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We’ve been fans of Boox ereader and tablet devices from Onyx for a while, especially the Boox Nova Air C, one of our picks for the best ereader. The Air C has a color LCD layer on top of the black and white E Ink, but now the company is bringing its E Ink even closer to the full tablet area by adding features we normally expect on a tablet like the iPad 10.9.
The Onyx Boox Tab Ultra is a 10.3-inch E Ink tablet with a 16MP rear camera, a feature we’d never expect when paired with an E Ink display. E Ink is very slow to refresh, but Onyx has put in a tremendous amount of work to get the Boox Tab Ultra moving as fast as possible. The tablet has a Qualcomm 8-core processor and a GPU that Onyx says is tailored for faster screen refresh rates.
The camera will not be used for normal photography, we suspect. Instead, Onyx touts the sensor’s ability to photograph and scan documents, which is more in line with the technology. We are curious how well the E Ink can handle the viewfinder tasks with the camera.
Onyx says the Boox Tab Ultra builds on the Note Air 2 Plus spec, and we found the Note Air 2 to be an excellent digital note-taking device. The Boox Tab Ultra gets a stylus, and Onyx wisely sticks to Wacom-style EMR technology, a much better choice than going with proprietary technology like Apple and Microsoft prefer. Samsung uses this technology in its S Pen stylus.
Oddly enough, the tablet runs Android 11, putting it two generations behind the latest Android 13 release. It seems doubtful to expect such a unique offering to receive regular updates, but hopefully Onyx will manage to keep the Tab Ultra safe.
The Boox Tab Ultra gets 4GB of RAM, which should be enough to power apps on the monochrome screen, and 128GB of storage. Don’t worry about the lack of space, because Onyx is happy to offer a microSD card slot.
The Boox Tab Ultra will be launched on October 27 in the Boox online store. The tablet costs $599.99 in the US. Prices in our other favorite markets are not yet available.
In addition to the Tab Ultra, Onyx is also updating some of its other popular E Ink tablets. The Nova Air 2 is an update of the Boox Nova Air that we called “cute-looking, super-slim and incredibly flexible 7.8-inch device for digital notes on the go”.
The new device has a 7.8-inch E Ink display, 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage and supports the Onyx Pen Plus stylus. The Nova Air 2 costs $399.99 in the US, though we’re still waiting for pricing in other markets.
The Onyx Boox Leaf 2 updates the company’s simpler line of ereading devices. Instead of a stylus, this device is for reading and gets updates with page-turning buttons. It has a 7-inch display, 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage and a microSD card slot. The Leaf 2 retails for $199.99 in the US – again, pricing in other markets isn’t available yet.