Boox Go 10.3 Review

Following my unboxing and first impressions, I’ve been using the Boox Go 10.3 for a little over a week and this is my honest opinion of Boox’s newest monochrome e-ink tablet.

During my testing period, I’ve used the Go 10.3 for personal journaling, ideation and planning for my business, web browsing, a little e-book reading, and e-mail. I’ve also hooked it up to my NextCloud server to access my personal files (including my e-book library), calendar, and (new) task management system.

You will find that I compare the Go 10.3 to the reMarkable 2 quite frequently – I apologise in advance for this, however, I’ve found it quite difficult not to, because Boox appear to have replicated many of the elegant design features of their competitor.

Design & Build

Beauty is subjective, but in my opinion, the design of the Boox Go 10.3 is exquisite.

It’s very rare that I get an e-ink device that I just want to hold and admire for purely aesthetic reasons. There have been several occasions where I have found myself touching it and staring at for no real reason, almost cherishing it.

For those that don’t know me, I can appreciate that this must sound like hyperbole (or perhaps even bullshit) but I wanted to give a truthful account of my experience, even if it does make me sound like a bit of a nob. I’d urge you to browse this website and check out my other reviews to confirm that I don’t usually have this sort of emotional reaction to the devices that I review.

In fact, the last time I remember feeling awed about the design of a product was when I reviewed the reMarkable 2. And this is no surprise because, in terms of look-and-feel, there are several similarities between these two e-ink tablets. In fact, it seems to me that Boox have used the rM2 as their inspiration for the design of the Boox Go 10.3.

First off, it is remarkably (no pun intended) thin, with a thickness of just 4.6mm – a tenth of a millimetre thinner than the reMarkable 2 (which presumably means that reMarkable will no longer be able to claim that they have the world’s thinnest tablet).

It has smooth, well-machined, silver-metallic edges, with nicely-rounded corners. An off-white bezel (slightly wider on the bottom edge) borders the glass screen, and there’s a vertical white strip down the left-hand side, perhaps emulating the spine of a book.

The plastic rear panel has a textured, almost leather-like feel to it, and a thin silver strip running vertically close to to the right-hand side, which almost looks like the ribbon or band that you might find on paper journal.

The left and right edges are bare. On the top edge (right hand side) is the power button, which protrudes out a millimetre or so. I’ve found that because the button juts out slightly and has a tactile click when pushed, it is far easier to locate and press than previous Boox tablets (such as the Note Air 3) that utilise a button that is flush with the edge.

Centrally, on the bottom edge is the USB-C port (for charging/data/OTG), and it is flanked by tiny holes for the microphone. Further to the left and right of the microphone holes are the grilles for the dual speakers.

On the Note Air 3 and 3C, the USB-C port is ridiculously located on the left-hand edge, which meant that you couldn’t charge it with the cover was closed. I’m happy to see that with the Go 10.3, the USB-C port is in a much more sensible and practical location.

Like the rM2, the chassis of the Go 10.3 is very rigid, with very little flexibility, rather like a slate. Applying pressure to attempt to bend the tablet results in almost no pliability at all. In addition, there is no creaking or rattling – it is a very solid device.

This type of rigid design always makes me a little cautious because I feel like it might shatter if it gets a bump. This is in contrast to the softer and more flexible plastics used on other devices (such as Supernote and Kobo) that have a lot more ‘give‘ and have the impression that they are more likely to bend before they break. However, I’ve discovered (at least with the rM2) that my reservations are unfounded – my rM2 has taken a bit of a beating over the years, and still works perfectly (and I don’t even use a cover with it).

Overall, the Boox Go 10.3 has a gorgeous design that is both elegant and robust. It is one of those rare devices that I want to hold in my hands and admire.

Hardware

It’s time to put aside my subjective appreciation of the design and move onto something more objective – the hardware specs.

The Boox Go 10.3 runs a 2.4GHz octacore CPU, with 4Gb of RAM. In the world of e-ink tablets, this is at the higher-end and it will be able to handle most things thrown at it. It has 64Gb of storage capacity, which will be more than enough for the majority of users. For those that need additional storage, there is unfortunately no on-board MicroSD card slot, however, it is possible to hook up an OTG adapter or connect to third-party cloud drives.

The screen is a monochrome 10.3″ Carta 1200 e-ink panel with a fantastic resolution of 1860×2480 and 300PPI – top of the range for this type of device. And the text and image clarity and contrast is absolutely immense. In fact, I’d say it is the best I have seen – everything just looks so rich, crisp and sharp. I’ve tried to convey this below with a photo of the text in a book, but I don’t think my crappy camera phone really does it justice.

Part of the reason for screen clarity is the omission of a frontlight. Without this extra layer, everything just appears so much closer to the surface of the screen, just like real paper and ink. Of course, for some people, the presence of a frontlight (and therefore the ability to read in very dim or dark conditions) is a non-negotiable, and the Go 10.3 is most definitely not for this type of user.

For me, the absence of a frontlight is not a big issue, because I tend to use my e-ink tablets in environments that have suitable ambient light. I do sometimes read in bed with the lights off, but I’ll use a smaller, lighter frontlit e-reader (like the Kindle Paperwhite or the Boox Go Color 7) for this. I’d much rather have a device without a frontlight, not only for the enhanced reading experience, but also because writing feels closer the surface of the screen as well (which is why I’ve been using the Supernote A5X as my daily driver for several years).

Another point of note about the screen is that it although it feels quite smooth to the touch, a rough, grainy film has been applied to the surface, which provides a scratchy and more paper-like writing experience (which I’ll go into more detail later).

With regards to other hardware features, there’s a G-sensor (which auto-rotates the screen between portrait and landscape depending on the orientation of the tablet).

There’s also dual speakers and a microphone. Of course, they’re not the greatest quality but are absolutely fine for listening to audibooks/podcasts or recording meetings/voice notes.

In terms of connectivity, there’s both Wi-fi and Bluetooth, as well as a USB-C port that supports direct file transfer to/from other devices and the option to connect an OTG (on-the-go) adapter.

The battery is 3700mAh, the same capacity as that used on the Boox Note Air3 and Note Air3 C. I managed to get a little over a week’s worth of average use before it needed a recharge (I was using it every day for several hours).

Some newer Boox devices utilise a graphics processor and Boox’s propretary Super Refresh (BSR) technology, which provides better performance (faster refresh rates) for third-party apps. However, this comes at the cost of vastly reduced battery life (basically you only get a day or two of usage before a recharge is required).

BSR is not present on the Go 10.3, which means that you get much better battery life in exchange for poorer third-party app performance. For me, this is a compromise that I’m happy to make – I tend to use e-ink tablets for what they were designed for (primarily note-taking and reading, although I do use a few third-party apps as well) – and some tasks (such as watching video) just don’t work well on e-ink whether you have BSR or not. In addition the longer battery life is one of the things that attracted me to e-ink in the first place, so I’m not prepared to lose that for the sake carrying out a task for which my laptop would provide a far better experience!

Overall, the hardware is powerful (in the context of e-ink tablets), the battery life is great, the screen is excellent and there are lots of connectivity options, as well as a G-Sensor, speakers, and microphone. For my use case, this is perfect, but I appreciate that it will not fit everyone’s requirements, due to having no frontlight, no BSR, no MicroSD card slot, and no fingerprint scanner.

Cover

The cover is very plain and nondescript…but in a good way. It is made from a single-piece polymer material with hardened front and rear panels. There are two folds; one in the centre, and one around the final third of the rear panel, which can turn the cover into a stand for landscape mode.

There are no fittings or appendages because the tablet is securely held in place by magnets. Like I reported in my review of the Boox Go Color 7, I was concerned that the magnets would not be strong enough to hold the tablet in place, but it turned out the are very strong and I had no issues with the tablet becoming detached with everyday use. Of course, magnets will never be stronger than than squeezing the tablet tightly into a plastic tray (as seen with other e-ink brands), and if you hold one side of the cover and give it a vigorous shake, then the tablet does fall out. But lightly shaking it it (as in the video clip below) won’t result in it becoming detached – it does the job of protecting the tablet pretty well.

The exterior is beige, and has an almost faux leather texture. The interior is smooth and dark brown. I quite like the beige/brown colouring, although I concede that it may not be to everyone’s tastes. The only markings are a small Boox logo that has been de-bossed into the lower right corner of the front cover.

Also included with the cover is a magnetic flap, which is primarily designed to keep the stylus in place. It didn’t really do a very good job of this. I’d often take the tablet out of my rucksack and find that the stylus was missing, or (even worse) had been pushed inside the cover and was sitting on top of the screen (which could potentially damage it).

Unfortunately, I found that using the cover as a stand was not very practical. Because the interior panels are smooth (as are the edges of the tablet), and there is no indent to keep the tablet in place, it tends to slide around a bit. In addition, when you tap the screen in this configuration, the tablet moves around because it is not secured in place. It’s actually quite poorly designed for this purpose, and Boox would have perhaps been better to not include this option at all.

Overall, the cover itself looks and feels very stylish and refined. However, the stand configuration and stylus-holding mechanism is poorly implemented and feels very much like an afterthought.

Stylus

Part of the reason for the flap on the cover not being able to hold the stylus in place is because the stylus does not have a very secure connection with the side of the tablet.

The Boox Go 10.3 ship with Boox’s tried-and-tested Pen Plus, which I will explore in more detail shortly. This stylus has been shipping with Boox products for several years and was originally designed with previous generations in mind. However, the Go 10.3 has much thinner, smoother and more-rounded edges than Boox’s older tablets, which just doesn’t form a very strong magnetic bond with the wider flat-edge of the stylus.

The result is that the slightest nudge makes the stylus roll onto the front or rear panels, and a shake or jolt of the tablet makes the stylus falls off. Of course, this is mitigated somewhat by the cover and magnetic flap but it feels more of a fudge than anything else. I feel Boox really should have took the time to design a new stylus that is actually compatible with their nice new tablet, rather than attempting to retrofit their old stylus.

At the very least, I think that integrating a loop into the cover to hold the stylus would have been a better solution. Not too long ago, Boox sent me and a few other reviewers a stylus that resembled a ballpoint pen, with a lid and clip – I think (with a few adjustments, such as reducing the weight and using lighter colours) this stylus would look wonderful in a pen loop alongside the Go 10.3. Unfortunately, I never saw it released in their shop.

Having said that, the Boox Pen Plus itself is a decent stylus. It is Wacom-compatible, which means that it does not need batteries or to be recharged, and the writing experience is excellent (more on this later). It uses plastic nibs, which wear down with use and so need to be replaced intermittently (for me, this is every 2-3 months, but it obviously depends on usage).

The design of the stylus is almost cylindrical, with one slightly flattened edge where it snaps to the side of the tablet. It has vertical grooves, which aid grip and is comfortable to hold and write with. There’s no eraser at the top or buttons on the shaft (which fits perfectly with my preferences, but I know many other users that can’t live without these features).

Note that although Boox have changed the colour of the Pen Plus that ships with the Go 10.3 (from black to white), it is still essentially the same stylus as the black version – and the new colour does not quite match the tablet.

Overall the Boox stylus is very good (not the best stylus available, but at the top end of the scale), however, it was never designed to attach to a tablet this thin and so has a tenuous bond that I feel is not fit-for-purpose.

Writing Experience

Writing and note-taking on the Go 10.3 has been an absolute joy.

There is no perceivable latency and strokes show up right on the surface of the screen. This is in contrast to other Boox tablets, which have a small but noticeable gap between the surface of the screen and where the strokes appear, almost as if you are writing underneath the screen.

The grainy paper-like film that covers the screen, in combination with the plastic nibs results in a pleasant and satisfying scratching sound when writing. This tactile and auditory feedback makes the experience very pleasurable and akin to writing on real paper.

As with all Boox tablets, pressure sensitivity is supported, which means that with some brush tools, pressing down harder creates a thicker, bolder line (and pressing lightly creates a thinner, fainter line). However, I did notice that tilt-sensitivity (different stroke types depending on the angle of the stylus) does not seem to work, which I thought was odd because it works fine on other Boox devices, and is controlled by the software. This could perhaps be an oversight that will be fixed with a future firmware update.

Boox has perhaps the most comprehensive and fully-featured note-taking app out of all e-ink devices, and there are plenty of tools and brushes that can be used for both writing and sketching purposes. They’ve also recently introduced some AI tools (known as Smart Scribe), which allows you to carry out lots of actions, without switching tools. For example, you can scribble out text to delete it, select text by drawing a ring around it, and draw straight lines and shapes by holding the pen on the screen after creating it freehand. All of this contributes to a excellent writing experience.

Overall, the writing experience on the Go 10.3 is excellent.

Native Software

The Boox Go 10.3 runs Android 12, and is certified for the Google Play Store, which means third-party apps can be installed (but I’ll go into this more in the next section).

It runs Boox’s own launcher, which means that the home screen has been customized for Boox’s software. You can still carry out most general Android operations within the Boox frontend (and for those settings that are missing or hard to find, you can probably install an app for it).

The look-and-feel of the launcher has changed slightly compared to older Boox models – the icons look smoother and more standardised, and the layout looks bolder and cleaner. It doesn’t look as fresh and uncluttered as the reMarkable 2, but that is because Boox tablets can do a helluva lot more! There are also useful little tutorials to read when you use a feature for the first time.

However, despite these improvements, the Boox software is still not the simplest to use or most intuitive, so new users should be prepared for a steeper learning curve than more tablets with more minimal software, such as the reMarkable 2 or Kindle Scribe. As I said, part of the reason for this is that the Boox software offers so much out-of-the-box in terms of both features and configuration options that it inevitably results in additional complexity – a lot of choices can leave some users feeling overwhelmed.

But it’s not just the sophistication of the software that can make it it difficult for new users to get to grips with. Over the years, Boox have been throwing more and more features into their software, seemingly with no overall plan about how they would all fit together. This makes the operating system feel somewhat convoluted and labyrinthine at times.

For example, as well as the General Settings for the system, there is also an options page for notebooks (with some choices leading back to the general settings page). There’s also additional configuration options for your Library, as well as the E-Ink Center (accessed via the Control Center, or a swipe up from the bottom-left), and the Control Center itself (accessed via a swipe-down from the top-right). So, if you want to change a particular setting, it can sometimes be a bit difficult to know where to find it.

And, despite the recent improvements to the user interface, it still feels a bit clunky – on a technical level, everything works great, but from a UX perspective, it feels a bit inelegant. For example, in the Bookshelf section of your Library there are three icons in the top-right; Search, Reading stats, and Options. When you press the button to view your cloud drive instead, you lose the search icon but gain a help icon. Instead of putting the Help icon where the Search icon was, it shifts the other two icons to left and puts the Help icon on the right.

It may seem like a small thing but there are lots of other little things like this that will become irksome for anyone that has an eye for user interface design. Another example is the inconsistency of the names of the settings menu items for the Library (Library settings) and Notebooks (Options) – either call them both ‘Options’ or use ‘Library settings’ and ‘Notebook settings’ to add a little bit of consistency.

It is great to see that Boox are finally beginning to address the user interface with recent firmware updates, but there is still quite a lot to do if they want to compete with the simplicity and finesse of reMarkable.

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A vertical strip on the right-hand side houses the main icons:

• Library – Organise and access your e-books and documents
• Store – Boox’s Store, where you can download from a library of public domain e-books for free
• Notes – Organise and access your notebooks
• Storage – Browse the Android filesystem
• Apps – Organise and access installed apps
• Settings – Access settings to configure your tablet and preferences

A swipe-down from the top-right opens the Control Centre, where you can toggle wifi and Bluetooth on/off (and configure them with a long press), adjust the volume level and run certain tools/apps, such as screen refresh, screenshot, screen recording, screencast, mute notifications, enable auto-rotation etc.

I happened to notice something new in the Control Center (well, something I’d never seen before) called FreeMark. This feature allows you to write on the screen whilst using any app and it will save an image (PNG) file of the screenshot along with your annotations. I can see a few potential uses for this, such as writing on a webpage in the browser or making annotations on ebooks in third-party e-reading software.

There’s also a new AI assistant and local area network screen mirroring that runs in the browser (without the need for third-party software).

A swipe-up from the bottom left opens up the E-Ink Center. This is where you can configure the display and refresh settings for third-party apps to optimise their performance. There are four modes; Normal, Speed (faster but with more ghosting), A2 (even faster but more ghosting), and X (super quick but with more detail loss).

Basically, the display mode you chose is a matter of making a compromise between quality and refresh speed – the more movement on the screen (e.g. scrolling, video etc.), the faster refresh mode is needed to keep up, and consequently, the more detail is lost. Note that with BSR-enabled devices, you get more powerful refresh modes in the E-Ink Center, but this at the expense of battery life, and is still nowhere near as good as LCD/OLED screen for things like video.

As mentioned in the previous section Boox’s note-taking app has an abundance of features and is arguably the best note-taking app on the market. There’s support for layers, handwriting recognition, handwriting search, object insertion (text, images, voice recordings, links, and files), shape-drawing tools, and a large number of page templates. I’m not aware of any other brand that offers so much.

Similarly, Boox’s native e-reading app (NeoReader) is feature-rich and has a shit-ton of configuration options, making it one of my favourite apps for reading both ePubs and PDFs. The Library also has lots of neat features for organising your ebooks, as well as having the ability to access your files on a multitude of cloud drives.

Boox tablets also have a few other useful apps preinstalled, including NeoBrowser (Boox’s Chrome-based web browser), a calculator, Calendar Memo (a calendar app that you can write on), BooxDrop (for transferring files over your local wifi network), PushRead (an RSS Reader), and a simple audio player and voice recorder.

Some features, such as PushRead and syncing notebooks across all your Boox devices, will only work if you create an account with Boox, however, this is not a necessity. It is possible to use most of the software without logging into the Boox cloud at all.

Overall, the Boox operating system and native apps are extremely versatile and feature-rich, however with this complexity comes a steeper learning and, in some places, the software can feel a bit unintuitive, inelegant, and overwhelming.

Third-Party Apps

One of the main selling points of an Android e-ink tablet is the ability to install third-party apps, either from the Google Play Store or by sideloading APKs.

However, it is important to note that a lot of apps will not have the same performance that they would if you were using an LCD/OLED screen due to e-ink’s inherently lower refresh rates. So, don’t think that you will be able to run everything that do on your desktop or laptop because you will be disappointed. This is the case for all e-ink tablets, not just Boox or the Go 10.3 – even the super powerful Boox Tab Ultra C Pro, with BSR technology does not provide a video watching experience that is comparable to LCD/OLED. In addition, the Boox 10.3 is monochrome, so any app that uses colour in a way that doesn’t translate well to black-and-white will suffer from usability issues.

Having said that, there are many apps that work well on the Boox Go 10.3, and I’ll discuss the ones that I installed below.

First of all, I’ve recently set up my own NextCloud server to provide online storage for my business and personal files, as well as a few other cloud-based productivity tools, such as calendar and task management. It’s a bit like Google Drive, One Drive, or Dropbox (which Boox also supports along with several others) but I host it my own server instead of being tied to a particular brand.

I know that I recently proclaimed that I really liked Supernote’s task management system and had integrated it into my workflows, but the decision to move to NextCloud was part of a broader business strategy to move away from proprietary software as much as I can – I won’t go into details but I’ve been screwed over by so many organisations offering SaaS services over the years because they can change how their systems works or how much they charge whenever they like and with little recourse (one of the reasons I don’t like reMarkable’s Connect subscription).

I set up a WebDav connection to bind my NextCloud Drive to my Go 10.3. This allowed me to browse the files in my cloud storage from the the Boox Library app, and open up ePubs and PDFs stored in my own personal online library folder. Boox retains the reading data (e.g. the current page that I am on, the highlights I have made etc.) for any ebooks I open – this information must be stored locally, as it doesn’t create any additional files on the cloud drive itself, and I am not using the Boox Cloud. I should point out that if you do sync with the Boox cloud, then your reading data is available across all your Boox devices.

Although I could browse and open files over the WebDav connection, unfortunately I was unable to create any new files using this method, which means that I haven’t been able to make use of Boox’s excellent feature of automatically exporting PDF copies of all notebooks to my cloud drive. Actually, it can create folders and files but they have a size of zero bytes. I’m currently working with Boox support to try and resolve. I think it is most likely a configuration issue with my NextCloud server, rather than a Boox issue, but Boox customer support are kindly helping me to troubleshoot the issue nonetheless.

I also use my NextCloud server to host my calendar and task lists. To get this working I installed Fossify Calendar (as my front-end calendar) and DAVx5 (which is a sort of middleware to link the frontend and backend servers). This worked perfectly, and I am able to access my calendar from my Go 10.3, and create new events.

For task management, I installed NextCloud’s Deck app and this also worked perfectly.

Web browsing on the Go 10.3 is what I would call an acceptable experience. It’s definitely usable without too much frustration (and much better than web browsing on most other e-ink brands), however it does suffer from some ghosting, particularly when scrolling or viewing websites with a lot of on-screen movement. There’s also the issue of some websites having poor contrast between text and background colours, which looks fine on a colour screen but is unreadable in black-and-white. And, as I’ve said previously, this issue is inherent in all e-ink devices because it was never really designed for such tasks, but Boox are one of only a few e-ink brands that have mitigated these limitations with software, to bring web browsing to a usable standard.

There’s a lot of choice with regards to which web browser you use. There’s Boox’s preinstalled NeoBrowser, which is pretty decent, but I’ve also tested Chrome, Brave and Edge and they all work fine. However, please bear in mind that the mobile versions of web browsers do not usually have all of the features of their desktop equivalents (for example, extensions aren’t supported in the mobile version of Chrome).

With regards to email, I’ve been a long-time user of GMail and can attest to the GMail app working fine, but as part of my switch to open-source software, I also installed Mozilla’s K9Mail and this, too, worked without any issues.

The Kindle app also works well. I recently read Three Body Problem on the Boox Go Color 7 (Boox’s latest 7″ e-reader, but it essentially has the same software as the Go 10.3).

Microsoft OneNote is something that, in my opinion, doesn’t work particularly well on e-ink tablets because there is a lot of lag when writing/sketching.

Boox have mitigated this somewhat by implementing non-laggy temporary strokes, which refresh after a few seconds, replacing the temporary ones with actual strokes in the OneNote app. The problem with this is that it always draws a black line of a particular thickness for the temporary strokes. So, if you change the thickness or colour within OneNote and start writing, it initially shows a medium-thickness black line, and then a refresh a few seconds later converts it to your chosen thockness/colour. For me, this is very disorientating and unpleasant – however, I do know of some people that are happy to use OneNote on their Boox.

I think it’s important to note that e-ink tablets in general are primarily designed for reading and writing tasks. Android tablets (such as those manufactured by Boox) provide an extra dimension to what you can do on them, but e-ink screens were never designed to work with third-party apps, so I think anything else you can do on e-ink outside of it’s core tasks should be considered a bonus. Don’t assume that you will be able to run all the apps that are installed on your phone or computer on an e-ink tablet. Lots of things do work pretty well – email, calendar, other e-reading apps, web browsing (for the most part) but try not to think of an e-ink tablet as a replacement for other Android devices.

Overall, the Boox Go 10.3 provides lots of versatility with regards to running third-party Android apps, however performance is variable (which is a limitation of e-ink technology rather than Boox technology). Apps don’t run quite as well as they do on tablets with BSR, but as long as what is displayed on the screen is fairly static, there’s a good chance of being able to use it.

Final Verdict

Regular readers will know that I have been a happy Supernote user for many years. I’ve seen lots of e-ink tablets come and go, but never seriously considered switching the device that I use as my daily driver. The Boox Note Air 3 (and 3C, to some extent) came close but my Supernote A5 X always remained my constant companion.

As you may have ascertained from this hugely positive review of the Boox Go 10.3, I’m seriously considering making the switch.

Like Supernote, the Go 10.3 has an excellent tactile writing experience and powerful note-taking software. What’s more, it has a gorgeous design, more powerful hardware, better native reading software than the Supernote, the ability to install third-party apps and also supports integration with my new cloud drive.

However, it doesn’t have Supernote’s awesome Headings feature (which allows me to segment my notebooks into sections and automatically create a table of contents) – this may be something I can’t live without!

One of the things that have prevented me from switching to a Boox in the past has been the fact that their devices feel more like computers than writing tools – more digital than analogue. The Go 10.3 (when configured correctly) is the first Boox device where I feel disconnected from the Internet whilst using it, and I’ve absolutely loved the time I’ve spent with it so far.

It’s not perfect by any means.

There’s no real integration between the tablet, cover, and stylus – the stylus doesn’t magnetically connect very well to the side of the tablet and the flap to hold it on feels more like an afterthought. And the stand configuration of the cover doesn’t work well at all.

The user interface feels a bit clunky, cluttered, and unituitive in places (but it seems that Boox are taking steps to polish this up a bit).

There’s also a lot of rumours about Boox as a company, such as the aforementioned violation of the GPL, as well as batteries expanding and cracking the screen, them not fulfilling returns for damaged items, mysterious Boox background services sending user data to China, and lack of a privacy policy.

Sometimes I feel that Boox are unfairly targeted with this negative PR. In fact some accusations seem to have begun as rumours, and turned into truth only because they’ve been repeated so many times. For example, nobody appears to have asked Bigme or Meebook for their modifications to the Linux kernel. I’ve owned many Boox devices and never once had a hardware issue. The background service sends literally a few bytes of data (so it’s not sending many-megabyte notebooks), and you have to agree to Boox’s privacy policy the first time you start up your tablet (and is available to read from the Settings menu).

Of course, Boox could do better to set potential users’ minds at ease, instead of maintaining radio silence. They could publish their modifications to the Linux kernel, explain exactly what the mysterious service is doing, and offer guaranteed returns for any users that are not completely satisfied (like reMarkable do).

I’m not saying Boox are the most ethical or transparent e-ink brand (this is something that is very difficult for an outsider to judge, but for me, Ratta Supernote seem to hit all the right notes in this regard), but I do feel that many of the criticisms against Boox are often exaggerated, and sometimes completely wrong.

So, overall, I am very, very impressed with the Boox Go 10.3. So much so that I am going to test run it for a few more weeks to decide if it will take the place of my Supernote A5X as my daily driver.

The Boox Go 10.3 is available to buy from:

• Amazon
• The Boox Global Store
• The Boox Euro Store