The e-Paper market has loved regular progress during the last decade, beginning with the introduction of the Amazon Kindle again in 2007. Whereas there are lots of distributors trying to make a mark within the know-how required on this house, E-Ink’s choices have dominated the roost.
The most well-liked class of merchandise utilizing E-Ink’s know-how has undoubtedly been eBook readers. Just lately, digital notebooks and notepads have additionally emerged as a big driver in E-Ink’s enlargement. These merchandise take the common e-reader and add help for an digital pen / stylus. These merchandise had been initially fairly costly and focused enterprise professionals coping with large quantities of paperwork and requiring note-taking help (akin to attorneys). The Sony DPT lineup (evaluate) grew to become one of many main merchandise on this class. Because the market expanded, distributors akin to reMarkable and ONYX additionally began placing out compelling merchandise – increasing the goal market to inventive professionals and college students as effectively. This class grew to become actually mass-market a couple of months again with the introduction of Amazon’s Kindle Scribe (and slated to start out transport in time for the vacation season).
ONYX has been serving the e-reader market since 2006. They’ve an in depth lineup of e-readers (each grayscale and coloration), e-Paper tablets with note-taking help, and even E-Ink screens. Right this moment, the corporate is launching a brand new class – ePaper Pill PCs. The primary product on this lineup is the ONYX BOOX Tab Extremely – a ten.3″ unit full with a 16MP rear-facing digital camera. A primary for E-Ink units, ONYX envisages the digital camera getting used to OCR paperwork within the subject with out the necessity for an exterior machine as an middleman. The machine targets skilled use-cases. It have to be famous that ONYX already carries the BOOX Word Air 2 Plus that carries a lot of the identical options, however geared in direction of the house / informal shopper.
The ONYX BOOX Tab Extremely is the primary e-reader mannequin from ONYX to make the most of the corporate’s proprietary quick refresh algorithm applied utilizing a separate {hardware} module on the board. The corporate has been utilizing this on its Mira lineup of E-Ink screens, and its use within the e-reader is meant to enhance person expertise with net content material. Scrolling, particularly, has been a weak level of E-Ink tablets as a result of low refresh fee. The precise enhancements delivered by the ONYX ‘BSR’ (BOOX Tremendous Refresh) algorithm on this facet wants hands-on analysis for additional evaluation. The system helps 4 completely different modes for various duties – studying books does not require quick refreshing and may make the most of the ‘HD Mode’, whereas typing requires a ‘Stability Mode’. A ‘Quick Mode’ is out there for net shopping, and an ‘Ultrafast Mode’ for generic Android purposes.
The BOOX Tab Extremely makes use of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 SoC (4x Kyro Gold (A73-class) @ 2GHz + 4x Kyro Silver (A53-class) @ 1.8 GHz, together with an Adreon 610 GPU), and comes with a specialised model of Android 11 (together with Play Retailer help). The unit is supplied with a 6300 mAh battery, 4GB of LPDDR4x DRAM, and 128GB of eMMC flash storage. The USB-C port within the system additionally helps OTG performance, and a micro-SDXC card slot. A keyboard case with a magnetic holder for the Tab Extremely can also be out there.
ONYX has a repute for lengthy help cycles, and gives common firmware updates to enhance the performance of its ePaper tablets. Current firmware updates have introduced a extra tablet-like expertise within the person interface – a house display screen with apps together with a favorites dock on the backside. ONYX claims that using Android in its tablets (in comparison with customized OSes in different merchandise such because the Kindle Scribe and reMarkable tablets) permits its clients to reap the benefits of the host of non-public information administration apps out there for notice taking and knowledge assortment. One other just lately added performance pertains to the affiliation of various pages in numerous paperwork utilizing easily-created tags.
The ONYX BOOX Tab Extremely is out there for pre-order in the present day and comes with a $600 price ticket. The corporate can also be concurrently releasing the Nova Air 2 7.8″ e-Paper pill with stylus help at $400 and the Leaf 2 7″ e-reader at $200. ONYX has usually not hesitated in attempting out modern concepts on the e-Paper entrance (they had been one of many first distributors to deliver out coloration e-readers), and equipping an e-reader / digital pocket book with a rear digital camera is yet one more attention-grabbing play from the corporate. The brand new merchandise broaden ONYX’s goal market and construct upon its place as one of many main E-Ink product distributors out there within the face of rising competitors.
