It’s a high-end 7.8-inch color eReader.
If you need color right now, it’s worth its $420 price tag.
Want a color eReader?
It usesE Ink’s Kaleido Plusreflective color technology.
But are comic books, magazines, and more on ePaper worth $420?
And is better than the $330 PocketBook Inkpad Color?
Who Should Buy a Color E Ink Tablet?
In other words, the colors look washed out.
Even so, it’s suitable for the education market and as a comic book reader.
Onyx Boox Nova 3 Color Specifications
What Do These Specs Mean?
Compared to the Pocketbook Inkpad Color, the Onyx Nova 3 is substantially better.
Both eReaders, unfortunately, dispense with the warm, amber-tinted LED front light system.
What’s Kaleido Plus?
How Does It Look on the Nova 3 Color?
Kaleido Plus brings to mind the age-old adage “perfect is the enemy of good”.
It’s not perfect but it’s good enough.
While its colors are recognizable, they’re also bleached-out with the intensity of Jet-Puffed Fruity Marshmallows.
A sad truth behind Kaleido is that it doesn’t match paper in visual quality.
It’s not even comparable to backlit display technologies.
Your phone’s OLED or LCD panel offers far greater color depth and superior screen clarity.
But comparing Kaleido to a phone or a magazine misses the point.
Kaleido does one thing: it brings color to reflective (or non-emissive) display technology.
The easiest method is installing a cloud storage app, like Dropbox or OneDrive.
Reading on a Nova 3 Color doesn’t capture the fidelity of pulped paper or a backlit tablet.
The Nova 3 Color getsHigh color, which comprises 4,096 colors.
The issue is low color saturation.
In other words, colors aren’t as intense as on a backlit smartphone screen.
But that’s an acceptable tradeoff if you’re concerned about eye strain.
The image-quality loss looks worst when viewing whites.
Small text looks blurrier and harder to read.
When compared side-by-side to a regular Carta panel, the quality difference jumps out at you.
The included passive stylus feels about as light as a pencil, weighing in at just 10 grams.
I wouldn’t advise using the Nova 3 Color for serious drawing.
First, its colors will not look the same when exported to a computer.
Unfortunately, the implementation of color suffers from a few serious bugs.
Second, the color layer suffers from high levels of ghosting, also known as image retention.
In other words, the screen oftentimes carries forward artifacts of previously rendered text and graphics.
Fourth, every time you change from highlighting to note-taking, it requires changing the pen color.
How to Annotate and Highlight eBooks
Annotating books only works inside of the default Neo Reader app.
Taking notes works like this: you simply kick off the notes layer inside of the Neo Reader app.
If you change the color of the tip, it’ll highlight instead of annotate.
Unfortunately, there’s a great deal of input delay for colored input.
But while it’s irritating, it doesn’t damage the Nova 3 Color’s functionality.
However, the refresh speed won’t impress anyone.
Slow animations may get fully rendered but fast animations look like teleportation.
In other words, Angry Birds might play fine but racing games will be unbearable.
Warranty Policy
Onyx warranties their products for a year after purchase through Michigan-basediCareRepair.
However, it never received the update to Android 10 and remains on Android 9.
It’s likely that Onyx will provide three (or more) years of software support for their products.
But when it comes to version updates, they don’t seem to provide such support.
The Boox Nova 3 Color isn’t perfect.
The Nova 3 Color suffers from quite a few problems, thanks to the newness of CFA technology.
But on top of issues with CFA, there are a handful of bugs that suggested a rushed design.
On the 21GB of storage that’s available, you might fit approximately 1,500 standard-size comic books on it.
No Amber Lights
A feature that became standard among high-end eReaders is variable color temperature front lights.
Unfortunately, no Kaleido Plus eReader offers an amber front light.
For those who are disturbed by blue or white lights, I’d suggest buying ablue-light-blocking screen protector.
Ghosting and Bugs
I’ve noticed a few bugs.
The ghosting persists even using slower refresh modes.
This bug didn’t exist on black-and-white editions of Onyx’s eReaders.
Additionally, there are numerous minor bugs.
For example, the native internet internet tool doesn’t seem to work at all.
you’ve got the option to download a third-party web app, like Firefox.
You’ll find none of these issues with the Inkpad Color.
That means anyone with an Onyx eReader needs to independently validate their rig with Google.
But new technologies always make the older tech cheaper.
Waiting could be a good strategy.
Gallery 4100 offers greater color saturation, although with slower refresh speeds for full-color images.
In other words, it’s an entirely different technology from Kaleido.
The denser pixel structure results in a dramatic improvement in image fidelity, color saturation, and resolution.
On the downside, juggling four pigments, as opposed to two, means slower refreshes.
Essentially, rendering a greater range of colors requires more sophisticated software and hardware.
Interestingly, E Ink’s engineers discovered a way to speed up black-and-white refreshes on Gallery 4100 panels.
For note-taking, the Nova 3 Color should offer superior performance compared to Gallery 4100.
But for color saturation, Gallery 4100 rules the roost.
Should You Buy an Onyx Boox 3 Color?
The Boox Nova 3 Color combines great hardware (for an eReader) with backlight-free color technology.
Both panels may make their way into Onyx products.
In my opinion, despite its bugs, the Boox 3 Color offers something unique to eReader enthusiasts.
It’s a high-end 7.8-inch color eReader.
If you need color right now, it’s worth its $420 price tag.
I’d advise waiting until the new technologies come out before buying.
