ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Boox Note Max comes bundled with the pen and case for $649.
- It’s thin and light, has a high-contrast display, and has a long list of features that make it a very versatile device.
- Theres no backlight, it’s monochromatic, and there’s a bit of a learning curve to use it to its fullest.
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The Boox Note Max is $60 off on Amazon right now, making it cost $630.
I went hands-on with the Remarkable Paper Pro last year and thought that was a big tablet. The latest Boox Note Max takes things to another level with a 13.3-inch display, the size of a standard A4 piece of paper. It’s almost as thin, too — at just 0.18 inches, resulting in a physically impressive, premium device.
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The capacitive touch display is a smooth glass-covered Carta 1300 screen, unlike the slightly more textured surface on the Remarkable Paper Pro. I won’t keep bringing up the Remarkable, I promise, but the comparison between the two has to be made since these two devices are the only premium e-readers on the same level in terms of performance and features.
The Boox Note Max has a resolution of 3200 x 2400 (QUXGA) and features 300 pixels per inch. When combined with the thin form factor, this delivers a very high-contrast, sharp image with ink that appears very close to the surface, like paper.
The device itself is remarkably thin, weighing 615 grams (1.3 pounds), but it doesn’t feel fragile. It’s premium but rather neutral, with rounded corners and a clean white backing. The entire tablet feels like one single unit, without any bend or give between the components. The best part: when lying flat on a table, it resembles a piece of paper.
Under the hood, it has 6GB of RAM and a 2.8Ghz Snapdragon A55 processor, with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0. The hardware results in fast-enough speeds when navigating through the windows, but it’s not instantaneous, as there is a bit of a delay that’s normal fare with e-readers. The on-screen keyboard, in particular, requires some deliberate finger poking to type with, but it is just one of those things you get used to.
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The display is monochromatic, which means no color, and importantly, there’s no backlight, which means you aren’t really going to be able to use it in low light. The ultrathin and light form factor is the trade-off for these two features resulting in the device’s ultrathin, uniform design. The plus side of this is that it looks great in bright light, so you could easily take it to the beach.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
The writing experience on the Note Max is very satisfying. The pen is not as heavy as the one that comes with the Remarkable Paper Pro, but it has a cap and a precise tip with just the slightest bit of give when you write with it. The result, on the tablet’s smooth surface, is immensely enjoyable and completely lag-free.
There are a handful of brushes and pens to use, and the toolbar’s sliding menus make brush adjustments easy. The pen, in particular, is the most true-to-life digital replication of a fountain pen I’ve ever seen. It has a responsive and tactile feel that directly corresponds to how hard you press the tip. There’s even a little bit of “bleed” of ink when you really push down.
The monochromatic display does let you choose “colors,” but they’re essentially just varying degrees of gray, useful for highlighting or creating some contrast on your designs. There are also a handful of 3D shapes you can draw, making for some interesting on-the-fly designs like charts, graphs, or mock-ups.
One thing I noticed, however, is that the touch sensors on the Note Max are a little finicky. Resting your hand on the display while using the pen can result in repeated false inputs or activation of gestures. This is one of those settings that you’re going to have to spend a moment adjusting. You can turn off or limit gestures or simply disable touch altogether and have it only recognize the pen.
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The tablet also features built-in dual speakers and a mic, the former of which can get surprisingly loud. I never really considered streaming music from an e-reader, but it’s absolutely possible — easy, even — especially with a Bluetooth connection.
In fact, this is one of the first things I noticed about the Note Max: there are lots of features and settings, so much so that most users probably won’t utilize all of them. The amount of granularity in virtually every setting on the device is even a little astounding, making this device really shine in the hands of engaged power users who enjoy discovering new ways to interact with it.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
For example, there’s a highly customizable split screen feature, completely freeform markup capabilities on text, translation features, read-aloud features, and a rich linking system that I appreciate as an avid note-taker. You can highlight a specific section, or even a single word, and link it to external webpages, but more interestingly, to your own notebooks and documents stored locally on the device.
There’s a Kids Mode, a screen recorder, the ability to use the device as a hotspot, a built-in file drop capability, and compatibility with most file types. Even the floating toolbar is completely customizable, allowing the user to drag and drop the features they use most and anchor and resize it to whatever part of the screen is most useful.
Also: I gave away my Kindle and iPad within hours of using this tablet
So let’s talk about some of the drawbacks. One of the biggest concerns I had with the Note Max is visual ghosting. The Boox Note excels at generating text: it’s crisp and high-contrast, even with the fast refresh setting on.
But it has a harder time with pages featuring heavy graphics, especially full-page images from magazines, so much so that you can clearly read the previous pages’ ink remaining on the display.
No matter what setting you’re in, there are light artifacts, but switching to the faster display settings greatly mitigates ghosting (just keep in mind that it will require more battery). Speaking of the battery on the Note Max, it is good, but it isn’t one that you can simply forget about.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
Boox states that the device has around 32 hours of battery life if used solely as an e-reader, but only around seven hours if used for more demanding tasks like writing.
I found this to be about accurate. If you’re using the Note Max primarily for drawing and note taking, but only intermittently, it will certainly last a few days, but not much beyond that. Luckily, it charges very fast: gaining about 50% in 30 minutes.
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Lastly, I should note that there is the Note Max Magnetic Keyboard cover that can be paired with the device for $150, bringing the device more into laptop territory, particularly because the keyboard has its own trackpad. The keyboard and trackpad (like all the other functions on the Note Max) come with an extensive list of customizations and functionalities that I didn’t have a chance to test out personally, but I would imagine is ideal for users working extensively with text documents and functional editing.
ZDNET’s buying advice
The Boox Note Max is a powerful, versatile tool that can be many things. If you just want a lightweight big-screen e-reader, it does that exceedingly well. But if you want a highly customizable device for everything from document review to mock-up and sketch creation to extensive note-taking, it has an exhaustive list of features and settings to satisfy the needs of demanding power users.
The only other device on the market (that I’ve tested, at least) that comes close to this level of premium note-taking is the Remarkable Paper Pro, which is thicker and heavier but has a color display and a backlight in exchange. In terms of features, the Note Max tries to do a little bit of everything, and the menus and settings tend to put themselves in front of your face in a way that might be frustrating for casual users.
All in all, it’s a fantastic device that reveals itself over time and one that I absolutely recommend, particularly if you don’t need a backlight or color display. I appreciate that it comes with the pen and case for $650, which is certainly not cheap but well-priced for all it can do.
