[Review] The BOOX Note: just another “big” e-reader. Why I returned it

Preface: I bought the ONYX BOOX Note (10.3 inch) from Amazon on the 12th of February of this year. I used it until few days ago. Then I gave it back. I used it for studying purposes.

Why?

Main reason is: price. At fist I was very excited for the Note. But recently I realized it costed too much for me. It was not for the money itself. There were few reasons. Overall, I could say, it didn’t fit my needs. It was cool. But it didn’t worth every cent I spent for it.First (and maybe the only real reason!): software! The product (hardware) is really good. It’s well made (with some cons too, read below). Software (updated to V2.0.1)... is not.I bought it for a precise purpose. I have many PDFs, mainly scanned documents and books. I needed something for highlighting them. That’s it. And the Note, out of the box, cannot do it. Without PDFs highlighting feature for scanned documents, it was, for my needs indeed, just a good e-reader. But honestly, I don’t need a 500€-thing for reading books...Onyx made, overall, a sloppy product. As a company you should not put on the market something not yet 200% ready. And especially if you do, not at that price. That’s not what it is meant with minimum-viable-product.

Android...

I’m a Macintosh lover and iOS user so I could be biased when I insist that this kind of device need a specific OS. Maybe the fact is that I do not trust Google anymore for the stuff happened about users privacy, and so I do not trust Android (actually, I never did). Simply put, where many find Android to be a pro because of its big application market, I find it a con.

Hardware

The hardware, as I said before, is good. Nothing to say except for a few things...

• The power button often gets pressed unintentionally, powering on the device. (Always, in my experience, when carrying the Note in my backpack).
• A 3.5mm jack is missing
• The back button at the bottom is a pain in the a**. If you are running out of space while writing a note and you are going to write at the bottom of the page, pay attention to it. You do not want to press it, lose some precious time going back, then reopening the note. Really annoying.
• While writing near the bezel of the device (right and bottom sides), the pen will start to lose responsiveness.

If I had to design a product like the Note...

First I would start making an OS specifically for this type of devices. I would open an open source project on GitHub and let the community improves the Software based on its needs. As e-readers get more common, there will be the need for a specific OS. Android has surely many advantages, but it is not build specifically for this type of “hardware” (e-ink displays) and purposes.I would make an SDK/developer portal to make it simple for users to create their own applications. As a user, I don’t need fancy applications, games and whenever. I just need reliable, robust, solid apps to work with. It should all be really simple to use: few, basic functionality; and a lot of expandability given by the SDK.

In conclusion:

The BOOX Note is a good e-reader. My opinion is that it’s expensive compared to the features it offers. The screen is not big as an A4 sheet of paper, so many scanned A4 books are barely readable.The default PDF viewer app doesn’t have a highlight feature for scanned documents (PDFs, Djvu), making it not feasible for studying purposes. (If you are used to highlight text while reading books).It has some annoying hardware defects but overall it is a well made product.In conclusion, the device, due to many Software shortcomings, is not yet ready for an intensive/professional use. Neither for a complete paper replacement.

If you own this device, or you think you will get one, remember to subscribe to the Onyx Boox fan group on Facebook. The company account is really active, so far the users. You will find a great community to interact with. Hope the Note will improve fast and get better and better in the time.

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This is my qemu.command file:

#!/bin/bash
cd "$(dirname "$0")"
./qemu-system-ppc -L pc-bios -boot c -M mac99,via=pmu -m 1024 -prom-env 'auto-boot?=true' -prom-env 'boot-args=-v' -prom-env 'vga-ndrv?=true' -drive file=MacOSXLeopard.img,format=raw,media=disk -netdev user,id=network01 -device sungem,netdev=network01

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Mac OS X 10.5
Command-line options to install Mac OS X 10.X:

./qemu-system-ppc -L pc-bios -boot d -M mac99,via=pmu -m 512 -hda <hd image file> -cdrom <iso file of installation media> -netdev user,id=mynet0 -device sungem,netdev=mynet0

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Related links

• Reauthorizing Automation in Mojave (where I picked the code from)

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