Icarus Illumina XL6 Features a 7.8″ Screen, Octacore CPU, Ships Next Month for 268 Euros

06.09.2018 Nate Hoffelder No Comments

When I scooped my competition with the news of the Likebook Mars Android ereader earlier this week, the two questions everyone was asking were when could we buy it, and what OS did it run.

I can now report that the Likebook Mars runs a version of Android 6.0, and it is scheduled to be released in Europe at the beginning of next month (it shipped in China this week, which is where the Youtube videos came from).

The European ereader importer Icarus is now listing a new ereader called the Illumina XL6. While Icarus doesn’t say this explicitly, this is actually a rebranded Boyue Likebook Mars, and it is going to cost 268 euros.

The Illumina XL6 features a Rockchip RK3368 octa-core, 64-bit processor and 2GB RAM. That seems like overkill for an ereader, but as we saw in the videos earlier this week, Boyue built this machine to do more than just read ebooks.

It ships with Google Play, and clearly Boyue is intending the Illumina XL6 to be much more than just an ereader. That’s why it has audio, and a newer version of Android, and more processing power than any mainstream ereader short of the Kindle Oasis (while the Oasis only has a dual-core CPU, its Freescale chip is also more capable than a Rockchip CPU).

The Illumina XL6 is another bid to be the E-ink Android tablet desired by a niche market segment (I used to be one of them), and with a price of 268 euros it is priced to compete.