Another video review recently surfaced on YouTube for the Onyx Boox N96, and it doesn’t look good if you were hoping for a note-taking device or sketchpad.
The Onyx Boox N96 is an ereader/tablet hybrid that combines open Android 4.0 with a 9.7-inch E Ink screen. The two don’t naturally fit together so results are mixed.
There are there different version of the N96, two of which feature electromagnetic touchscreens with a special stylus pen for writing and drawing on the screen.
Naturally that leads some folks to consider the N96 as a digital notepad.
The video below will likely change people’s mind in that regard.
The reviewer points out that the pen isn’t pressure sensitive like they say it is in the description. The listing for the N96 at Banggood doesn’t mention anything about the pen being pressure sensitive, but the listings at Amazon and eBay have the picture above saying it is. The same picture is also on Onyx’s website for the N96 so something is amiss somewhere.
The N96 is more of an ereader anyway and it’s not really marketed as a notepad but the Android software opens up a lot of possibilities.
Perhaps the 10.3-inch reMarkable Paper Tablet, which is being designed specifically for handwritten notes and accurate sketches, will end up filling that niche later this year.
Nathan,
Do you know if the reMarkable has a backlit screen?
I went to their webpage but couldn’t find where it said it did or didn’t.
Also, do you see anything else out on the horizon from Amazon or another company that will handle writing/drawing like the reMarkable?
Since it’s E Ink there’s definitely no backlight but I don’t think it has a frontlight either. 🙂 It’s hard to say for something that doesn’t exist yet. They could change things by the time it gets released (if it gets released). The problem with stuff like that is it’s so niche it would be hard to be successful. It’s nearly impossible to make money off of something like note taking so all profit has to be made off of hardware, but when there are multipurpose devices like surface tablets that can already do that and a lot more a single use device has to be really good or really cheap to fit in.
One would hope, if the reMarkable is for writing, it will have Bluetooth. Its videos show people using laptops with it in order to get work done. In order, practically, to get writing work done, you must be able to attach a keyboard. And musicians must have a hands-free means of changing pages (e.g., space bar on a keyboard).
Looks like, after several years, Onyx *still* hasn’t nailed basic software UX, which is too bad.