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Color content tends to come from magazines and comic books, and on a 7.8” screen, this material is just too small to read unless you constantly zoom. Then there’s the fact the Onyx Boox Nova3 Color is a color device, which is super fun to play with, though it rarely adds any benefit to reading. Thankfully the built-in reading app NeoReader is fantastic, but sideloading e-books is a prerequisite to take advantage of the wealth of formatting features in this app. As a result I’ve only used apps like Gmail, Calendar, and Solid Explorer.
#ONYX COLOR MANUAL#
While Onyx has included a boatload of settings so that users can feel out their preferred experiences, Android apps require constant manual screen refreshes, which sure puts a damper on reading through any Android apps. To be clear, the Onyx Boox Nova3 Color is a device for enthusiasts since the user experience lacks a good deal of polish. Compared to what Kobo, Kindle, or Nook have to offer with their proprietary and locked-down firmwares, Boox is a powerhouse, and it's all thanks to Android. Not only can I easily sideload my e-books through the likes of Drive, but I can chill to some tunes streamed from Spotify as I read (thanks to the speaker on the back of the device), or I can throw on an Audible audiobook once my eyes grow tired to finish off a chapter before I go to bed. These apps might not look great on a screen that only supports 4096 colors, but they function as expected, thus greatly expanding the functionality of a typical e-reader. What does matter is that there’s app support for things like Drive, Spotify, and Audible. Sure, Android 11 probably won’t see the light of day on the e-reader, but it’s not like that really matters.
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It’s a versatile device packing in Android OS 10. Now that I’ve had a chance to use the Onyx Boox Nova3 Color for a month straight, I can confidently say it’s still one of my favorite E-Ink e-readers. It clearly has trouble refreshing quickly with lots of colors unless you switch to the Speed Mode or the A2 Mode, but then you'll have to balance how much ghosting is acceptable. If you draw or take notes with a thick line, things can get bogged down, especially if you choose an opaque color, seemingly a limitation of the color screen. Pen delay is almost comparable to the high-refresh-rate screens on iPads and Android devices, and with the etched glass screen, writing feels as close to paper as you're going to get (this does wear down the nubs faster).
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You can actually highlight text with multiple bright and transparent colors, just as you would on paper, so if you're a student or would like a way to quickly highlight text or take notes, the built-in Wacom support is excellent. The Nova3 Color also excels as a powerful note-taking device, primarily because of the color screen. That could be a hindrance for some, but I prefer to manage my own collection by stripping DRM and storing the files locally. So yes, you'll have to manually manage your library if you want to get the most out of the Nova3 Color.
#ONYX COLOR FREE#
There's a free e-book store included, but the books are all old public domain classics. This reader supports many formats, including MOBI, EPUB, and CBR/CBZ. Since Android apps are a bit of a lost cause for reading on the Nova3 Color, you're going to want to sideload your e-book library to take advantage of the stock reading app NeoReader. A lighter background for better text contrast would have been nice to see, but what's provided is no worse than anything currently available from the more prominent players like Amazon, which also uses E Ink-branded electronic paper panels. With the lighting turned off, the greyish-white screen is about as dark as the Kindle Oasis with its LEDs off. You're stuck with a clinical white hue, but at least the LEDs are pretty bright when maxed. There are 17 white LEDs underneath the bottom bezel that point upwards to backlight the screen, somewhat unevenly, and there's no warm lighting or auto-brightness. When reading simple black and white material, the resolution goes as high as 1404x1872 with 300 dpi, but the res drops to 468圆24 with 100 dpi with color content. This is the third generation color screen from E Ink that offers 4,096 colors, and there's a Wacom digitizer layer that offers 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity for responsive note-taking.
#ONYX COLOR PLUS#
Underneath the etched glass, the Boox Nova3 has a 7.8-inch E Ink Kaleido Plus screen.