ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Boox Word Max comes bundled with the pen and case for $649.
- It is skinny and light-weight, has a high-contrast show, and has a protracted checklist of options that make it a really versatile gadget.
- Theres no backlight, it is monochromatic, and there is a little bit of a studying curve to make use of it to its fullest.
extra shopping for decisions
The Boox Note Max is $60 off on Amazon proper now, making it price $630.
I went hands-on with the Remarkable Paper Pro final 12 months and thought that was an enormous pill. The most recent Boox Note Max takes issues to a different stage with a 13.3-inch show, the dimensions of a normal A4 piece of paper. It is nearly as skinny, too — at simply 0.18 inches, leading to a bodily spectacular, premium gadget.
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The capacitive contact show is a easy glass-covered Carta 1300 display screen, in contrast to the marginally extra textured floor on the Exceptional Paper Professional. I will not preserve citing the Exceptional, I promise, however the comparability between the 2 must be made since these two gadgets are the one premium e-readers on the identical stage by way of efficiency and options.
The Boox Word Max has a decision of 3200 x 2400 (QUXGA) and options 300 pixels per inch. When mixed with the skinny kind issue, this delivers a really high-contrast, sharp picture with ink that seems very near the floor, like paper.
The gadget itself is remarkably skinny, weighing 615 grams (1.3 kilos), however it does not really feel fragile. It is premium however moderately impartial, with rounded corners and a clear white backing. Your entire pill seems like one single unit, with none bend or give between the elements. The very best half: when mendacity flat on a desk, it resembles a chunk of paper.
Underneath the hood, it has 6GB of RAM and a 2.8Ghz Snapdragon A55 processor, with assist for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0. The {hardware} leads to fast-enough speeds when navigating by means of the home windows, however it’s not instantaneous, as there’s a little bit of a delay that is regular fare with e-readers. The on-screen keyboard, specifically, requires some deliberate finger poking to kind with, however it’s simply a kind of belongings you get used to.
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The show is monochromatic, which suggests no shade, and importantly, there is not any backlight, which suggests you are not actually going to have the ability to use it in low mild. The ultrathin and light-weight kind issue is the trade-off for these two options ensuing within the gadget’s ultrathin, uniform design. The plus facet of that is that it seems to be nice in vivid mild, so you could possibly simply take it to the seashore.
The writing expertise on the Word Max could be very satisfying. The pen will not be as heavy because the one which comes with the Exceptional Paper Professional, however it has a cap and a exact tip with simply the slightest little bit of give once you write with it. The consequence, on the pill’s easy floor, is immensely satisfying and fully lag-free.
There are a handful of brushes and pens to make use of, and the toolbar’s sliding menus make brush changes straightforward. The pen, specifically, is essentially the most true-to-life digital replication of a fountain pen I’ve ever seen. It has a responsive and tactile really feel that straight corresponds to how onerous you press the tip. There’s even somewhat little bit of “bleed” of ink once you actually push down.
The monochromatic show does allow you to select “colours,” however they’re basically simply various levels of grey, helpful for highlighting or creating some distinction in your designs. There are additionally a handful of 3D shapes you’ll be able to draw, making for some attention-grabbing on-the-fly designs like charts, graphs, or mock-ups.
One factor I seen, nonetheless, is that the contact sensors on the Word Max are somewhat finicky. Resting your hand on the show whereas utilizing the pen may end up in repeated false inputs or activation of gestures. That is a kind of settings that you will must spend a second adjusting. You may flip off or restrict gestures or just disable contact altogether and have it solely acknowledge the pen.
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The pill additionally options built-in twin audio system and a mic, the previous of which might get surprisingly loud. I by no means actually thought-about streaming music from an e-reader, however it’s completely attainable — straightforward, even — particularly with a Bluetooth connection.
In reality, this is likely one of the first issues I seen in regards to the Word Max: there are many options and settings, a lot so that the majority customers in all probability will not make the most of all of them. The quantity of granularity in nearly each setting on the gadget is even somewhat astounding, making this gadget actually shine within the arms of engaged energy customers who get pleasure from discovering new methods to work together with it.
For instance, there is a extremely customizable cut up display screen characteristic, fully freeform markup capabilities on textual content, translation options, read-aloud options, and a wealthy linking system that I recognize as an avid note-taker. You may spotlight a selected part, or perhaps a single phrase, and hyperlink it to exterior webpages, however extra curiously, to your individual notebooks and paperwork saved domestically on the gadget.
There is a Children Mode, a display screen recorder, the power to make use of the gadget as a hotspot, a built-in file drop functionality, and compatibility with most file sorts. Even the floating toolbar is totally customizable, permitting the consumer to pull and drop the options they use most and anchor and resize it to no matter a part of the display screen is most helpful.
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So let’s speak about a few of the drawbacks. One of many greatest issues I had with the Word Max is visible ghosting. The Boox Word excels at producing textual content: it is crisp and high-contrast, even with the quick refresh setting on.
However it has a more durable time with pages that includes heavy graphics, particularly full-page photos from magazines, a lot in an effort to clearly learn the earlier pages’ ink remaining on the show.
It doesn’t matter what setting you are in, there are mild artifacts, however switching to the sooner show settings vastly mitigates ghosting (simply understand that it would require extra battery). Talking of the battery on the Word Max, it’s good, however it is not one which you could merely neglect about.
Boox states that the gadget has round 32 hours of battery life if used solely as an e-reader, however solely round seven hours if used for extra demanding duties like writing.
I discovered this to be about correct. In case you’re utilizing the Word Max primarily for drawing and observe taking, however solely intermittently, it would definitely final just a few days, however not a lot past that. Fortunately, it costs very quick: gaining about 50% in half-hour.
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Lastly, I ought to observe that there’s the Note Max Magnetic Keyboard cowl that may be paired with the gadget for $150, bringing the gadget extra into laptop computer territory, significantly as a result of the keyboard has its personal trackpad. The keyboard and trackpad (like all the opposite features on the Word Max) include an in depth checklist of customizations and functionalities that I did not have an opportunity to check out personally, however I’d think about is right for customers working extensively with textual content paperwork and purposeful enhancing.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation
The Boox Note Max is a robust, versatile software that may be many issues. In case you simply need a light-weight big-screen e-reader, it does that exceedingly nicely. However if you would like a extremely customizable gadget for all the things from doc overview to mock-up and sketch creation to in depth note-taking, it has an exhaustive checklist of options and settings to fulfill the wants of demanding energy customers.
The one different gadget in the marketplace (that I’ve examined, not less than) that comes near this stage of premium note-taking is the Remarkable Paper Pro, which is thicker and heavier however has a shade show and a backlight in change. When it comes to options, the Word Max tries to perform a little little bit of all the things, and the menus and settings are inclined to put themselves in entrance of your face in a method that is likely to be irritating for informal customers.
All in all, it is a implausible gadget that reveals itself over time and one which I completely suggest, significantly should you do not want a backlight or shade show. I recognize that it comes with the pen and case for $650, which is definitely not low cost however well-priced for all it may possibly do.
