Infuriatingly Good: Boox Tab Ultra C Pro | Color E-Ink Tablet REVIEW
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- So here’s the thing: The Boox Tab Ultra C Pro really is a good E-Ink productivity tablet and I’ll talk about why I like the improvements Boox made over the Tab Ultra C and go over it’s most important features and also shortcomings in a second.
But first, let me tell you: I hate that I like this tablet. For two reasons.
First: The Boox Tab Ultra C Pro was announced only 6 months after the regular version. I mean, really? E-Ink is developing so incredibly slow, but Boox somehow still sees the need to crank out new tablets in the same category multiple times a year - at this point that’s more often than Samsung, Google or Apple are updating their high-end smartphone and tablet lineups.
And second: They updated the keyboard cover with this new release, which as a buyer of the Boox Tab Ultra C I find infuriating because that new and improved cover isn’t compatible with the older model and I’d be stuck with this flappy mess that came with the Tab Ultra C, if I hadn’t gotten the Tab Ultra C Pro.
Okay enough of that, let’s see what’s what.
⭐ SUBSCRIBE
/ @chalidraqami
🔗 LINKS
► Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C Pro (affiliate): geni.us/0k2d
► Onyx Boox Note Air 3 (affiliate): geni.us/sU8GUr
► Onyx Boox Note Air 3 C (affiliate): geni.us/wanrL
► Onyx Boox Tab Mini C (affiliate): geni.us/xXOXy
► Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C (affiliate): geni.us/9mV3
► Onyx Boox Note Air 3 C Review: • Jack of All Trades: Bo...
► Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C Review: • I'm Switching To Color...
► Onyx Boox Tab Mini C Review: • Compact(ish) Color E-I...
► Bigme Galy Review: • Bigme Galy Review: Col...
Check out the absolutely brilliant LCARS screen by meWho here: www.mewho.com/titan/
🎬 CHAPTERS
00:00 The Infuriating Boox Release Cycle (+Intro)
01:19 Specs, Haptics & Build Quality
04:37 Color E-Ink Kaleido 3 Display
06:12 Frontlight Quality
07:27 Pen Latency, Writing Feel, Boox Pen 2 Pro
08:13 Keyboard Cover
12:14 Software & User Interface
13:04 Note Taking Features
14:03 PDF-Functions
14:53 E-Book-Functions & "E-Book-Store"
15:43 Text-To-Speech + Demo
17:03 Android Apps on E-Ink
18:37 Camera .
19:06 Data Privacy Concerns
19:57 Battery Life
20:37 Conclusion
🖖WHO AM I
I'm Chalid, and I've been a fan of e-ink technology for a very long time. I've been reviewing e-ink devices since 2010. After more than 100 different e-reader tests for my German website, this channel is dedicated to sharing my experiences with the latest e-readers, other e-paper devices, and sometimes other tech in English as well.
🔗 DISCLAIMER/DISCLOSURE
The tips, tricks and experiences shared are for guidance only; any actions taken based on these are solely at your own risk. Some links in the description contain affiliate links, which means that if you buy something through these links, I will receive a small commission on a purchase at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you so much for supporting the channel.
🔖 TAGS
E-Ink Kaleido 3, Color E-Ink Tablet, Boox Tab Ultra C Pro, Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C Pro, Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C, Boox Tab Series, Onyx Boox, Onyx Boox International, Boox Tab Ultra C Pro Review, Boox Tab Ultra C Pro Keyboard Cover, Keyboard Cover
#boox #eink - Věda a technologie
Thanks for the review the camera not letting the tablet stay flat on the table is a deal breaker. I was willing to overlook that it's set up for right handed people but I can't deal with that wobble. Appreciate the honesty.
Thanks for the review. I've been using mine for a month now and love it. Biggest pluses for me:
- Note taking using OneNote has been great and I use it all the time now and have stopped pen n paper note taking all together.
- Using OneNote as a whiteboard to collaborate during Teams meeting has been smooth.
- using OneNote during seminars and taking photos of slides which auto crops and immediate inserts into OneNote is massively convenient.
- being able to get Outlook, OneDrive, Sharepoint all in one device has reduced my need to access my laptop, unless I need to write long documents or emails or use Excel.
Not a fan of the keyboard but that's because I still carry my Surface Pro X if I need to use keyboard and mouse extensively. The keyboard is ok, but the weight annoys me for regular use.
Love the Pen feel.
Battery is acceptable, considering I'm using it extensively with MS Office suite of products.
Love it!
I’m loving your Disco season 5 countdown in the background.
Excellent review! congratulations!👍👍👍👍
Great call out for final season of Discovery! 🖖
Thanks for another great review. 🙂
Boox really makes it hard for customers to trust that the money they spent on their products is going to serve them well. Both their update policy and the fact that they create accessories without keeping backwards compatibility in mind simply steer me to other brands. The money one spends with e.g. Supernote or Remarkable may get you an, on paper, less capable product, but one can be certain that it will be kept up-to-date for many years, something Boox seems incapable off.
A color e-ink display? That's awesome!
Since I purchased my Boox device, I have had nothing but issues with the touch screen. Only calling out for a buyers beware. Capacitive touch keeps going to "Unknown." I have to open a ticket. They have to send me a firmware update. And then it fails again a couple of weeks later. Just a warning to people before purchasing that I find the hardware to be unstable.
Personally I've only had hardware problems with one Boox device in the past - a Boox T68 Lynx (around 2014), which had problems with the battery right from the start. Since then I recommend getting Boox devices only from Amazon or local sellers for easier warranty handling.
@@ChalidRaqami I actually purchased the device from Boox. The latest comment from them was that they will offer US warranty work in April some time and would get back to me when it is available. I have been super patient. I just wont purchase another Boox device.
I had a boox I bought from their amazon page arrive with dead color pixels and messed up pen. I was able to get a full refund and bought another off their website and luckily everything is good to go on that one. So it's definitely a case of poor chinese quality control which is a shame because they make the best e-ink devices right now.
How is the battery life for normal use? I got a remarkable 2 which is great but it seems like an android colour version that is backlight may be more useful as I don't really like to write too much by hand
Battery life is not the greatest. It's not bad, but definitely one of the very few weak-spots. If you don't need color, but want the frontlight and Android, check out the Note Air 3 (non-C version). That one has better battery life.
Excellent review
We want a 12" screen that is less dark, with higher contrast, that we can use indoors without the front light. I returned it and keeping the Onyx Tab X, as it makes it much easier to read books. I wish they would use faster CPUs and improve the refresh technology to clear ghosting in all backgrounds, not just white.
The audio on this video is crystal clean and smooth, just gotta say. ❤ I was distracted trying to look for your microphone lol
I just assumed Chalid has trained an AI voice
Yes, that as well - you can hear the AI generated voice output starting from 09:51 for roughly 40 seconds, where I used it to fill the gap for missing audio recording. Other than that I use AI-tools to further enhance clarity, but it's still me speaking.
I was experimenting with AI-dubbing (for english and other languages), but that didn't work out as well as I hoped with lip synchronicity. At least not yet. But I'll keep experimenting with those tools until I'm happy with the outcome :)
Does ONYX's note-taking software have a left handed mode (moving the tabs from the left hand side of the screen to the right side)? I can't find a solid answer anywhere.
They don't call it that, but you can rotate the UI by 180 degrees and then move the toolbar to the other side of the screen as well. So that's essentially a left-handed mode in 2 steps.
I think the Note Air line is the stable, extended-service-release-like branch (of Firefox or Unbutu)
And the ultra line is more like the bleeding edge, buying in for the latest and greatest… but backwards compatibility may suffer
What is the material that allows seeing through the metal chassis at 11:20? Some kind of memory magnet.
It's a magnetic field viewing film
Just discovered your channel today. I was wondering how batery life, screen quality, brightness and ghosting compare between Ultra C Pro and Air 3C compare. I guess Air 3C not having the camera bump would be a plus as well. What would 4G vs 6G difference mean? Although they are different product categories, I think 30% price difference still make them comparable. Maybe another video to compare 2 color tablets while you have your hands on them? Please 🤓
Already working on the comparison ... :)
All in all the differences are minor, I'd say. But it really depends on what exactly you will be doing on the tablet to choose one over the other. I'll also specifically look at the things you mentioned in the video!
My primary purpose is for my 4-year old to use some apps on it. I am avoiding traditional tablets for 2 main reasons: Too many animations seem to create a dopamine junkie out of fresh brains and worried about possible eye sight problems. Ideally I would never introduce an iPad to a kid, but she sees it everywhere.
@@chefnyc Hm, tough choice. I'd say for that purpose both are very, very similar. I feel like the Note Air 3C is more durable, but can't really back that up with any data.
The Note Air 3C has a pre-applied screen protector, which can be a plus, because you can simply change it, in case it gets damaged. But the Tab Ultra C Pro has a scratch resistant screen and it has a bit more clarity (because it doesn't have that paperlike texture).
Personally I'd go for the Tab Ultra C in that case because I think the scratch resistant front glass should offer enough protection for typical usage and the slightly better clarity is also a small advantage.
But as I said, though choice. No right or wrong here imho.
I ended up buying Air 3C. Mostly using it for children books and drawing. I am a bit disappointed that all Android children apps have animation, jingles, and too many colors. I guess I will write some apps myself. I am avoiding a regular tablet for all those reasons and the apps are all designed like that. I am waiting for a better version to buy myself a larger e-ink monitor for programming.
I'm still waiting on refinement of ink tech shown in bigme galy. Which is already late to it's own party. Any idea when it might be getting used propey.
Good question. It was said to launch in 2023 with a couple of companies, but besides Bigme, which produced the Galy only in small numbers, no other company release a device with E-Ink Gallery 3. According to PocketBook there where some issues on the side of the E Ink Holdings. Since that statement I haven't heard anything new.
The tech didn't look all that bad in the Bigme Galy, but definitely needed more refinement. So hopefully they managed to do that last year so maybe we'll see something in the second half of 2024. But that's just me speculating.
Does it fit a standard full page of two-column research article paper?
No, for that the 10.3 inch display is a bit too small. With cropping the page margins you almost get to it, but not quite.
But there are 2 other options that I think work better:
1. Using landscape to show the page in full width, with the need to scroll up and down, or
2. using the columns mode. I demo it at 14:03. I think that's actually the best option for two column papers. You might just need to zoom out for tables etc.
@@ChalidRaqami
Thank you 🙏
I knew it wasn't just my impression that the lighting was so different between right and left.
how's a camera useless? I'd love to have one to scan/OCR paper documents.
Your phone has a better one
In theory yes - it could be great.
But besides the wobbling issue, the main problem with it is, that it's mediocre at best imho. OCR itself works well enough, but everything else about it isn't really all that handy. You have to copy and paste the OCR text somewhere to save it. Or you can save a Text-PDF, which for some reason is weirdly formatted and hardly usable. And the quality of Image PDFs and images you place inside of notebooks isn't great either.
The document scanning feature on most modern phones simply work better. I'd rather set up a sync via dropbox or something similar for those images (phone to tablet) and get better quality scans on my phone and not have that annoying wobble when writing something on the tablet.
My phone camera is not 16 MP@@JoaoSilva-yh4dg
Is this not solved by getting better scanning software from the playstore? I am not a fan of cloud services myself and sometimes I have no access to wifi and dislike setting a hotspot for something that can take a few secs. @@ChalidRaqami
sounds like a SW issue. So just get a better app in the playstore? I personally dislike cloud services, or being out of wifi range and needing to setup a hotspot for something that should take a few secs.@@ChalidRaqami
Is the audio overdubbed?
No, not exactly. It's still me speaking, but it's edited for better clarity.
That’s what I was thinking…
I noticed too 😂
Thank you for mentioning really important point that this device connecting to Chinese server .
14:35 piesia su spalvom ant pdfo
I’m glad the technology is advancing but I can’t help but think that the vast majority of people would be far better off with an iPad. If cost is an issue, get a refurbished older model. If weight is an issue, get the iPad mini. The only benefit to a reader than I can think of is the display being easier on the eyes and functioning better outside on a sunny day. I purchased a Kindle Oasis a few years ago but I never picked it up again after the first few days with it.
Interesting take on this. My preference is to spend my reading time on a device that is actually MORE limited in access to distractions than a normal tablet. I have been using Kindle devices for about six or seven years and I really like E-readers. The good news is that there are many options and we don’t need to settle for a “one size fits all” device. What works for me is not necessarily what works best for you. 🙂
Whereas my eyes are exactly why I picked up a Note Air 3C and am looking at the Boox Palma. I’d prefer to use e-ink screens where possible since I spend my entire work day staring at my computer screen. I’m already reading more than ever before thanks to the 3C. My eyesight has sucked since I was 3 years old. Now I’m about to turn 50, so I need to help them out whenever possible.
Stop being mad & whining - electronics rapidly change - as soon as you buy any electronics item it's obsolete and a new model is coming soon - that's just how it is
Too much music in the background , so annoying.