Onyx Boox Kepler Pro Coming Soon – Android 4.0, Waterproof, Flush-Mounted Carta E-ink Screen
Here’s an interesting addendum to yesterday’s ereader video from Charbax. Regular TDR commenter Hrafn has identified the 6″ ereader shown late in that video, and posted the info over at MobileRead.
It’s called the Kepler, and Onyx has already posted the product listing. There are going to be three models, and one, the Kepler Pro, will be a competitor to the 3rd-gen Kindle Paperwhite (we don’t have the specs for the other two models).
The Kepler Pro runs Android 4.0 on a 1GHz CPU with 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, and a microSD card slot.
It has a flush-mounted Carta E-ink screen (1442 x 1072 resolution) with frontlight and either a capacitive touchscreen or a digitizer with stylus (the listing contradicts itself, but no stylus was shown in the video). Under that screen you’ll find Wifi, Bluetooth,a 3Ah battery, all wrapped in a waterproof shell.
For obvious reasons there’s no headphone jack or speaker, but the Kepler Pro does have audio support via Bluetooth. It can play mp3 files or stream TTS over a Bluetooth speaker.
Weighing in at 205 grams, the Kepler Pro measures 8 mm thin.
All in all, this ereader is bound to appeal to a wide variety of users. If the flush-mounted high resolution screen doesn’t draw you in, the waterproof shell might, or Android, or the Bluetooth support.
All in all, this is about three-quarters of the ereader many wish the Kindle Oasis would have been. The only way Onyx could improve upon this design is to put page turn buttons on one side of the screen to make it easier to use one-handed.
Who knows, maybe that will turn up in the next model.
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