Impressions about e-ink reader Note Air2 Plus

Jorge Sanz | 2023-11-04 | 473 words | techie

I’ve been a Kindle user since 2010, first with a Kindle 3, and for the last three years I’ve read on a Kindle Paperwhite pretty happily. However, over the years I’ve gotten more upset with the Amazon ecosystem. Moving your own books to the device is not super hard, but not straightforward; without Readwise[1] or any other export method, highlights and notes are kind of vendor-locked on it; and finally, the lack of support for Spanish public digital libraries (eBiblio[2]) was the last annoyance that made me give up for the time being.

1: https://readwise.io/

2: https://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/cultura/areas/bibliotecas/mc/eBiblio/inicio.html

My old readers

Kind of related, I’ve also gotten more interested in a device to take notes and doodles with a decent screen. I used my Chromebook for this on conferences and personal trips but yet, it is a traditional screen and drawing and reading for extended periods is not ideal.

So finally a few weeks ago I decided to get a BOOX Note Air2 Plus[3]. This is a 10.3 Android e-ink tablet with access to all Google Play applications and a great screen. I’ve already finished a couple of books borrowed from the public digital library with a single battery run and I’m starting my third novel, this one from the Kindle store.

3: https://shop.boox.com/products/noteair2

Without the case, the Note Air2 Plus is thin and sleek

Main apps on the tablet

And that is the biggest advantage for me: the flexibility to read from Kindle, eBiblio, and any EPUB book from the integrated reader. But also I can browse the web, read content in the Geminispace with Lagrange[4], and my RSS and saved articles from the Readwise Reader[5] app. All from a device with a decent battery (not as good as a Kindle, of course, but still good for at least a week of intensive reading at least) and a pleasant cold or warm screen, depending on my environment.

4: https://github.com/skyjake/lagrange

5: https://readwise.io/read

As for note taking, I don’t think I will be doing that a lot in the short term, since I don’t do any meetings away from my computer, or plan to attend conferences without my Chromebook.

But the device is still a full Android 11 tablet, so I can also connect it to an external Bluetooth keyboard to write on Google Docs, or connect it to a headset to listen to audiobooks. I hardly see myself doing this a lot, but it is nice to have this option at hand.

Finally, something a bit weird is that for some reason when I'm on my bed reading on this gadget, I get sleepy faster so I'm probably reading *less*, but with a better experience overall 😅. Regarding the old readers, I don't plan to get rid of them since they could get a second life with someone else on the family or maybe repurpose them somehow if I find the time to hack[6].

6: https://www.instructables.com/Literary-Clock-Made-From-E-reader/

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