No front light means the pen nib is closer to the actual panel which is meaningful to some people

That said I would hesitate to buy a $650 device from boox. Their customer support is absolutely atrocious from a hardware standpoint. If you have issues with software they’re pretty great as long as the device is current; they’ll generally respond (relatively) quickly and if the device is newish it’s not crazy to see suggestions and concerns rolled into software updates

But hardware problems? Absolute nightmare. If the damage is your fault be prepared for extremely hefty repair fees. Then on top of that expensive shipping, lengthy repair times, and poor quality repairs. My boox tab cost $350 to repair (plus $35 shipping) for a cracked panel. The new panel came back with at least 10 dead or stuck pixels (three clusters brightly stuck on in the top left of the screen being the most annoying), frontlight bleed around the edges of the glass because they reinstalled it poorly, the wifi signal is noticeably weaker, and the fingerprint reader doesn’t work at all.

Their solution was that I could pay another $30-40 and wait another 3-4 weeks so they could fix the fingerprint reader but the screen is what it is because dead/stuck pixels only count if they’re in the center 30% of the screen. They did not acknowledge any of the other issues because their support is also just not very good

The fingerprint reader was useful but not worth them potentially fucking it up worse so I just use it as is now. Someday I’ll probably open it myself. I have a sneaking suspicion either a ribbon for the reader needs to just be reseated or they tore it during the repair. If it’s the former easy fix, if it’s the latter then it’s screwed anyway

So I guess if you buy this thing baby the hell out of it and hope they actually warranty it if something does go wrong