Working on the Boox Note Air 2 Plus with a Bluetooth Keyboard
The dream of having a single machine you can take with you when you’re out and about that will be all things to all people continues. Tried the iPad: but it tried to do too many things without being spectacular at any of them. Laptops: well, sure, but I can’t relax with them in the evening: I always feel like I’m in 'work mode' with them. Enter the Boox Note series of e-ink tablets: Android tablets with the sort of screen you would more commonly associate with a Kindle than a productivity device. Twinned with a Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard, I thought: 'let’s give this a go!
Let's start with the devices themselves. The Logitech keyboard is a known commodity: solid typing experience and quite well balanced. The Note Air 2 Plus is thin and light. The battery life is superb. The standout feature, however, is the Note Air 2 Plus's magnetic case. Like an iPad Smart Cover, the front of the cover has several folds that allow it to form a rudimentary stand. This works well when in e-ink typewriter mode! The overall package is quite flexible, too -- while the separate keyboard means this isn't a laptop, it does mean that I can keep the keyboard in front of a book, for example, and have the display over to one side while I take notes.
Because the Note Air 2 line of e-ink tablets runs full-blown Android 11 (no Android 12, here), you can use other text editing apps. I can't guarantee that they will all play nice with the e-ink screen, but apps like Medium worked well. Moving between apps is a bit of a chore - the e-ink display just won't allow that kind of rapid shifting - but I actually found the focus beneficial. I'm less likely to gawp at whatever is going on over on Twitter if it's simply harder to do. If that sounds like I'm easily distracted or actively looking for ways to avoid doing work, trust your instincts.
For the most part, I happily typed away in the in-built notes app. This is optimised for the e-ink display. I have to say that the text editor is a basic one, but it offers surprisingly responsive functonality. It picked up every keystroke from the bluetooth keyboard and dealt well with me making edits. There are some basic pre-set styles and a decent number of fonts from which one might select. Some functions are missing -- footnotes, for example -- but this is no different to Apple’s Notes app on iOS or (as far as I am aware) Evernote. The layout of the toolbar isn’t the most attractive thing you’ll ever see, so you may want to park this one under 'function over form’.
What’s quite nice about the in-built notes app is that you can export your note into good-old plain text. Yes, plain text is as basic as it comes but it also has one fabulous benefit: it is totally open. My needs are pretty slim but this format will never get locked in or go out of fashion (it hasn’t been in fashion for years, anyway). I then sync these with Dropbox and can access them anywhere.
And then there's the reason you are working on a set up like this in the first place. The screen; the absence of eye strain. In this regard, the screen does register a few ghosting effects here and there and these begin to build up the more you type. You can order a full-screen refresh whenever you want, so it isn't too problematic. The screen's ability to keep up with the pace of my (often quite dodgy) typing is rather impressive and it even allowed me to efficiently double tap certain words to select them for editing.
Overall, the conclusion here is that the Note Air 2 Plus - or any e-ink tablet - isn’t going to be for everyone. They’re inherently weird devices , but they excel in some very niche tasks. While Boox makes more powerful devices that are intended to be more akin to regular tablets, this is something quite different. As distraction-less reading and writing environments, they are stunningly good fun to use.
