I turned my E Ink pill right into a second display and it labored surprisingly properly

I solely have a single monitor as a part of my residence workplace setup, so a whole lot of the time my workday consists of me taking a look at my pc display at no matter piece I am writing or enhancing, after which checking my cellphone display to answer Slack messages or email notifications, after which going again to my pc monitor once more. It may be a bit exhausting, and it is undoubtedly not nice for my eyestrain as there’s a whole lot of blue mild publicity taking place over a typical 8-hour shift.

Thankfully, whereas reviewing the Boox Word Max, I had an attention-grabbing thought: How would possibly this pill perform as a secondary display? As you would possibly guess from the title, the Boox Word Max is designed to take notes, however since it’s an Android-based tablet, you may obtain just about something from the Google Play retailer on it, and I shortly discovered some attention-grabbing purposes for my particular work-related use case, because of some highly effective multitasking that’s inbuilt to this E Ink pill.

Break up display on the Boox Word is definitely fairly highly effective

Do extra than simply take notes

As a result of the Boox Word Max makes use of Android 13, customers can obtain primarily any app they need, and the pill will show it in black and white. This made it excellent for text-based purposes, and I discovered myself propping the pill up subsequent to my monitor after which firing up cut up display mode to keep watch over my Slack messages, the Pocket-lint homepage, and RSS feeds, which all displayed helpfully in black and white with minimal ghosting. I might additionally make on-the-fly notes and annotations utilizing the pill’s stylus to make sure I did not overlook something I wished to say throughout my subsequent assembly.

I additionally like listening to music whereas I work and utilizing the split-screen mode to maintain my Spotify participant pumping out the jams by way of the pill’s onboard audio system whereas responding to messages or studying an article was additionally a reasonably helpful perform.

Although not each app is suitable with cut up display mode (the Boox Word Max’s settings app being one unlucky instance) I discovered most apps that I used for work had been in a position for use concurrently on this mode, and switching apps on the fly whereas remaining in cut up display was surprisingly fast and straightforward.

Learn how to multitask in your Boox Word Max

It takes just some faucets to get began

There are two methods you should utilize split-screen on the Boox Word Max: horizontal and vertical. Although there could also be some use circumstances for vertical (which shows the totally different apps on the highest and backside of your display) I discovered the machine’s horizontal mode to be much more sensible, no less than for me. To get began with this mode, the method is easy

1. Open the primary app you need to use
2. Swipe down from the highest proper nook to open the Management Middle
3. Faucet the Break up Display button
4. Select horizontal or vertical
5. Within the second window, faucet the Apps icon (it seems to be like a Y) and choose which app you need to use on the second half of your display
6. Regulate the width of every window by dragging the road between the 2 apps.
7. Swap apps by swiping up from the underside of the window the place you want to change apps.

When you resolve you need to exit cut up display, merely swipe down from the appropriate and de-select the Break up Display choice.