What’s an e-ink display?
Basic principles behind e-ink tech | Image by Indian Express
Before diving deep into the BOOX tablet’s specs, let’s quickly go through the e-Ink screen tech. Unlike conventional liquid crystal or organic LED displays, e-ink displays use tiny microcapsules floating in a fluid.These capsules have an electric charge, and when a current is applied to the screen, they pop up and arrange in the desired configurations.
There are pros and cons to this tech. The biggest advantage is that these displays resemble real ink on paper, and they are easy on the eyes. They also consume much less energy than LCD and OLED screens.
The drawback is that this rearranging of capsules takes time, and the refresh rates of these e-ink screens are very slow compared to the conventional LCD displays.
The BOOX Note X6 e-ink tablet
The new BOOX Note X6 tablet | Image by BOOX
Back to the new tablet in question. The big 10.3-inch display uses Carta 1300 tech, which offers 25% faster refresh rates compared to the previous generation and 30% less input lag. The screen is monochrome with a 300 ppi pixel density and is front-lit.
According to the Weibo post, the tablet will most likely feature specs similar to the last gen model, the Note X5, namely a Qualcomm processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of expandable storage.
There’s no information about the battery, charging, or the exact Android version yet.
The competition
The Amazon Kindle Scribe focuses on… scribbling… | Image by Amazon
Along with the aforementioned Kindle devices (such as the Kindle Scribe, which is the most advanced Amazon tablet), other brands are also pushing hard to get market share in the e-ink tablet realm.
The reMarkable lineup comes to mind, but just like the Scribe, these models focus on handwriting and taking notes, while the BOOX devices rely on a familiar Android experience and are much more flexible.
Should you be excited about it?
The BOOX Note X6 is expected to launch on May 27 in China, but whether or not it will hit the global market is unclear. The company sells a slew of models globally, including the 10.3-inch BOOX Go, so there might be overlap and potential for cannibalizing sales if the Note X6 goes global.E-ink devices are interesting and getting traction as we type this, but there’s a lot of development ahead before they become real competitors in the wider conventional tablet market. For now, they are perfect for consuming static content and simple web browsing, mail work, drawing, etc.
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