One of Onyx’s distributors has posted a few early pictures and specs at MobileRead showing a prototype of Onyx’s upcoming 13.3-inch ereader.
It’s good to see some proof that Onyx is indeed working on a large screen ereader. They’re currently the only company with a 9.7-inch E Ink ereader on the market (at least the only one that is widely available), so if anyone can pull-off a 13.3-inch ereader it should be Onyx.
For the past couple of years, Sony has been the only game in town for a 13.3-inch E Ink ereader with their DPT-S1, but at $800 a pop it hasn’t exactly taken off.
A couple of other companies have teased 13.3-inch ereaders, like the PocketBook CAD Reader and this Netronix prototype, but nothing has come of them yet.
The new 13.3-inch Onyx device is expected to be available in spring of 2016. Hopefully it doesn’t get delayed like the others. There’s no word on pricing yet, but it will probably be pretty expensive given the rarity of the screens.
One interesting detail about the 13.3-inch Onyx ereader is it’s going to be using a higher resolution screen than Sony’s DPT-S1. The distributor says it will features the newest flexible PVI HD screen with a resolution of 2200 x 1650 (that’s 207 DPI). By comparison, the other 13.3-inch screens have a resolution of 1600 x 1200 with 150 DPI.
Another detail about the upcoming reader is the fact that the initial version will have an inductive touchscreen for using a stylus (like the Boox M96). That should make it ideal for PDFs and note-taking.
It most likely runs Android like Onyx’s other ereaders, but there’s no word on what version just yet. It could be Android 4.4, as they’ve got a pre-release version of it available to try out now on the Boox i86.
Below is a picture to get an idea of the size difference. That’s a typical 6-inch ereader on the left, and the 9.7-inch M96 is in the middle.
via: MobileRead
Hey Nathan,let someone within your family(at home) kiss your cheeks for me.Bingo!That`s exactly what I can call it:My love,my dream.At last! After several years of waiting!Arhhh!
This is just what I was waitting for 🙂
I hope that Nathan will do a video on that, but I think I’m buying anyway.
I’ll buy it too. I have a 6″ ereader (with android os) and I think it will be very good device to reading scanned and pdf books.
I hope it will have good quality.
Thanks for news as always.
I like the concept here, but I’m probably not going to buy one simply because the price will be well north of $400. (The 9.7 inch model goes for $330)
Price will be high like the Sony. The Sony is sweet, but yes — too pricey.
The problem is that e-ink screens of that size are outlandishly expensive, so the only real use case is for the professional market, like architects, contractors, etc…
It’s too bad as I would love an e-ink reader for PDFs.
Hey have a look at that one! Another 13 inches with note taking was just announced (need to be translated from FR to ENG):
http://www.minimachines.net/actu/noteslate-hero-une-autre-liseuse-a-stylet-de-13-pouces-35140
The noteslate has been under development forever, it seems. It used to only be about drawing and note taking but now I see they are advertising it as a PDF reader on their website so that’s a plus. The 6.8-inch model is expected to be released in March 2016. http://noteslate.com
I am waiting for an affordable 13″ e-ink device since ages now, so this is good news. I bought iPads just for reading .pdf comics over the years, but well, they remain iPad and I actually prefer to read on e ink rather than LCD devices.
I’ll buy this Onyx, for sure! Especially if it sells in Europe, too, unlike the Sony.
Hoping for a quick release of a full-featured 13.3″ ereader, so that I may scan & sync all my music scores on it! If Onyx includes adjustable backlight, then this is the device to consider.
I kind of doubt it will have a frontlight (backlights don’t work with E Ink). It would be about impossible to get uniform LED lighting across a screen that large.
I’m pretty excited about this. I bought the M96 (through Amazon, and apparently the Booxtor model was better). I absolutely love it, BUT one of the main reasons I bought it was for reading music, and even though 9.7″ is nice, it’s not quite enough. Hope this pans out and works as well as my M96.
I will be honest: I want a big-screen e-reader, and I want it to read comics and magazines in digital versions. I can certainly read text e-books in a 6in screen without problems, obviously, but a A4-size e-reader is something I need urgently – and something more intelligent than that Sony convert-everything-to-pdf-and d’ont-bother-me thing.