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I own a Boox Note Air 2.

Bought it when I was looking for a large screen eReader for the technical epubs and pdfs I’ve amassed over the years that require a big screen (big pages on the pdfs)

pros and cons of this company are pretty clear

Pros are that they have large eReaders and support any file format

They also run android so if you use an app like Pocket or an RSS feed to read articles, they work well enough

Cons:

The company’s documentation is more or less broken. Google how to fix something and their docs are missing, outdated, and often in broken english.

The screen itself is big but slow to refresh and in most modes leaves traces of the previous pages. They have a manual button to full refresh the page, but a user shouldn’t have to do that.

It’s not a certified android device so you have to jump through a bunch of somewhat insecure hoops to get the play store installed and log in.

Privacy: There privacy statement basically says “lol we promise to be private k?” So I want to run this thing through wireshark to see how true that is. My only skepticism is that it’s a Chinese company, and that might not be fair, but given the information I have on my device it would be good to confirm.

All that said, they have a color eInk screen that’s coming out soon that looks wonderful.



This is the sort of device you either replace the OS, or put on a segregated network.


I use NetGuard on mine to prevent it from phoning home, and restrict internet connections to Firefox and a couple of other apps that I trust. I also mostly use mine with wifi off, since it's an ereader/notetaking device that doesn't need to constantly drain battery via wireless internet.

I am a little nervous about the trustworthiness of Onyx, but at the same time... I don't really trust my smart TV, or my old Kindle, or visiting friend's Windows laptops either. So I guess it's kinda moot.


It’s not moot. Choose devices with FLOSS like https://pine64.org/pinenote.


What is Onyx? I didn’t see that mentioned.


Onyx is the (parent?) company that produces Boox devices. I don't truly understand the hierarchy, the names seem to be used interchangably.


> insecure

Compared to...running Play Services? Doubt.


security, privacy, and anonymity are separate concepts




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