Charbax is back again with a new video showing gadgets no one else gets to put their hands on.
This time around he caught up with Taiwan-based ereader and tablet maker Netronix, and he brought a camera person with him. The audio quality isn't all that great but this video is worth watching just for the Android based ereader shown at about 1:10.
The ereader has an IR touchscreen and it's running an unknown version of Android on a Freescale i.MX507 CPU. That CPU is one that Freescale developed specifically for E-ink devices and it includes the screen controller chip as an integrated component.
If you ask me this new Netronix ereader bears a striking resemblance to the Crema Shine ereader which launched in South Korea earlier this month. It too ran Android, and at the time I had no info on the manufacturer. Of course, a superficial resemblance means little but Crema had to buy the hardware from someone.
This is the first time that I have heard that Netronix is working with Android on E-ink, much less that they had shipped 100,000 units in the past year. Now I understand why the hardware team behind the Earl back-country E-ink tablet said in July that there were 3 Chinese companies who could make an E-ink Android tablet. Clearly Netronix is one, Onyx is the second, and the third slot is taken up by a company that does not wish to be named.
When & where will we able to buy one of these? So handy for those of us with glare problems on regular computer screens!
So that’s what Charbax looks like 🙂
If somebody would just come out with something like this in a 9.7″ or bigger form factor, I’d be ready to roll.
And by “this”, I meant the android tablet. Need to stave off all you smart alecks out there.