(The only DRM the e-reader supports is the Chinese-focused JD DRM.) But, when I actually purchased an ePUB from and tried to load it onto the Nova Air C, I discovered that it doesn’t support the Adobe DRM the store uses.
ONYX COLOR DOWNLOAD
You can download ebooks from elsewhere on the internet and then transfer them to the tablet, and it supports a good range of filetypes, including PDF, ePub, TXT, RTF, and MOBI.
That leaves you with a couple of other options. Although the Nova Air C technically comes with a built-in “Store,” in practice it seemed to be filled mainly with public domain works, and I couldn’t find any of the modern books I was hoping to read. But be prepared to sacrifice a little battery life for this increase in responsiveness.īut trying to use the tablet like a traditional e-reader is more complicated, and you’ll have to jump through more hoops than on competing devices like the Kindle. I’d suggest adjusting the “Power-off timeout” in settings to one or even two days, which will allow the laptop to wake in a couple of seconds when you want to use it. This can mean waiting around 27 seconds for the tablet to boot up every time you want to use it. That said, part of the reason for this impressive life is likely to be the Nova Air C’s aggressive power management settings, which, by default, see the tablet fully shut down if you don’t use it for just 15 minutes. I’ve been using the tablet on and off for the better part of two months, and its battery level is still sitting at 55 percent. Battery life is also as impressive as any other e-reader. I had no issue reading the Nova Air C in bright sunlight, and, with a small boost to its screen illumination feature, I was also able to read it in low light before bed with no eye strain. My former colleague Sam Byford described the colors on the similar Kaleido-equipped PocketBook Color as like “a newspaper that’s faded over a few days,” which felt like a very apt description of the Nova Air C.ĭefault power-saving settings are a little conservativeĭespite the color, the tablet retains the benefits of an E Ink display. And even then, the colors are far more muted than what you’d get from even a cheap LCD panel, whose range of colors can be counted in the millions - not the thousands. For starters, the screen can’t display color content with the same resolution as black and white, so while the display reaches 1404 x 1872 in black and white (300ppi), it’s limited to a paltry 468 x 624 (100ppi) when showing color. The approach comes with some obvious drawbacks.
ONYX COLOR PLUS
The Nova Air C is equipped with E Ink’s Kaleido Plus screen, which uses a color filter layer on top of a more typical E Ink panel to offer 4,096 colors. The main attraction here is the color E Ink display. (Amazon’s Kindles haven’t included them for years.) Internally, the Nova Air C is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. They’re roughly as bad as I expected them to be, but it’s better than nothing. Its power button is on the top left, while a USB-C port is on the bottom alongside a pair of downward-firing speakers. The Onyx Boox Nova Air C is an unassuming device, with big bezels around its 7.8-inch screen and a generally plastic-feeling construction. It’s just a shame that the total package doesn’t fully deliver on the promise.īuy for $419.99 from Amazon Buy for $419.99 from Onyx
ONYX COLOR ANDROID
But that price gets you something closer to a full-on Android tablet than an e-reader. It even includes a stylus for handwritten notes.Īt $420, it’s pricey compared to Amazon’s Kindles, which often cost well under the $200 mark. It opens the door to numerous read-later apps as well as full-on word processors and third-party note-taking software.
Unlike either a Kindle or Kobo, its E Ink display is capable of showing colors, and it’s running a modified version of Android that allows you to download and run a variety of apps that go far beyond reading ebooks.
I could switch to a Kobo, which offers native integration with rival read-later app Pocket, but the Onyx Boox Nova Air C offers a much more tantalizing alternative. But it’s a hacky approach where articles often aren’t formatted properly and sometimes don’t appear at all. My current system involves saving articles to the read-later app Instapaper, which sends a daily digest to my Kindle each evening. Yet, actually doing so requires some creativity if I want to keep up with news online. Some people use camomile tea, others use breathing exercises, but, for me, the most reliable tactic for getting to sleep quickly is to avoid screens before bed.