Eye strain, education, teaching, manga... EOL Note Air3c?

[Burwash]

Hello,

I'm looking to buy an e-ink tablet to use for as much as possible as an education student as eventually as a teacher. Looking for an e-ink tablet because between online school, remote work, and my specific hobbies, I spend so much time looking at screens and my eyes hurt.

Key needs: 10"+, keyboard connection, Zotero annotations, web, good warm frontlight
Sorta flexible: colour, android apps, writing recognition

• Reading pdfs for school probably means I need a 10" screen or more.
• I use Zotero for annotation (preferably with colour) and Obsidian for notes. Transfering note text wouldn't be a big deal, but I would want to either directly use Zotero annotation or have it intigrated. My annotation system relies on colour.
• I don't mind sideloading but I'd generally want to be able to use android apps.
• It would be nice if the screen refresh is good enough for virtual tabletop style stuff like Roll20 or Board Game Arena.
• I mostly type since I find that much faster. I don't need a keyboard case but do need the ability to use a keyboard.
• Nonetheless decent stylus support and writing recognition, especially without keyboard cover, would be nice for off desks etc.
• Battery just needs to last through a workday.
• I'd really prefer not to be locked into any weird file formats, file systems, proprietary systems, etc. But if it'll work for what I need I guess it would be fine.

For the above reasons, I was looking at purchasing a Boox Note Air3C from einktab.ca but it seems things are nearing the end of life. From my research, I think I'm pretty happy with the device as is. And while it's not technically urgent, I'm rather miserable at the moment looking at normal screens all day every day. How much do you think the future devices will improve things? Is there anything else available right now that would suit my needs? Should I wait or just go ahead and buy it?

[Aleron Ives]

Since eye strain is a problem for you, you might want to avoid Kaleido, since the passive colour filter reduces contrast significantly. It's also worth noting that NA3C has much worse battery life, due to the BSR GPU that cleans up ghosting. If you need a keyboard cover, you would need a Boox Tab device, but both NA3 and NA3C support Bluetooth keyboards.

The Go 10.3 is newer and has a better screen than the NA3, but it also has no frontlight. Since your key concern is eye strain, you might consider improving your ambient lighting situation so that you don't need a frontlight, though.

You're pretty much stuck with Boox if you want Android, but keep in mind that many applications don't work on e-paper screens, even though you can install them. IIRC there are some hacks in place to make One Note sort of functional for handwriting, but you really need to use the native notebook functionality if you want good handwriting performance.

[ottischwenk]

since the passive colour filter reduces contrast significantly

This claim is physically impossible - the only thing that happens is the reduction in brightness

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

This claim is physically impossible - the only thing that happens is the reduction in brightness

Given that contrast is the difference between the maximum white and maximum black and that without pushing the front light brightness to higher levels, the Kaleido3 display has a rather gray white, the contrast is indeed lower since that filter layer absorbs up quite a bit light.

[Quoth]

The filter dots also have more reflectance than the white areas and are thus not as black.

It's absolutely inferior in contrast, sharpness and brightness in ambient light and the required frontlight doesn't help contrast but simply brightnees, and then it has no advantage over a good matt LCD/OLED screen properly adjusted. I saw an Onyx directly this week. My companion remarked that it looked very poor compared to the eink Sage or the matt LCD TCL Nxtpaper 11. It was a brightly lit room.

[Quoth]

Eye strain, in order:

1. Glare / reflectance from a cheap surface. Micro etched is expensive, more so with glass and especially with sapphire.This is why many ereaders have plastic top layers and Apple products are extra shiny. [1]
   
2. Poor contrast [2]
   
3. too bright or too dim
   
4. Low resolution or smudged text.
   
5. Text too small (easily fixed on most ereaders)
   
6. Need different prescription of reading glasses.

[1][2]a More layers always reduces brightness and contrast. More frontlight on eink only helps brightness and never contrast. The Triton and Kaliedo panels use a colour filter layer. Capacitive touch and frontlights add layers. This is why some Pearl and early Carta with no frontlight and no touch or IR touch are pretty good.

Note: if reading distance / specs prescription really poor that rises to 2. Item 1 will give headaches if the reflections are moving.