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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 numerous distributors trying to make a mark within the know-how required on this area, 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. 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 assist for an digital pen / stylus. These merchandise have been initially fairly costly and focused enterprise professionals coping with big quantities of paperwork and requiring note-taking assist (comparable to attorneys). The Sony DPT lineup (review) turned one of many main merchandise on this class. Because the market expanded, distributors comparable to reMarkable and ONYX additionally began placing out compelling merchandise – increasing the goal market to inventive professionals and college students as effectively. This class turned actually mass-market a couple of months again with the introduction of Amazon’s Kindle Scribe (and slated to begin delivery in time for the vacation season).
ONYX has been serving the e-reader market since 2006. They’ve an intensive lineup of e-readers (each grayscale and shade), e-Paper tablets with note-taking assist, and even E-Ink displays. At this time, 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 digicam. A primary for E-Ink units, ONYX envisages the digicam getting used to OCR paperwork within the discipline with out the necessity for an exterior system as an middleman. The system targets skilled use-cases. It have to be famous that ONYX already carries the BOOX Notice Air 2 Plus that carries a lot of the similar options, however geared in the direction of the house / informal client.
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 carried out utilizing a separate {hardware} module on the board. The corporate has been utilizing this on its Mira lineup of E-Ink displays, and its use within the e-reader is meant to enhance consumer expertise with internet content material. Scrolling, particularly, has been a weak level of E-Ink tablets as a result of low refresh price. 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 might make the most of the ‘HD Mode’, whereas typing requires a ‘Steadiness Mode’. A ‘Quick Mode’ is offered for internet shopping, and an ‘Ultrafast Mode’ for generic Android functions.
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 assist). The unit is provided 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 be accessible.
ONYX has a status for lengthy assist cycles, and gives common firmware updates to enhance the performance of its ePaper tablets. Latest firmware updates have introduced a extra tablet-like expertise within the consumer interface – a house display with apps together with a favorites dock on the backside. ONYX claims that the usage of Android in its tablets (in comparison with customized OSes in different merchandise such because the Kindle Scribe and reMarkable tablets) allows its prospects to benefit from the host of private data administration apps accessible for notice taking and information assortment. One other just lately added performance pertains to the affiliation of various pages in several paperwork utilizing easily-created tags.
The ONYX BOOX Tab Extremely is offered for pre-order as we speak and comes with a $600 price ticket. The corporate can be concurrently releasing the Nova Air 2 7.8″ e-Paper pill with stylus assist at $400 and the Leaf 2 7″ e-reader at $200. ONYX has usually not hesitated in making an attempt out modern concepts on the e-Paper entrance (they have been one of many first distributors to convey out shade e-readers), and equipping an e-reader / digital pocket book with a rear digicam is 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.
