Back in August 2021, I reviewed the MobiScribe Origin E-ink Notebook. While the MobiScribe definitely has its limitations, it absolutely does the job it’s supposed to do: it’s a black and white E Ink digital reader, note-taker, and sketch pad, and transferring files from and to the device is no problem at all. In short, it does everything you’d want and hope it would, and I was (and remain) impressed.
Now the people at BOOX very kindly sent me one of their own E Ink (ePaper, as they prefer to call it) devices to try out. BOOX have a whole range of E Ink tablets, from the 6″ Poke3 to the 13.3″ PageBox Lumi. I was sent a Nova3 Color E Ink tablet, which is not only BOOX’s only full-colour tablet but one of very few full-colour E Ink devices out there.
The Nova3 Color works perfectly well as a touchscreen device (something the MobiScribe struggled a little bit with, preferring its stylus to a fingertip), feeling and reacting exactly like your standard phone or tablet screen. It also comes with a stylus/pen for writing and sketching.
The Nova3 Color has two buttons: an On/Off switch at the top right of the device, and one front and centre below the screen. This second button serves as a Back, but also as a means of turning the device’s backlight on and off when held down. There’s a USB C port for charging and file transfer, bottom left, and a small speaker/mic at the rear. That’s it. No headphone jack. Very stripped down, sleek, and minimal.
Reading
So, what’s the first thing you’d do if you got your hands on a full-colour E Ink tablet? You’d read a comic, of course. It just so happened that, the day my parcel from BOOX arrived, I was also lucky enough to be sent a PDF copy of The Queen’s Favourite Witch by Rachel smith and Benjamin Dickson in advance of its publication. I generally dislike reading comics on my computer screen, so taking a look at a digital comic on the Nova3 Color seemed like the perfect way to test it out. [By the way, The Queen’s Favourite Witch is great, and comes highly recommended by our 11-year-old.]
The first thing you notice about colour E Ink is that it’s not as bright and vibrant as the LCD or OLED displays we’re used to. If you imagine reading a comic on an iPad as being like looking at something printed on really, really high gloss paper, then reading a comic on the Nova3 Color is like reading it on newsprint. While the colours are certainly muted in comparison to non E Ink tablets, they don’t look washed out or “wrong”; it’s just a different way of displaying colour. As I said, it reminds me of newsprint comics – like I used to read when I was a kid – so, aesthetically, I actually really like it.
Reading straight black on white text on the Nova3 Color is, as you’d expect, lovely. It’s what E Ink was made for. The 7.8″ screen and 265 g weight make it a truly lightweight, portable, yet decently sized reader, which I can’t help but think of as “zine sized”.
Like all E Ink devices, the Nova3 Color‘s screen looks at its absolute best in bright, direct light such as sunlight but, of course, it has a backlight too. To me though, possibly because it’s literally shining through the back of the E Ink, and the colour filter layer (see the video above for an explanation of how that works), the backlight makes the screen look a bit grainy (for want of a better word). The very fine lines which make up the screen’s colour filter layer are definitely more apparent with the backlight turned on. This isn’t a problem, or even a criticism really; it’s just that you’re never more conscious of the fact that this is definitely an E Ink screen than when you’re reading colour pages in low light, with the backlight turned right up.
You can also use text to speech to listen to books, choosing from a range of voices and setting the reading speed. The Nova3 Color‘s built-in speaker sounds great, but you could also connect to an external Bluetooth speaker or set of headphones, should you wish.
There are several Audio Book apps available in the App Store, including Audible, and you can easily transfer WAV or MP3 files onto the device via USB. Shame there isn’t just an old fashioned headphone socket though.
Short version: Works great as a Black and White Reader, just as you’d expect. Perfect for reading full colour comics digitally, although colour E Ink makes the experience more like reading on newsprint rather than high gloss paper.
Text to speech software means the Nova3 will “read aloud”, and there are plenty of options for Audio Book listening. If you want to use headphones, you’re going to have to connect them via Bluetooth though.
Making notes / handwriting
This is, admittedly, something I haven’t spent enough time playing with, as I was very keen to get to the next part (Typing). Just like the MobiScribe before it, however, the Nova3 Color is also made for making handwritten notes and turning those notes into text. The handwriting recognition seems to be more or less on a par with the MobiScribe (about 90% success, even with my terrible handwriting). You can save your handwritten notes with multiple layers and colours, but once it comes to exporting them you’re given only PNG (All Layers, or Visible Layers) or PDF options. Sadly, the text generated from your handwritten notes can only be exported as PDF. It would definitely be of more practical use to be able to also export those files as .txt, at least.
You can also record voice memos in Notes, and the quality is really good and clear. You can save these voice notes as a layer on a Note, so you could have an explanation of what you’re thinking at the time embedded in the note. These memos are originally saved as PCM files but can be exported as MP3s. Outside of Notes, there is also an independent Recorder app, which records straight to MP3.
Now, by installing G board (Google Keyboard) from the App Store you can enable Voice Typing – which is speech to text recognition, using Google’s speech to text engine. You need to have a WiFi connection for this to work, and it’s a bit of a hidden feature to be honest (I learned about it from YouTube). I managed to get it all set up, but when I tried to use it I was greeted with this message: “Please update to the latest version of the Google app to enable voice typing”. Try as I might, I cannot find what, specifically, it wants me to update, or how to do so. So, I could not get Voice Typing to work, sadly.
Short version: Works well for making handwritten notes, and the recongition rate is about 90% when turning them into text. Unfortunetly, the text can only be exported as PDF.
Voice notes are easy to add and very clear. Sadly, I could not get speech to text typing to work.
Typing
Now, here’s one of the really big plus points for me when it comes to BOOX devices: they have Bluetooth, and therefore can be connected to an external Bluetooth keyboard. This means that a wireless keyboard plus the Nova3 Color plus a word processing app equals a very portable and lightweight writing set-up.
The simplest option you’re faced with right away is typing directly into Notes (which is pre-installed) and that works well enough. When it comes to exporting the text, however, your options are PNG or PDF – neither of which is going to work for scripting, etc. So, not Notes then.
Open the App Store, click on the Study heading and you find Writer Plus (W+). “Writer Plus’ philosophy is Keep it Simple. Writer Plus tries to be as basic as possible, giving you somewhere to turn your thoughts into text, markdown support. Nothing more. Nothing less“. Writer Plus does all of this, and you can export your files as text, .txt, .md, png, and even .html files. The problem is, it looks horrible. I’ve absolutely no idea why, but no matter what font you choose, you’re faced with either white text with a black outline, or else black text with a white outline and a thin black outline around that. Add to this the fact that all the options are invisible until you guess which bit of the otherwise blank screen to prod to open the menu, and it’s a definite no from me. Not Writer Plus then.
Surely I could just use my favourite, stripped-down, writing on the go app: Grammarly? Well, it’s not in the default BOOX App Store, but in apps, there is also a link to the Google Play Store… “This device isn’t Play Protect certified“. Ah okay, seems weird that they’d include a pre-installed shortcut to the Play Store if it doesn’t work on this device, but that’s fine. I’ll just log in to Grammarly through the browser, and then… no, because I’d still need to have the Grammarly keyboard app installed on the device, and I can’t do that, because I can’t download anything from Google Play store. Not Grammarly then.
Go back to the App Store and click on the Work heading. Ah, okay, Evernote, WPS Office Word, OneNote, Microsoft Office Word… At this point, I’m just going to try MS Word, because at least I know what I should be getting. Ah, no. It wants me to sign in to Microsoft and log in to OneDrive or Box or lots of other options which I don’t actually ever use. Ignore all of that. Create a new document to be saved to the Documents folder on this device. Type, type, type. Looks fine. Feels fine. Reads fine. Black letters on a white background. Save as .doc.x is my only option. Fine. No problem. That’ll do. Microsoft Word wins.
So, yes, it is true, Nova3 Color plus a word processing app equals a very portable and lightweight writing set-up. It just took me a lot more messing around to find the right word processing app than I had anticipated.
One of the many handy little extra things the Nova3 Color can do is its split-screen mode. You can have an epub, PDF, etc open one side of your screen while typing on the other. This means that citation, quotation, and reference are easy to do, even though you’re working on a relatively tiny device.
Short version: Works great with a Bluetooth keyboard as a lightweight, portable writing machine. Finding the right word processing software isn’t as easy as it could be, however.
Sketching
Besides reading comics, being able to use the Nova3 Color to create full-colour art is definitely one of the tablet’s selling points. Again, I’m really sorry to say that I haven’t spent enough time with this use of the tablet. I was hoping my wife, Leah, who is ten thousand times the artist I will ever be, would get a chance to really dive deep into the Nova3 Color‘s artistic possibilities, but there just hasn’t been the time, unfortunately.
The first thing I noticed when I started making notes on the Nova3 Color is how much difference the pen/stylus pressure and the direction of the nib make to the marks on the page. It’s a very sensitive and natural feeling, like writing with a fountain pen as opposed to writing or drawing on the MobiScribe, which feels more like using a Sharpie.
If I was going to rough out pages on the Nova3 Color then I would have no problem doing so, but I do feel like it would be me using an actual sophisticated piece of art equipment to basically draw stickmen. Art files can be exported from Notes exactly the same as handwritten notes: either as PNG (All Layers, or Visible Layers) or PDF. I couldn’t find any designated art apps in the App Store, and I can’t access the Google Play store, so I think Notes is the only option.
It’s worth mentioning another of the Nova3 Color‘s cool little bonus features here: Screen Record. Right at the top of your screen in the same pull-down menu where you have your WiFi, Bluetooth, Display Control, etc is a SCreen Record button. Click on that and you’re given a simple little start/stop button which you can use to record whatever you’re doing onscreen direct to an MP4 file. Obviously, this could be incredibly useful for artists who want to document their process.
Anyway, here’s a video I found of an actual artist using the Nova3 Color
Short version: Although I haven’t spent nearly enough time with this aspect of tthe device, and lack the talent to make proper use of it, the artistic possibilities of the Nova3 Color seem very exciting. Screen Record fuction means that artists can easily record their process.
A word about Ghosting
Ghosting is an issue on all E Ink devices. I didn’t really address this in my MobiScribe review, but it is something I noticed straight away, even as far back as when I was trying out the Astrohaus Freewrite. Basically, because of the way E Ink works, you’re sometimes left with after-images, or “ghosts”, of previous words, pages, or on-screen images.
So, let’s say I’m flicking through The Queen’s Favourite Witch: if I have the Nova3 Color‘s Refresh Settings on “Normal Mode” and I’m tapping the right of the screen to advance to the next page every 6 to 10 seconds, then I’m going to see some slight ghosting from page to page. Certain parts of the previous page are going to (very slightly) “show through” on to the next, not unlike seeing through a newsprint page (very slightly) to what’s on its reverse. Now, if I start tapping faster, to skip pages in quick succession, then that ghosting will get worse and, when I stop, I’ll see the after-images or several pages over the one I’m looking at. Slow down, tap forward or backwards a page, and the issue resolves itself, but it is noticeable, even in its subtlest, slightest form.
Again, this is not a complaint, just a statement of the realities of what E Ink can and can’t do at this stage. Colours are not as vibrant as LCD / OLED, screens are not as crisp and clear as LCD / OLED, and ghosting is an issue. These are the things that are going to jump out at you if you’re comparing an E Ink tablet to a regular one.
Now, while the MobiScribe never has any pretensions of being anything other than a Reader, sketcher, and note maker, and has a very limited range of available apps to reflect that, the Nova3 Color will let you download a much wider range of applications. This means that (technically) you can watch videos on the Nova3 Color, but it’s a strange experience. The ghosting issues I’ve described here mean that moving images, like incidental animations such as “loading” gifs, can sometimes not be refreshed quickly and cleanly enough to make them work. A trail of after images can make these animations look weird at best, and unwatchable at worst. With full video, these issues, perhaps surprisingly, arent quite as apparent. Presumably, this is because there’s just so much going on, and filling the screen, that there’s not enough dead space to notice (although that will depend on what you’re watching, of course). Watching videos on the Nova3 Color is like watching through some kind of newsprint filter – reminding me of the magic wizard newspapers in those well-known magic boy wizard films. It’s not ideal, it’s not really what the Nova3 Color is made for, but it’s possible, and you know what? It doesn’t actually look too bad.
Short version: Ghosting is a known E Ink issue. It is definitley noticeable on the Nova3 Color in a number of different senerios, but largley outside of its core sketching, reading, or writing functions.
So, throughout this review, I’ve been comparing the Nova3 Color to the MobiScribe Origin, mostly because I’ve really nothing else to compare it with. I will admit to being slightly frustrated by the limitations of the MobiScribe at first, but I came to realise that it does everything it needs to do.
The Nova3 Color does more. Much more. And, in truth, it can be a bit overwhelming. The temptation is to start thinking of the Nova3 Color as a straight-up, normal Android tablet that just happens to have an E Ink screen. If you think of it that way then it doesn’t really measure up against comparable, non E Ink devices. If however, you appreciate it for what it actually is: a full-colour E Ink digital reader, note-taker, and sketch pad, with text to speech, voice recording, audiobook and music applications, Bluetooth connectivity, etc, etc, etc you start to see that it’s actually pretty amazing. If anything, the Nova3 Color’s downfall is that it looks, feels and acts like the tablets we’re all so used to using. It can do virtually everything a regular Android tablet can do, but that’s not it’s selling point: it’s the things it does better which really matter, and which really set the Nova3 Color apart.