BOOX Note Air 5 C 10.3 Inch E Ink Tablet With Color Screen 6 Gigabyte RAM 64 Gigabyte Storage Android 15 Digital Notebook

I looked into every viable option for a writing tablet, and I finally landed on this one. This search has taken literal years. I've been working on my "Great American Novel" and had grown weary of using a laptop and keyboard for my writing. but the options to more to electronic writing were either severely limited in their capabilities, or they require a subscription, (some times both) but all the options seemed unreasonably expensive. I'd pretty quickly realized that I wanted an e-ink screen and a large one at that, the BOOX Note Air 5 C, has one of the larger screens available but not the largest, so a little bit of a compromise as I was hoping to get a screen that was a true 8.5 x 11, as it is the BOOX is more than large enough. I realize now that a larger screen device would be kind of cumbersome to use. The BOOX also has a feature I didn't want, it's that little alley of unusable real estate along the left side of the screen, but as it turns out, that area is critical for ease of use because it makes holding the table much easier because there is a natural place for your thumb to rest while you're writing, without it there would have to be a software solution that rejected your thumb placement what could cause strange anomalies. One of the main reasons I selected this tablet was it's lack of a need for a subscription and it's ability to function as an android 15 tablet. It's not an ideal android tablet, but it isn't limited strictly to a writing device and being that it's android it can easily connect to my network storage devices. Some of the available tables don't include a stylus in their base price - which is ridiculous for a writing device - The BOOX includes the writing "pen" and that "pen" includes 4 writing tips (one installed and 3 under the rear cap) so I was able to start writing as soon as I took it out of the box and charged it up. The stylus/pen includes a strong magnet to hold it to the side of the table when it's not being used, there are two magnetic positions, one which is slightly lower on the edge of the device holds the stylus more loosely and doesn't force the stylus to press the volume rocker switch, this position seems to be designed for holding the stylus when you are actually using the tablet. Sliding the stylus up slightly along the edge of the device there is a much stronger magnet holding it in position, In this position the stylus can press the volume down button firmly enough to active it, so it's clearly a storage position. One think to note the stylus should be attached with the writing end pointing toward the volume buttons. This keeps cap end of the stylus from activating the volume buttons accidentally while you're using the tablet.The E-Ink screen is both a blessing and a little bit of a curse, if you're in an environment with enough light, the screen reflects enough light to make writing feel natural. and you don't need the screen light at all. In a completely dark environment you must use the screen light because just like a book or a paper writing pad there is no way to see it in the dark. it's in those "in between lighting condition" environments where there is enough light to write on a paper writing pad, but that light is not enough to use the BOOX without the screen light that can be frustrating. Since the BOOX is a color E-Ink device it reflects less light than a black and white screen would. So you're forced to use the screen light in situations where intuitively you'd think you wouldn't have too, this is actually important because the screen light drains the battery, and battery life is the weakest link for the BOOX, I don't know if it's the fact that the device is running full Android 15 or if it's the digitizer that makes the writing possible, but when used for writing the BOOX seems to burn through the battery fast enough that you can literally watch the battery percentage drop while you're using the device. The "Fuel Economy" is not so bad that you can't get your work done, especially if you're using it like I do, for you own writing tasks, but I do wonder if it would be a good choice for note taking in a college setting where a person might need a solid 7 or 8 hours of battery life to get through a full day, based upon my device it wouldn't make it through even one whole day in that scenario. This leads to charging time, that can be longer than you'd think, the initial charge took several hours (to be fair, the instruction manual said it would take up to 4 hours, so they did a good job managing expectations). If you burn the battery all the way down to 10 or 5% with a long writing session it could be several hours before you're back to 100%.I was pleasantly surprised by how luxurious the BOOX felt when I opened the package, it has a quality look and a density to it that makes it feel solid and well made, the exterior is metal and it's overall elegantly slim it feels good in your hand and it's sturdy and easy to hold for long periods of time.One of the

Works great for reading and there are many options to customize the reading experience such as: sliders modify brightness, sliders for backlighting, along with high contrast and screen refresh settings. It's very good for someone like me who suffers from light triggered migraines. I bought this specifically to avoid migraines with multi-hour reading sessions, since I'm unable to use a regular computer monitor without triggering a migraine after a recent surgery. It seems to work well in that regard.It's a bit big, so this thing is not easily held in one hand. You certainly can do it, but it's not comfortable to do so without leaning the device against something.The setup was a bit of a problem for myself, but shouldn't be a problem for most people. I had difficulty since the front light brightness setting was too bright given my light migraine problem, but after working through that, I was able to change the settings to nearly remove the front light and heavily reduce blue light. Again, an average person won't be bothered by this. This was only for the first time setup, so it's not that big of a negative.It uses a USB C port for charging and there's a wonderful bright color outlining the port. No issues charging it outside of the keyboard case.My only wish after reading through some books over the past few hours is that they made the charging icon more obvious in high contrast mode and low front lighting.There are settings to reduce ghosting and honestly, it hasn't bothered me with my current settings. It could be a bigger problem with different settings.This is my first eink reader since an original kindle, so I can't compare it to other models currently on the market, but this is great to read from. The tech has come a long way.The colors on this eink reader aren't going to match up perfectly to a regular phone or monitor, but that is expected-the technology isn't there yet. I bought this knowing that before purchasing. Personally, the color screen has been enjoyable-certainly better than a greyscale reader.Have yet to try the stylus that came with it, as I only intended to use this for reading with the kindle and O'Reilly books apps. No issues using the Google play store on it.I would definitely recommend this to someone if they had had the money to spend and were looking for an eink reader.

This was an upgrade from a Note Air 2. I love the colors but those come at a cost. The screen is much darker and where I almost never had to use the front light with the NA2, I always have to have the light on with the NA5C. This causes the battery to drain considerably faster than the NA2 did. It isn't a huge problem since I can charge it every day or two and be fine.The only other issue I am having has to do with a little bug where the stylus doesn't register after the device is woke up from sleep. Boox is aware of this and will hopefully patch it soon.I am enjoying having the more "Android tablet" style OS compared to the NA2 which was more notebook focused. Ghosting seems to have improved a lot too. The stylus doesn't feel like ballpoint pen or pencil on paper, but more of a felt tipped pen. This is actually really nice and feels great to me. The removable storage cap isn't my favorite change but I like having the extra nibs handy. A screw on cap without a clip would have been perfect.If you are looking for a color e-ink device, I think this is the best option on the market currently. I looked into the RMPP and the new Scribe but both were much more limited and locked into a specific ecosystem. The NA5C is much more flexible and allows for more customization.