Last month the Onyx Boox Kepler Pro, Onyx’s latest premium 6-inch ereader, turned up on Amazon for the first time, but the price was rather high at $249.
A few weeks later and now the price of the Kepler Pro has dropped down to a more reasonable $199 (still pretty high for a 6-inch model but it’s more of an upper-class model like the Kindle Voyage).
What sets the Kepler Pro apart is the flush glass screen with 300 ppi (1448 x 1072) and the aluminium alloy casing.
It also has a unique set of page buttons on the side of the device instead of on the front like usual.
The Kepler Pro comes with 16GB of internal storage space, with a microSD card slot for an additional 32GB. It supports audio and includes text-to-speech. Bluetooth is supported, and it has Wi-Fi, of course. It sports a frontlight and a capacitive touchscreen as well.
Onyx ereaders support a wide variety of formats, including Adobe DRM, and run Android so they can install apps if you find some that work well on E Ink.
One thing to note, it appears that there’s an error with the description at Amazon. I’m pretty sure the Kepler Pro runs Android 4.0, not Android 4.2. That’s what the main Onyx website has always said; it’s the other C67 models that have Android 4.2.
I’m tempted to review this model but I’m just not sure if enough people are interested in spending $200 on a 6-inch ereader not named Kindle.
$200 is a huge premium to pay for the ability to use Moon Reader to sync with my phone. I’d love a review showing whether the Kepler Pro is premium in enough other ways to justify the cost.
But how can it be a premium product when all of Onyx’s offerings are buggy as hell?
Nathan, how come you never review the Tolino Shine. I saw one a few weeks ago and it looked good and had impressive specs. Review?
The reason I don’t review or cover them is because Tolino is strictly a European brand. They aren’t sold anywhere on this continent.
You don’t indicate which format Onyx uses for eReaders.
PDF, TXT, HTML, EPUB, CHM, MOBI, FB2, DJVU, DOC, JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, etc.
I just read the user reviews on Amazon and a surprising number of verified reviews said the tablet quickly broke. I didn’t count but it was close to half the reviews saying they broke.
Barry
All of those reviews are for the cheaper C67, though. I don’t know why they put them all on the same page with the same reviews. Currently the Kepler Pro only has one review, with someone complaining that it has Android 4.0 instead of Android 4.2.
Can anyone confirm if I can use a Bluetooth button to remotely turn the page? This would be my dream coming true, prop up the book and keep reading without my having to touch it
Yeah, they work with any Bluetooth-equipped Onyx device. They sell one on Banggood that’s advertised for Onyx devices (of course any similar product would work too).
Would the Onyx Boox Kepler Pro be able to support Audible through a bluetooth headset while reading an ebook or is the RAM too low to hope to accomplish that?
RAM is not going to be an issue at all with 1GB. The question is will the app work well enough on E Ink to useful and that I don’t know.