It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Charbax from ArmDevice.net shooting a video showing off some new E Ink ereaders at a trade show.
This time around he posted a video showing new ereaders for 2016 from Onyx Boox at the HKTDC Fair.
Onyx has two new 9.7-inch E Ink ereaders that they just released, the Boox N96 and the Boox N96ML.
The ML version has a frontlight with support for stylus touch and the N96 has a dual-touch screen that adds finger touch support but it lacks a frontlight.
Onyx’s first 13.3-inch E Ink ereader, the Onyx Boox Max, is also shown in the video. It has a stylus-activated touchscreen as well but it lacks finger touch support and a frontlight.
All three run Android 4.0 and have 16GB of storage space, 1GB or RAM, WiFi, Bluetooth, audio support, a microSD card slot, and a 1GHz Cortex-A9 processor.
The Onyx Boox Max is available for pre-order from a German retailer for 585 euros and is expected to ship by the end of April.
Both Boox N96 models were just released and have already started shipping from a few retailers such as Banggood.
They also show a new higher-end waterproof Onyx Boox ereader in the video that hasn’t been released yet. It has a flush glass 6-inch screen, as the trend continues.
Cool! I’ve just pre-ordered the Onyx Boox Max and can’t wait to work with it. Hopefully the 13.3 inch nische will prove a great success showing once again that the pioneers would teach conservative rigid dinosaurs like Amazon and Kobo a lesson.
It is awful that the big companies refused for so long to bring e-readers bigger than 6.8 inch on the market.
The reason that Amazon and Kobo don’t offer larger E Ink devices is because they make money from selling ebooks and large ereaders fill a different need. They can’t make much money selling PDFs and research papers and the like so there’s no reason for them to make large E Ink devices, especially Kobo since they aren’t a hardware company.
I was hoping that something like an 8-inch ereader would fill the gap for people who like reading ebooks with larger font sizes, older folks especially, but Amazon and Kobo don’t seem to care to go up to that size even. After watching one of the recent YouTube videos interviewing the people that design Kindles I doubt Amazon will ever release anything larger than 6-inches as long as they’re in charge because all they seem to care about is making Kindles thinner and lighter, smaller not larger.
For Amazon and Kobo E Ink ereaders have become all about reading ebooks and ebooks alone. They just don’t care hardly at all about any other forms of ereading on their E Ink devices. Even their PDF support is pretty pathetic.
Exactly. They are in the business of selling books. A 6″ screen is plenty large for all of my reading needs.
Iphone owners used to love their 3.5″ screens, they swore they didnt need larger, that it wasnt necessary. Now they swear how they couldve lived without their iphone pluses. Same principle applies here, bigger is better. 6″ is even smaller than a mass paperback book. 6.8″ would make a big difference while still keeping a small footprint.
Amazon’s large screen ereader is called the DX and it works quite well for an older technology.
The reason Amazon hasn’t updated it is because it is a virtual monopoly in the US, has been for years, and no longer gives a damn about satisfying customer needs.
Hence the idiotic Oasis. That’s typical monopolistic behavior. Remember Ma Bell and their Princess Phone “innovation”?? Same thing:
We decide what you want, says Amazon the Monopoly, and you’ll buy it then shut up until we tell you what you’ll want next.
I’m thinking the weird looking bald headed guy is in for a surprise when folks inform him with their feet that he ain’t that smart. Or invincible.
You’re right Nathan, Amazon and Kobo don’t have to produce e-reader for PDF documents, which lack commercial use. Nonetheless, there are a lot of non-fiction books for specialists and univerities, even in the offer of the named companies. These books need often larger screens in order to render information in a meaningful way.
Thus it would still make sense to build larger e-readers, and I bet Bezos & Co. could make good money from selling the e-readers and the specialized books. The only condition for a success would be not to start with outrageously high prices for the devices. And this is what Amazon is incapable of.
All those 6″ e-readers are too small and now they come with 13″ e-readers that are obviously too big, why is it so hard to come with a 7″ or 8″ e-reader as a standard size?
They do have a 8 inch e-reader: Onyx Boox i86 HD ML PLUS. I don’t have the device since I opted for the 13.3 inch one, but it did receive good reviews.