Onyx Boox Tab X review: excellent for sketching out ideas

The Onyx Boox Tab X is a very different beast from other budget tablets. It also runs on the Android platform, albeit the non-upgradeable Android 11, but it’s an e-ink tablet with a A4-sized monochrome display and bundled stylus – the idea being that users should use it as a portable notepad, jotting down memos, marking up documents or sketching out ideas before exporting the resulting files to other devices.

That being said, it has access to the Google Play Store for apps and runs on a surprisingly beefy octa-core processor and 6GB of RAM.

The Tab X is superb – if you’re using it for the quite narrow purpose for which it’s been created. As with most e-readers the battery lasts for days and days, and I found the backlit e-ink display to be a fantastic surface for writing and drawing on, and Kindle ebooks, PDFs and the like look good on its 16 (not 50, sadly) shades of grey, but it’s not really great for much else. In fact, the large size means it’s not even an ideal reader for ebooks.

The tablet’s chin conceals a pair of stereo speakers that can go quite loud if necessary, but a set of Bluetooth headphones will serve you better for audiobook and music playback.

The included Pen2 Pro stylus isn’t powered or “smart” in any way, but provides a really tactile writing experience. It’d be nice if it magnetically clamped to the Tab X, though.

The screen’s refresh mode can be tailored for various functions, including video, but even at its fastest it’s not something on which you’d want to watch an entire season of The Crown. It’s a little more suited to web browsing, but at the end of the day it’s a slightly laggy monochrome screen; you’ll be more comfy browsing Reddit on your phone than on here.

I must also mention the price, which seems very high. It’s comfortably the most expensive tablet in this test, despite being the most specialised and niche product here.

Onyx Boox Tab X verdict

I don’t want to be too negative about the Tab X, though. It’s well built and feels good in your hands, and if you happen to fall into the narrow market for which it’s intended, it’s an impressive product.

Onyx Boox Tab X tech specs

Screen	13.3in 2200 x 1650
Storage	128GB
Cameras	No
Connectivity	USB-C 2.0, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0
Dimensions	310 x 228 x 6.8mm
Weight	560g