Onyx Boox Max 2 Pro Test

PCMag writes thousands of reviews each year, and then information technology's rare that nosotros come across a product that is truly unique. But that'south the best fashion to describe the Onyx Boox Max2. It'due south a gigantic E Ink-based Android tablet, with a bear upon screen, pen, and full Android application support. Information technology'south quirky, and it doesn't stop yous from trying to do entirely inappropriate things with E Ink. Only as a big (thirteen.3-inch!) E Ink tablet, it's wildly functional and hands outpaces the Sony Digital Paper DPT-RP1. But at $799.99, it also costs equally much as a 12.nine-inch iPad Pro.

Hardware and Features

Kindles only get upward to 7 inches, and Kobos but get up to 8. They're fine for reading all-time sellers, but for large-format PDF documents, academic journals, textbooks, and sail music, traditional ebook readers are just too small. That's when y'all need to plough to a larger tablet.

The Onyx Boox Max2 is a big black slab, at 12.8 by ix.3 by 0.3 inches and 19.iv ounces. Heavier than an iPad, it's not something you desire to carry effectually in one hand for long.

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Below the 13.3-inch, 2,200-past-1,650 bear upon screen at that place are four physical navigation buttons. There'southward likewise a headphone jack, micro USB and micro HDMI ports, and a fabric loop to agree the included stylus. (The pen has a prune that hooks onto the loop.) Yous can't come across it, only there's a tiny, tinny speaker, as well.

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The screen itself looks great. It's East Ink Carta, the same as on the Kindle Paperwhite, at 207 pixels per inch, with a range of fonts and sizes. It's missing a front light, so you tin can't read it in the dark, and similar all E Ink, it's still sixteen-bit grayscale. Touch responsiveness is fine. In that location'southward some lag in typing on the impact keyboard, only that appears to be more almost the refresh rate of the E Ink display than about the touch sensor.

The Boox Max2 runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow on a 1.6GHz Rockchip processor. It has 2GB of RAM, and 23.6GB of free storage. At that place's no SD carte du jour slot, but 23.6GB is a lot of storage for a reading tablet. With Geekbench scores of 840 single-core and 2087 multi-cadre, it benchmarks like a decent, midrange smartphone. Just of course benchmarks don't actually mean anything for performance here, considering every action is slowed by the glacial refresh rates of the E Ink screen. For networking, the Boox Max2 has Wi-Fi on 2.4GHz only.

App compatibility is surprisingly practiced. The previous Boox Max ran Android 4.0, which has security flaws and which some apps no longer support. With Android 6.0, the apps we downloaded from the Google Play store more often than not worked. Failures came with games, every bit you'd look: Anything that relies on fast-moving screen images is going to struggle, suffer, and mayhap crash.

Information technology'due south hard to test the battery life of an E Ink tablet, merely the Boox Max2 didn't need a accuse in over a calendar week. Onyx says it gets upwards to four weeks of use on the four,100mAh battery. Flipping through a 453-page book in the PDF reader took about three percent of bombardment life, which is very encouraging. That'southward much better than on the Sony tablet.

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Reader's Please

So why do you want Android on a big E Ink tablet? For nearly people, information technology will be to run multiple document viewing and eastward-reading apps, and the Boox Max2 is well-suited for that. We tried Kindle, Kobo, Curiosity Unlimited, Overdrive, and Onyx'due south own reading app. Onyx's app handles PDF, ePUB, HTML, DOC, MOBI and CHM files.

There are enough of ways to get files onto the tablet. It appears as a bulldoze on Windows PCs, when plugged in with a micro USB cable. Since information technology runs Android, you tin also install your deject storage app of choice and download files, or download files direct using a web browser.

I tin can't emphasize enough the difference third-party apps, and a current version of Android, make to the utility of this tablet. Unlike other E Ink slates, it's brand-doubter and relatively future-proof, able to use multiple document sources and read any kind of file. It is not, in any style, locked downwards.

In Onyx'due south reading app, PDFs and ePubs of books, magazines, and sheet music all look good. Unlike on the Sony reader, you lot tin can jump to a specific page in a long document. PDF hyperlinks work, every bit does pinch-to-zoom. Shadows can expect a flake muddy, especially in color documents, only you can become effectually that with the manual contrast control. There's a very tinny, computery text-to-speech communication function that uses the small-scale built-in speaker. You tin ameliorate the audio by attaching wired or Bluetooth headphones.

Loading third-political party reading apps, Aural, Kindle, and Kobo all worked perfectly (although Kindle needed a firmware update to make its page turns work properly). Marvel Unlimited worked well, although shadows on colour pages shown on the black-and-white Eastward Ink screen, every bit I said above, are a bit muddy. Overdrive has an interesting page-plough beliefs that might annoy some people: The left half of the folio renders, and then, a noticeable fraction of a 2d later, the correct half. Switching the tablet into "A2," a faster refresh style, makes the folio turns better simply makes the text noticeably fuzzy and creates meaning ghosting.

The Boox Max2 has a Wacom pen-sensitive layer, and comes with a great, responsive stylus. Since this is Wacom, the pen doesn't need charging, different the Sony model. You need to use Onyx'southward annotation and notation-taking apps to brand information technology work properly, just in those apps, latency is very depression and the pen feels perfectly smooth. It'south pressure-sensitive, but with only xvi degrees of grayscale on the screen, it's hard to take advantage of that much.

Yous can export your annotations and annotation pages as PNGs. Palm rejection worked well in the default notation-taking app. In OneNote, Evernote, and Inkredible, latency is just too high for the pen to exist usable and the lag is intolerable, so nosotros tin can't recommend the tablet for those applications. It works well for reading notes in OneNote and Evernote—just not making notes with the pen.

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E Ink for Your PC

Over the years I've heard most folks who simply want an E Ink screen as their primary PC, considering they have a trouble with LCDs. The Boox Max2 works with web browsing, e-mail, and other standard Android apps, and you can attach a Bluetooth keyboard or headset. Only y'all take to be a real E Ink aficionado.

There'southward a significant filibuster in scrolling through spider web pages and typing text, over again because E Ink is a slow medium. There are also rendering errors in the web browser: white text on a black background displays as all black, for instance. Google Maps loads, but you need to fiddle with the dissimilarity to run into streets well.

The Boox Max2's weirdest feature is that it can act as a secondary monitor for anything with an HDMI out, such as many PCs. That'south not a good thought with Eastward Ink, because PC applications just assume that your screen has a higher refresh rate: moving a mouse and dragging windows around on an E Ink screen has a disturbing amount of lag. It's all-time used to just allow a static prototype sit for reference. Even without this feature, though, the Boox Max2 is pretty great.

I'one thousand a petty concerned nearly service and support. Onyx is a China-based company, and while it'due south responsive to user queries on Amazon (too as to my own), it's very far away and its English isn't the best. With an $800 product, I desire a US-based service and support team, and Onyx doesn't accept that on offer.

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Comparisons and Conclusions

The Onyx Boox Max2 is a behemothic ebook reader, a top-notch notation-taking tablet, and a total Android device. While we would prefer better tertiary-party note-taking app back up, the Boox Max2 is by far the most capable Due east Ink device nosotros've ever seen.

Previously, we preferred the Sony Digital Newspaper DPT-RP1 to the original Boox Max. The Max2 has turned that effectually: It has a affect screen and a better pen, information technology's less expensive, and it runs a reasonably current version of Android. Because the Sony DPT-RP1 is lighter, it's nevertheless a better buy if all you want is a container for your PDF documents.

The Boox Max2 is and then much more, though. Its ability to run multiple reading applications ways that it works with all of your books, no matter what store or library you got them from, without conversion. Its ability to run different cloud and document storage applications lets you lot become at all your files, wherever they are, mark them upwardly and send them back. And all of this takes place on the largest East Ink screen possible.

The Boox Max2 costs the same as a 12.9-inch iPad Pro or a skillful Windows tablet. Those tablets are better for creative employ, and, of course, they accept colour screens. But they're LCDs, which is a different beast entirely. We still recommend those tablets more for most people, but there is a small grouping out there that will exist very happy with the Max2.

The Bottom Line

The Onyx Boox Max2 is an impressively capable Android tablet with a thirteen.3-inch East Ink screen and a useful stylus...merely it costs every bit much as an iPad Pro.

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