combination of amber LED Lights. There are 28 LED lights in total. 14 of which are amber. There is a WACOM display and the Note 3 comes with a stylus. It has 4,096 degrees of pressure sensitivity and palm rejection technology.
Underneath the hood is an Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor, 4GB of DDR4X RAM and 64GB of internal storage. This device is 33% faster than the Onyx Boox Note 2. It has Bluetooth 5.1 to connect up wireless accessories, such as headphones or an external speaker. You can listen to music or audiobooks via the rear speaker. It is powered by a giant 4,300 mAh battery, and has full support for Quick Charge 4.0. Internet connectivity is WIFI, and supports 2G and 5G. USB-C and OTG is an important element. You can connect it up to you PC to transfer data or charge it. If you need more storage, or to connect up a keyboard, Onyx has a few products listed in our store. Basically, the big selling points from the Note 2, are speakers, a color temperature system, a higher version of Bluetooth and Android 10. It retails for $549.99 from the Good e-Reader Store.
The Onyx Boox Nova 3 has a 7.8 inch capacitive dual touch display with a resolution of 1872×1404 with 300 PPI. It has a front-lit display to read in the dark. There are 17 LED lights in total, 8 are amber LED lights. There is also a WACOM layer, for integrations with the accompanied stylus. The screen is flush with the bezel and it has a glass based display.
Underneath the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 Octa core processor, 3GB of DDR4X RAM and 32GB of internal storage. It has a USB-C port with OTG and also has Quick Charge 4.0, so you can power it up to full in under an hour. Unlike the Nova 2, this has speakers and Bluetooth 5.0, instead of 4.1. There is a microphone, so you can take audio notes or talk to people in Zoom or Skype. It is powered by a 3150 mAh battery. The big selling points vs the Nova 2 are a faster processor, faster RAM, Bluetooth 5.1, digital audio and Android 10. It retails for $339 from the Good e-Reader Store.
Are you going to buy the Note 3 or the Nova 3? They both are incremental upgrades over the previous generation models, if you have the Note 2 or Nova 2, upgrading to the latest, might not make a ton of sense. Although if you have the first generation Nova, Nova Pro or the Note/Note Pro, this would be worth it.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.