BOOX Note Air5 C vs Note Max: Colour Portability or the Biggest Page?
These are the two most capable note-taking tablets in the BOOX lineup, and they pull in opposite directions. The Note Air5 C gives you colour and a front light in a 10.3″ body you can carry everywhere. The Note Max gives you a 13.3″ black-and-white page at a full 300 ppi, close to a sheet of letter paper. Neither is the better tablet. They are built for different desks.
At a glance
| Note Air5 C | Note Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Screen | 10.3″ Kaleido 3 colour, Carta1200 | 13.3″ Carta1300, black and white |
| Sharpness | 300 ppi B&W, 150 ppi colour | 300 ppi across the full page |
| Front light | Yes, warm and cold adjustment | No front light |
| Weight | Approx. 430 g | Approx. 615 g |
| Stylus | Included, magnetic attachment | Included |
| Best for | Everyday carry, colour content | Large documents, sheet music, technical PDFs |
The case for the Note Air5 C
The Air5 C is the tablet you take with you. At roughly 430 g it disappears into a bag, and the adjustable warm and cold front light means it works on a night train as well as at a sunny desk. Colour is the headline: highlights in four colours, annotated diagrams that keep their meaning, magazines and textbooks that look the way they were designed. It also has a microSD slot and a fingerprint reader in the power button, small conveniences that add up daily.
The trade-off is honest: colour E Ink renders colour at a lower resolution than black and white, and the colour filter layer makes the background slightly darker than a pure monochrome screen. For novels and clean text the Air5 C is still crisp at 300 ppi in black and white, but the Note Max's page looks a touch brighter side by side.
BOOX Note Air5 C 10.3"$699.99
The case for the Note Max
The Note Max is about area. A 13.3″ screen at 3200 x 2400 shows a full letter-sized PDF at readable size with no zooming, no panning, no reflowing that breaks the layout. If your day is contracts, academic papers, engineering drawings, or sheet music, this is the difference between tolerating a document and actually working in it. With 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage it also has the most room in the lineup for a serious reference library.
What you give up: there is no front light, so the Note Max wants a lit room, and at roughly 615 g it is a desk and briefcase device rather than a couch companion. It is also black and white only, which for dense text is a feature, not a limitation. Every pixel goes to sharpness.
BOOX 13.3" Note Max$839.99
Writing on each
Both ship with a stylus and support 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity through BOOX's note system, and both run the full Android app catalogue, so your notes can live in BOOX Notes, OneNote, or whatever you already use. The Air5 C feels like writing in a notebook. The Note Max feels like writing on a legal pad, with margins to spare. If you type as much as you write, both have keyboard case options; see the Note Max keyboard case and the Note Air5 C keyboard cover.
Our recommendation
- Choose the Note Air5 C if the tablet travels with you, if you read after dark, or if colour highlights and colour content matter to your workflow. It is the better all-rounder for most people.
- Choose the Note Max if large-format PDFs are your daily reality. Lawyers, academics, musicians, and engineers stop compromising the moment the page gets this big.
- Torn between them? Ask where the device will spend most of its life. In a bag: Air5 C. On a desk: Note Max.
Both are on display at our Oakville showroom, and seeing a 13.3″ page in person is the fastest way to know if you need one. Free shipping across Canada, 30-day returns on new devices, and there are often open-box units at a discount if you are comfortable with final sale.