Color E Ink and Android are an exciting, excruciating pairing

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For me, the most reliable way to get to sleep quickly is to avoid screens before bed. If I want to stay up to date with news online, I need to be creative. My current system involves saving articles to the read later app Instapaper, which sends a daily digest to my Kindle each evening It's a hacky approach where articles often aren't formatted properly and sometimes don't show up at all.

I could switch to a Kobo, which has native integration with Pocket, but the Onyx Boox Nova Air C is a better option. The E Ink display is capable of showing colors, and it is running a modified version of theANDROID OS that allows you to download and run a variety of apps that go far beyond reading Ebooks. It opens the door to many read-later apps as well as full-on word processor and third party note-taking software. It includes a pen for writing.

It costs $420, which is more expensive than Amazon'sKindles, which cost under $200. That price is close to a full-on iPad than an e- reader. The total package doesn't deliver on the promise.

The Boox Nova Air C has a 7.8-inch screen and is made of plastic. There is a power button on the left side and a port on the right side. I expected them to be worse than they are, but they are. Amazon hasn't included them in their products for a long time. The Nova Air C is powered by a Snapdragon 662 processor with 3 gigabytes of memory and 32 gigabytes of storage.

There is a color E Ink display here. The E Ink screen on the Nova Air C offers 4,096 colors and uses a color filter layer on top of an E Ink panel. There are some drawbacks to the approach. The screen can't display color with the same resolution as black and white, so while the display reaches 1404 x 1872 in black and white, it's limited to . The range of colors can be counted in the millions, but the colors are more subdued. Sam Byford described the colors on the PocketBook Color as akin to a newspaper that has faded over a few days.

Basic colors are better than no colors at all. The Nova Air C's colors might look washed out and low resolution, but the essence of the image is still there. You can still fundamentally understand what you are looking at even though you miss out on a lot of the subtle nuances.

I attempted to watch video on the Nova Air C's screen, but I wouldn't recommend it. The screen has a low refresh rate, colors are washed out, and there is a lot of ghosting. It is possible to see what is happening in a pinch, but I prefer to see it on a screen.

The benefits of an E Ink display are still present. I was able to read the Nova Air C in bright sunlight and in low light before I went to bed because of the screen illumination feature. The battery life of the e-reader is as good as any other one. I have been using the device on and off for the past two months and its battery level is still sitting at 55 percent.

The Nova Air C has an aggressive power management setting, which means that if you don't use it for less than 15 minutes, the device will automatically shut down. If you want to use it, you'll have to wait 27 seconds for the device to boot up. Changing the power-off timeout to one or even two days will allow the laptop to wake in a few seconds when you want to use it. There will be a sacrifice for this increase in responsiveness.

The built-in note-taking app is one of the highlights of the Nova Air C. With the included stylus, handwritten notes feel great, with pen strokes appearing on the screen near-instantly, and 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity that offer a lot of flexibility. There are a variety of different brush styles and colors, and the software can try to translate your handwriting into typed text and even emoji

In limited cases, this character recognition worked well, but struggled with long passages. Once written, it is easy to export notes to a PDF orPNG file by simply scanning aQR code with your phone or sharing them to another app on the tablets. The Nova Air C can be used to take notes by hand.

You have to jump through a lot of hoops to use the tablets like a traditional e-reader. Although the Nova Air C comes with a built-in store, it seems to be filled mostly with public domain works, and I couldn't find any modern books to read.

You have a few other options left. Ebooks can be downloaded from elsewhere on the internet and then transferred to the tablet with a good range of filetypes. When I purchased an ePUB from eBooks.com and tried to load it onto the Nova Air C, I discovered that it didn't support Adobe Digital Rights Management. The e-reader doesn't support any otherDRM than the Chinese one.

You can use the built-in software on the Nova Air C if you choose, thanks to the heavily modified version ofAndroid 11 being used as software. It is possible to download and install most apps from the Play Store as if you were using any other mobile device. You have to go through a couple of strange hoops to get the service set up on the device. It was easy to take advantage of my existing library once I was set up. I downloaded a few other apps while I was there, including Comixology for reading comics and Obsidian for note-taking.

I wanted the Nova Air C to have the ability to download and install anything I wanted on my phone.

Take time to take notes. The Nova Air 2 has a good note taking app that works well with the stylus. It doesn't work well for typed notes, so you might want to use a keyboard with the tablets.

I downloaded the app to take notes. I was able to type up my notes much faster than I could have written them. I don't have to look at a bright screen when I use a laptop or phone at night. It's possible to use any word processing or note-taking software you want, but only if it has an app for the phone. It is possible to download alternative stylus compatible apps, but my experience was not great. InKredible felt laggy with Onyx's stylus.

I was able to get the service up and running quickly. I was able to read all my saved articles without having to go through the clunky sync process that is required by Instapaper. The screen of Comixology was too small and low in resolution for me to get the most out of it.

I encountered issues with the apps that had not been designed for E Ink screens. You control the apps on the Nova Air C the same way you would on any other device. It's hard to "feel" your way around each app on the E Ink screen because it's less responsive than other screens. It is not possible to half-swipe to see what a full swipe might do.

The magnetic Nova Air case allows you to use physical buttons to control the tablets. A protective cover and a pair of physical volume buttons are included in the package. If you are going to buy a Nova Air C, you should get this case. It is not included in the price of the tablets, which makes it feel expensive.

I wanted the Nova Air C to act as a repository for all my notes, so I could use it late at night.

It can do all of these things. I could feel the screen creaking under the pressure when I asked about it. E Ink panels can be used to read books with software designed for them. It can be difficult to use an app designed for a 60hertz screen. When it comes to being able to flip it open and immediately start reading, the Nova Air C isn't as good as a simpleAmazon. You have to pick the app and book first.

It is reasonable to expect a lot from the Nova Air C at $450. If you want an alternative e-reader with a color screen, you can get one from PocketBook for $234. You could get an iPad Mini with an 8.3-inch screen for $499 or a base level iPad with a 10.2-inch screen for $329 if you want to have more than one device. None of these devices will be able to answer all the questions. The Nova Air C doesn't

Every smart device has a set of terms and conditions that you have to agree to before you can use it. It is not possible for us to read and analyze all of them. We started counting the number of times you have to agree to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people can't negotiate.

You need to agree to use the Air C.

That is a compulsory agreement.

Jon Porter is a photographer.