Onyx has a couple of new products to go along with their Android-powered E Ink ereaders and tablets that come in various sizes.
Now Onyx is getting into the E Ink monitor market with their new Mira series. There’s a 13.3-inch Mira and a 25.3-inch Mira Pro. The Mira is available to order from Onyx’s website for $799; the Mira Pro is listed at $1799 but it’s not available to order yet.
The pricing strategy of these new monitors is a bit puzzling. Onyx’s Max Lumi ereader and tablet sells for $879 and it has the same 13.3-inch screen as the Mira, except it adds a lot more features and it can also be used as a secondary monitor.
Onyx doesn’t say how the Mira is better or if it’s faster or what. It’s kind of a mystery so far. There’s just the video below that barely shows anything and a product page for the Mira Series without a lot of info.
They basically say the Mira Series offers adjustable refresh speeds and customizable refresh modes. There’s a physical scroll wheel and a button to manually refresh the screen to get rid of ghosting, and there’s a frontlight on the regular Mira along with a capacitive touchscreen, but not on the larger Mira Pro model.
There’s also a note about the monitors not working with AMD GPUs currently so that’s kind of a major problem.
Outside of releasing the Nova3 Color and the Nova Air, things have been pretty quiet from Onyx lately (last year they released 8 new ereader models), but now they’re looking to expand into another niche market with these new E Ink monitors.
Mira Specs
Screen: 13.3” E Ink Flexible Mobius EPD, 16 Grey Level (monochrome)
Resolution: 1650×2200 (207ppi)
Touch: Capacitive touch
Front Light with CTM (Warm and Cold)
Port and Interface: Mini HDMI x1, USB Type C x 2, Standard VESA interface (75 x 75mm)
Display Panel Size: 308.4 x 231 x 8.0mm (5.6mm)
Display Panel Weight: ≤590g
Mira Pro Specs
Screen: 25.3” E Ink glass EPD ,16 Grey Level (monochrome)
Resolution: 3200×1800 (145ppi
Port and Interface: HDMI x1, Mini HDMI x1, USB Type C x 1, DP x 1, DC x 1 (12V, 3A), Standard VESA interface (75 x 75mm)
Speaker: Dual speakers
Display Panel Size: 594.2 x 349.2 x 26.5mm (11mm)
Display Panel Weight: ≤2750g
Stand Size: 222mm (117.2mm) x 152(126.4) x 380mm
Stand Weight: ≤2730g
The Mira is much higher quality as a monitor than the Boox readers. My Max 3 is terrible as a monitor. The Mira is pretty good, not as good as a Dasung for speed/ghosting but hopefully it will improve further with software updates (I’m on a Mac and hope a desktop app is coming). Despite being cheaper than the Dasung, its connectivity, portability, lighting and casing are much better.
Interesting, but it makes you wonder why they can’t make monitor mode work better on their Max devices if they can do so on a different device.
Is there anything yet on how the Mira compares to the Max Lumi as a monitor? I had the same reaction about the pricing and already have a Max Lumi. I’d certainly buy a really good eInk monitor if it was much better than then MaxLumi
A comparison will probably turn up on YouTube soon. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t be able to make them perform similarly.
so cool! if it were a little less expensive i would grab two this second. will wait for more info at this price, as i am also looking to get into 4k. maybe i will abandon 4k and do e-ink. if it works well with phones for pdf or even maps functionality that would be great. this is welcome news.
Does Onyx traditionally send out products for review, and if so, will you try to get either model for review? These are way out of my price range but the tech’s interesting. I noticed in the video the monitors were displayed doing word procesing. Is that the primary use case for e-ink monitors?
They probably do but I don’t accept review units because I feel like it’s a phony way to do reviews and I don’t like the practice in general. E Ink monitors are out of my wheelhouse as I personally don’t have a use for them so I wouldn’t be a good person to review them anyway. I think some software programmers prefer using E Ink when having to stare at a screen all day, but it’s really a niche thing.
I was wondering when the Mira Pro would become available, so I sent them a message on their website.
Response from help@boox.com –
We are sorry that the Mira Pro might still be under development and we are afraid that we are unable to tell when the Mira Pro will be available. However, you could follow us on Facebook and we will post the latest info once we have the new arrivals.
Thought this info may come handy to anyone waiting on it.