Quick Comparison: Note Air 2 Plus vs Tab Ultra C

[Chitter]

Some general impressions after about three weeks:

- The screen is a little more reflective in certain conditions, but generally hasn't been an issue for me.
- The color makes it so much easier to use this as a full blown tablet. It's really the only reason I'm making the switch and it's worth it to me, but I think this is a niche thing. I can see it not being worth the cost for others.
- The tablet is slightly less comfortable because of the hard edges. The Note Air 2 is quite ideal. I wish the Tab Ultra was like this, but it's still usable.
- The battery life is noticeably worse than the Note Air 2, but not terrible. With airplane mode on, I still get like a week's worth of reading time.
- The thin case from Onyx is nice in the way that it's lightweight, but it's super cheap and the sticky pads to close are a joke. Glad it was free when I ordered it.

Here is a quick side-by-side comparison of the screens, for those who want to see the darker screen of the Tab or the reflective qualities.

1 Front Light Off


2 Full Front Light, Dark Room


3 Full Front Light, Light Room


4 Close Up


5 Note Air Hard Light


6 Tab Ultra Hard Light


7 Window Reflections 1


8 Window Reflections 2

[ottischwenk]

Thanks, the pictures proof that with the same brightness of the screen background, there is a clear difference in contrast in favor of the Kaleido 3 screen (Carta vs Carta 1200) - "black" is darker.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

Thanks, the pictures proof that with the same brightness of the screen background, there is a clear difference in contrast in favor of the Kaleido 3 screen (Carta vs Carta 1200) - "black" is darker.

No, there isn't. Darker or filtered is only more contrast for displays that produce light in or behind the panel (CRT, Plasma, OLED, LCD, VFD, EL etc). This is because the additional filter reduces daylight/external light twice but display light once.

The front light for any eink colour (Triton, Kaleido) is above the colour filter. The colour filter reduces contrast or if perfect would leave it the same. Thus, daylight or front light are both reduced twice and thus the filter layer just makes everything darker. Since the black isn't perfect black, if you increase the light (daylight or frontlight) to the same brightness of white as the mono screen, at best the contrast is identical. However the filter layer has some reflectance so the contrast of ANY coloured eink by R G B pattern of any kind is reduced compared to the same panel in mono due to extra light reflected from the filter.
That's why the official contrast for a Carta1200 mono screen is higher than for a kaleido 3. Also the capacitive touch has reflectance and attenuation, so IR touch with no front light and same incident light will be brighter and slightly higher contrast for the same panel technology. Integrating the capacitive touch on the panel (a recent eink option) mitigates this slightly.

A Gallery colour electronic paper has no filter as it's C M Y cells and thus can in theory have better contrast (but I don't know what it is), but is up to 1.5 seconds to refresh. It's for adverts and signs.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by Quoth

No, there isn't.
......
The front light for any eink colour (Triton, Kaleido) is above the colour filter. The colour filter reduces contrast or if perfect would leave it the same.

Well then look at the pictures - somewhere there is also one with a direct comparison Boox Tab Mini vs Tolino Epos 3.
By the way: there is also something over filters and lighting - and the Boox Tab devices also have their own screen control
Apart from that, no layer can reduce the contrast, but only slightly scatters the edge sharpness

That's why the official contrast for a Carta1200 mono screen is higher than for a kaleido 3

Here, however, Carta was compared to Kaleido 3

[moorekom]

Thank you for the pictures. This solidified my resolve to wait for a Note Air with 300 ppi screen or to wait and see if there will be one with a Kaleido 3 screen. I am not sure if the tablet features of the boox tab series would be worth it to me. Can you please comment on what front light % you are using and how long the battery lasts with that?

[Chitter]

Originally Posted by moorekom

Thank you for the pictures.

No problem. I'm glad they were helpful.

Originally Posted by moorekom

Can you please comment on what front light % you are using and how long the battery lasts with that?

That's hard to say, because it varies throughout the day. I read in full daylight with no backlight, a somewhat dark office with maybe 60%, and at night at about 10-20%. The tablet lasts a good week or more without charging as long as Airplane Mode is on and I'm not using the tablet for anything but reading. When using it more as a tablet (editing, internet, video) expect to charge it at the end of the day or maybe next day.

[moorekom]

Originally Posted by Chitter

That's hard to say, because it varies throughout the day. I read in full daylight with no backlight, a somewhat dark office with maybe 60%, and at night at about 10-20%. The tablet lasts a good week or more without charging as long as Airplane Mode is on and I'm not using the tablet for anything but reading. When using it more as a tablet (editing, internet, video) expect to charge it at the end of the day or maybe next day.

Thank you. Have you encountered the previous versions of Kaleido screens? I have a Boox Nova Color and wonder if the filter is improved with this next-gen and how visible the grids are in comparison. In previous generation, it was easily noticeable with white background and were distracting. Color background was ok depending on front light or ambient light.

[Chitter]

Originally Posted by moorekom

Have you encountered the previous versions of Kaleido screens?

I have not, but I've never noticed the screen-door type effect and I think I'm particular about those things.