This article is transferred from what is worth buying user "Zhiye ZIE" 's evaluation of BOOX Nova Air has been authorized to publish by the author.
Creative position statement: products are purchased by individuals at their own expense and have no interest related
Written in front: This article is not a copy of the conference speech, but I want to do my best To analyze a product carefully and express some thoughts, this is what I think is valuable. (The full text is more than 7,000 words. It may take more than fifteen minutes to read all of them.)
I have been using the reader for five years.
I started with Kindle 558 in 2016 and upgraded to Kindle Paperwhite 3 in 2017. It took three years for me to upgrade to Kindle Paperwhite 3. millet, palm reading , Hisense, aragonite, Kindle, iFLYTEK , supernote, pocket reading and other brands of about 15 models,I have a more in-depth understanding of the current status of various products in the domestic reader field.
Kindle still lives up to those produced by major manufacturers, with display effect, workmanship, battery life, and texture in the first echelon, but closed systems cannot install apps and the entire system does not support type-c interfaces. The shortcomings are fatal to me, so I will not consider the Kindle series in the short term. Nevertheless, for readers who like to read serious literature, have no need to install apps, and don't mind micro-usb, Kindle's huge book resources and top-level display effects are still the best choice.
However, after using various readers for a long time, I think that the open system reader installs WeChat reading , reading more, this localized reading app is more suitable for me, including me. The reading habits of the vast majority of domestic users.
Aragonite is regarded as the top spot in the domestic reader field, and it has a good reputation overseas. As far as I know, the WeChat reader and the reader are both found by Aragonite, which can explain certain problems . I remember when I first went to buy a Kindle five years ago, there was an aragonite reader next to the Kindle store, and the decoration was more stylish, leaving a good impression on me.
Hisense, HKUST IFLYTEK, SuperNote, and PocketReader all have very clear features:
Hisense’s main ink screen mobile phone is really not interesting, but the display effect is really not interesting. As expected;
iFLYTEK’s AI function is very powerful,The news reading experience is amazing, but as a reader, other aspects are average. After the freshness is over, it will be ashamed;
Supernote is the main handwriting, and it is not even equipped for handwriting experience. The design of the lamp is also very beautiful. I use his own A6X. But to be honest, this product is destined to be a niche group, and is not suitable for most people;
As for pocket reading, perhaps it is the reason for the strategic adjustment, but it has not been done now.
Palm reading is the same as aragonite in the direction of the traditional public, but I do not like the closed system of the palm reading.
The products of Xiaomi and the Xiaomi Eco-chain Enterprise Mo Case are consistently cost-effective, but the performance system is imperfect, and the experience can only be considered average.
After using so many products, I personally left a 6-inch aragonite poke3, a 7.8-inch supernote A6 X, and a 10-inch inkPad X according to my usage scenarios. These three models are used together. It satisfies my daily reading, PDF viewing and note-taking needs. It is already the optimal solution that I have selected after weighing it up.
Because these three models, or all the domestic reader brands, none of the devices are very well designed and can compete with the Oasis series of Kindle.
The vast majority of them are designed by male and female aesthetic models.The kind that hides the logo can't be distinguished, and it's not about the beauty of craftsmanship.
For me as an industrial design professional, this greatly affects my mood when I use them.
"If there is a reader with outstanding design, powerful performance, open system, outstanding reading experience, and preferably with a type-c interface."
I accidentally saw the new Nova Air series released by Aragonite directly fulfilling all of my wishes, so I almost decided to buy it without hesitation.
But because I already have a professional handwriting device, I waited until September 12 to buy a 500 yuan cheaper version of Nova Air S. After using it for a few days, I feel very satisfied. I can’t wait to share with you the light of this reader in my heart.
The model I bought should have the same hardware as the standard version of Nova Air except that it does not support handwriting, so this article applies to all Nova Air series.
First of all, this is a 7.8-inch reader device, which can also be said to be the golden size of this type of device. A 6-inch device is very convenient to carry around, but it is completely incapable of reading large-scale documents such as PDF courseware;
The experience of viewing PDF on devices larger than 10 inches will be much better, but its size It’s not portable compared to weight; the 7.8-inch size is a good balance between the two, which can read most PDF files,It also has a certain portability, relatively speaking, the applicability is very high, and the price is relatively suitable.
If you are buying a reader for the first time, then I strongly recommend a 7.8-inch product. Of course, if you are an adult like me, you can have it all, hahaha.
Followed by some traditional strengths of aragonite. The most outstanding feature of aragonite is, of course, the strongest performance among similar equipment. The Nova Air series uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 636. I think it is a soc that is very suitable for readers regardless of performance and power consumption. Although it is not strong on the mobile phone, it is already at the king level compared to the monsters and ghosts on other readers. In addition, because it uses the common Qualcomm soc on Android phones, there will be no problems with the compatibility of the Android app. It is difficult to encounter such things as crashes and abnormal power consumption.
reader performance may be more important than you think. To give an example of my own, when the Mi Reader Pro first came out last year, because the price-performance ratio was really high, I bought one for the first time, but I used it to open a 300M large PDF and it would be stuck directly. It was really broken, and I returned the product within a few days.
But now using aragonite, there is no such concern at all. It can be opened with a mobile phone basically no problem, I believe that its performance will be enough for me to use it at least three years. The reader is a product that will be used for at least two or three years after buying it. It is necessary to reserve a part of the overflow performance for the future. This is also one of the important reasons why I chose aragonite poke3 half a year ago. The
speaker and dual-color temperature backlight also bring more possibilities to the Aragonite Nova Air series.
To be honest,My personal usage habits do not use speakers at all. It may be useful for people who like to listen to books and news, but this dual-color temperature backlight I have to give it a good blow.
Although most of the domestic readers above 1,000 yuan are equipped with dual-color temperature backlights, the aragonite is indeed the most comfortable for me to use, the adjustment is very smooth, and the transition is also very good. Delicate and comfortable. In addition, it may be a quality control problem. Readers in other homes have more or less uneven backlighting or edge light leakage. Aragonite basically has no or is relatively slight.
Here in a dark environment, use the aragonite Nova Air and the inkpad inkPad X both to turn on the highest brightness to compare (left aragonite right ink case), you can see that there is a large area of backlight at the bottom of the ink case Uneven, the aragonite will be much cleaner.
Personally, dual-color temperature lighting is a very important bonus. Like the Kindle Paperwhite 3 I used before, the color temperature is colder, and I personally like warmer lights, so it will be a little uncomfortable for a long time. Nowadays, when using a reader with dual color temperature, I usually adjust the color temperature to a bit warmer. It feels a lot more comfortable. This is an experience that doesn’t matter before using it, but I can’t go back after using it. (It is said that most Asians also prefer warm colors)
Of course, the most important thing in the reader is the display effect, but this is because the ink screen technology is monopolized by Taiwan Yuantai Technology. In fact, the display effect is not bad.
For some reasons, the display effect of Kindle is still the best.The specific performance is that the background color is whiter and the font is blacker, which makes the picture very clean. But if the display effect of the Kindle can be scored 10 points, the mainstream products of domestic brand readers basically hover around 9 points, which are completely sufficient.
All of the above are obvious hardware advantages. Thanks to the 14 years of aragonite in the field of readers, I found that they also have a set of software systems. I think this is the real watershed. After all, we all know that a flagship phone with top performance but full of bugs may be far less comfortable to use than a mid-range phone with average configuration but smooth and stable system.
In order to make the statement more grounded, I am here to expand the description with the specific interface of Nova Air S. Due to space limitations, I will only talk about some of the features that I personally like very much.
The pages of aragonite are divided into five main sections, which are the library, bookstore, storage, application and settings on the left side of my photo. I will talk about them in turn.
Aragonite’s bookstore is cooperating with Jingdong Reading. I personally use WeChat to read, so I have never used it; the library is a self-imported book. This aragonite does a good job, for example, it supports more than 20 natively. Various file formats, intelligent watermark removal, file rearrangement, font blackening, and other functions are all complete, it should be regarded as the most acclaimed function of aragonite.
But unfortunately, I rarely use this function myself. I don’t have the habit of downloading e-books. Generally, I read books in the WeChat Reading app, and I also read PDFs. Choose a larger size device, so I have no say in this function.
The storage of this section is equivalent to the file management on the mobile phone.I take a picture and believe that everyone can understand it. It is worth mentioning that Aragonite will automatically categorize all the files you save in according to the format. I especially like this feature when I go to save files in Aragonite poke3.
Note: This feature that is very common on mobile phones is not available in all brands of readers.
The application of this section is the one I use most daily.
The first is the book transfer function, as long as the mobile phone and the reader are in the same local area network, files can be quickly transferred, which is very convenient when importing books into the reader.
In addition to some other applications such as calculators, recorders, calendars, I personally need to use mobile phones directly, but for students who don’t have mobile phones and only have a reader Said it should be useful.
The application market is the same as in the mobile phone, and most of the apps you can use on the reader are divided into categories. Download on demand, there are about a hundred app, enough for most people.
Q: What if the app you want to use is not in the store?
Answer: You can go to the built-in browser to download by yourself, and it can be installed in the Android app. And it is Android 10 system, the app should be no problem in the next three years.
Q: The interface ratios of most mobile apps are now based on the length ratio of 18:9 and 20:9.The screen ratio of this reader is too wide and it looks strange. What should I do?
Answer: This is what I think Aragonite does best. You can change the parameters of the app downloaded in the Aragonite App Store.
If you think the app ratio is not appropriate, just press and hold the icon and change the dpi in the display column to adjust the display ratio and size of the app. Just try a few more times. Find the most suitable ratio.
Similarly, do you think the characters in this app are too small to be clear? You can make it bold; watching the video of learning power, think the refresh rate is not enough? You can turn on the high refresh rate separately for this application.
Do you think the background is too dirty? It can be bleached;
There are many other setting items, so I won’t list them all. In short, no matter what is wrong with the app you want to use, it can basically be optimized to an ideal state. This is too friendly for people like me who like to install various apps on the reader.
This application section also has a floating ball function, just like the floating ball on many mobile phones, you can open a small ball to perform convenient operations such as returning, refreshing, and multitasking. But I am not going to introduce it, because one of my favorite features in the settings section can perfectly replace it: gesture operation.
The gesture operation of aragonite is similar to the gesture operation on the mobile phone.Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to perform common operations such as returning and multitasking. Thanks to the good hardware of Aragonite, the whole process is smooth and smooth. It can basically be seamlessly connected with the mobile phone, which is better than most other brand readers. The old methods of operation are too strong.
This feature is enabled by default, and aragonite puts it in the most inconspicuous "More Settings" in the settings panel. I don't think it needs to be changed at all.
Another thing I like very much is Aragonite's power management . This is worth talking about.
Many people know that the ink screen displays images without power consumption, so closed system readers such as Kindle can reach several weeks of battery life. Aragonite readers that use an open system are difficult to reach the same endurance level. To a large extent, it is because too many apps occupy the background or call Bluetooth, wifi, etc., which cause power consumption. So if you turn on the flight mode, Uninstall all and just read local books to improve the battery life.
But it is absolutely impossible for me to use an aragonite device in this way. What is the difference between it and a closed system?
may be because many users still have the need for readers to last more than one week. Aragonite provides some compromise options for users to set according to their needs.
The solution I set up is to automatically lock the screen and turn off the light without any operation for five minutes, and automatically disconnect the wifi if there is no operation within half an hour after the screen is locked, and automatically shut down if there is no operation for one hour, when I manually turn it on Then it will automatically turn on wifi and lights. The implementation of this program will not have any impact on my normal use, but it can almost double the battery life of the machine.
This kind of very intimate function has a lot of aragonite equipment,For example, you can choose whether to display the password briefly when entering the password, place the application bar on the left or right, and even whether the application bar displays only icons or icons plus the application name. It makes me think that even Virgo can use it with confidence. How did the aragonite engineers think of this?
I have an answer, because I saw the entry of "feedback" in the lower right corner of the settings panel, so I think aragonite is really considering user feedback.
aragonite also has some advantages other than products, such as the number of high-quality accessories second only to Kindle, I bought the Nova Air S this time and gave me the original page flipper, original film, and original Leather cases, original protective bags and many other accessories. Moreover, the workmanship and texture of the original aragonite leather case are much better than all the domestic brands I have used.
You should know that for some other brand readers, these accessories are not a question of good workmanship or random gift, but a question that you are willing to spend money to buy but find that they have not done it at all. .
Actually, there is one more thing that I didn't expect at first, it is the after-sales problem. Just opened the official account of Aragonite and saw that they opened a new store here in my school (Qingdao). This is also a guarantee.
said so much, in fact, these are the advantages of all aragonite devices, and what really makes the Nova Air series stand out is its unique design.
Actually, as a student of industrial design, I have seen too many excellent designs.It is difficult for me to have an eye-opening feeling for a product that sells for more than 1,000. Aragonite Nova Air series can get my high evaluation, half relying on our own efforts and half relying on peers. After all, if you look at the design of domestic readers, most of them are a piece of black plastic that seems to be mass-produced.
I don’t understand why the reader is made into a male model like it is now. Shouldn’t those who like to read should value design more?
Even from a commercial point of view, a brand can effectively increase the premium by raising the level of product design when the brand cannot provide outstanding product strength. Faced with the status quo of domestic cookie-cutter reader design, a good-looking product can simply kill it!
For me, the Aragonite Nova Air series is just such a product.
In order to clarify the appearance of the Nova Air series more structuredly, I will introduce a common term in the field of industrial design: CMF, which is color, material, and finishing.
Color may be the most obvious feature of the Nova Air series. There are many black readers and some white ones. This is the first time I have seen the gray ones.
I didn't understand when I looked at the promotional image, why did I make it in this color? After using it for a few days, I found that aragonite is still quite thoughtful.
For myself, I have a pure black inkPad X and a pure white Supernote A6X. The appearance of A6X is obviously higher than that of inkPad X.
But the white body does have some disadvantages,For example, it is easier to get distracted when reading a book, and the white machine does need more maintenance to make it "last forever."
In comparison, the Nova Air series's gray is very clever. This is ingeniously reflected in two aspects:
On the one hand, gray is achieved between the steady black and the bright white To put it in another way, it is a very easy solution that takes into account both practicality and aesthetics;
On the other hand, the color of the rear shell of Nova Air is gray, and the color of the ink screen is gray. Coupled with this gray panel, the Nova Air series has a full-body gray one-piece body, which is a very wonderful experience.
It is worth mentioning that the aragonite has also made the bracket part between the screen and the frame gray. This practice is very rare, and it can be seen that it is intentional.
material, the official said is the use of magnesium-aluminum alloy material, compared to Nova3 by 11% lighter, 18.2% thinner, feel really good, it should be one of the thinnest in the same size .
Magnesium aluminum alloy is lighter and easier to process than the aluminum alloy commonly used in digital products, but it also has three disadvantages:
First, this material is relatively better If it is soft, it is very likely to bend if it is bent hard, especially considering the thickness of 6.3 mm, you still need to be careful during use;
Second, it is worse stability,Compared with aluminum alloy, it is more likely to be corroded, but as long as it is not used for a long time in a special environment, there is no need to worry too much.
3. Because it is made lighter and thinner, the battery capacity has also decreased relatively. But for the ink screen, which has a strong battery life, even if the reduced capacity can meet the battery life of more than one week, I don't think it matters.
In general, the advantages of using magnesium-aluminum alloys outweigh the disadvantages. After all, people are all visual animals, so thin and beautiful, who still considers so much?
In addition, there is also a splicing design on the bottom of the back of the Nova Air series that uses different material characteristics. This is by no means a "design defect" caused by the failure of aragonite to make a complete back cover. "It is more of an exploration of design style.
This kind of splicing design with different look and feel is reflected in many high-end digital products and luxury goods. For example, the iPhone in recent years has used frosted and smooth glass to create differentiated effects.
Maybe some people don't like this design. This can only be different. I personally think this design attempt is worthy of encouragement.
The process is divided into three parts:
One: It is a one-piece magnesium-aluminum alloy body, which has been very common in other digital products, but it is outstanding in the reader.
Second, the ink splashing effect is made on the back of the fuselage through the sprinkling process.This makes the specific shape of each drop of ink on each machine different, and each device is unique. It also caters to the color scheme of "ink gray" to some extent, which I personally like.
Third, the moss of the screen is a bit rougher than that of ordinary readers, which should be to improve the handwriting experience. The official said that it comes with a paper-like film on it, which is quite considerate for people with handwriting needs.
The above has probably explained the industrial design of the Nova Air series, as well as some careful thoughts on details. For example, its power button will emit different colors of lights according to different power levels when charging. I will not list them all here.
I believe that through my description, you can already feel some of the design pursuits of this machine. At least in terms of appearance, the Nova Air series can say something to most domestic readers on the market: " Everyone here is xx".
I think the Nova Air series should perform well in offline sales. After all, such a thin and light feel and unique look and feel can easily stimulate people's impulse to buy.
As a digression, I noticed that Aragonite launched a Note Air last year. It is a good design, but it has a lower positioning than the main Note 3 model of the Note series. That is an experimental product.
This time according to the pricing of the Nova Air series, it is positioned higher than the regular Nova3.
This shows that aragonite is likely to feel the driving effect of design on sales.And it is very likely that the Air series will be used as a fixed product line for a long time. I think this is a milestone event in the field of domestic readers.
You may ask, what's so great about it, can it be eaten as a meal? As for it is a landmark?
What I want to say is that if it's just a good-looking reader, that's true. There are also many good-looking readers. I think my super notes look better, but I believe many people may not have heard of this brand, right?
After years of hard work by domestic reader brands, it is not only Kindle when it comes to readers, but has gradually become like I said before, each with its own unique characteristics. However, the common problem of domestic readers is that they are lacking in design. As a result, most brands can only make some low-profit and cost-effective products, and it is difficult to obtain enough profits to feed back the research and development, and eventually fall into the swamp of cost-effectiveness.
In the future, when aragonite, a leading manufacturer in the domestic reader field, will begin to focus on design in its main products, other domestic brands will certainly follow up due to competitive pressure. At that time, brands can raise prices appropriately, consumers can have more choices, and the industry begins a virtuous circle, which is good for brands, the industry, and consumers.
If future domestic readers can be designed to be the same or even surpass Kindle's high-end products, I believe many people will replace their Kindles with domestic brands, and the Nova Air series is likely to be The first milestone in the rise of domestic readers.
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