The e-Paper market has loved regular progress over the past decade, beginning with the introduction of the Amazon Kindle again in 2007. Whereas there are a lot of distributors making an attempt to make a mark within the expertise required on this area, E-Ink’s choices have dominated the roost.
The most well-liked class of merchandise utilizing E-Ink’s expertise has undoubtedly been eBook readers. Lately, digital notebooks and notepads have additionally emerged as a major driver in E-Ink’s growth. These merchandise take the common e-reader and add assist for an digital pen / stylus. These merchandise had been initially fairly costly and focused enterprise professionals coping with big quantities of paperwork and requiring note-taking assist (equivalent to attorneys). The Sony DPT lineup (assessment) grew to become one of many main merchandise on this class. Because the market expanded, distributors equivalent to reMarkable and ONYX additionally began placing out compelling merchandise – increasing the goal market to inventive professionals and college students as nicely. This class grew to become actually mass-market just a few months again with the introduction of Amazon’s Kindle Scribe (and slated to start out delivery 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 shade), e-Paper tablets with note-taking assist, and even E-Ink displays. As we speak, 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 gadgets, ONYX envisages the digital camera getting used to OCR paperwork within the area with out the necessity for an exterior gadget as an middleman. The gadget targets skilled use-cases. It have to be famous that ONYX already carries the BOOX Observe Air 2 Plus that carries many of the identical 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, specifically, has been a weak level of E-Ink tablets because of the low refresh charge. The precise enhancements delivered by the ONYX ‘BSR’ (BOOX Tremendous Refresh) algorithm on this side wants hands-on analysis for additional evaluation. The system helps 4 completely different modes for various duties – studying books would not require quick refreshing and may make the most of the ‘HD Mode’, whereas typing requires a ‘Stability Mode’. A ‘Quick Mode’ is obtainable for internet looking, 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 also be out there.
ONYX has a status for lengthy assist cycles, and gives common firmware updates to reinforce the performance of its ePaper tablets. Current firmware updates have introduced a extra tablet-like expertise within the consumer 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 prospects to benefit from the host of private data administration apps out there for observe taking and information assortment. One other not too long ago added performance pertains to the affiliation of various pages in several paperwork utilizing easily-created tags.
The ONYX BOOX Tab Extremely is obtainable for pre-order at present 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 assist 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 carry out shade e-readers), and equipping an e-reader / digital pocket book with a rear digital camera is one more fascinating play from the corporate. The brand new merchandise increase 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.