The Onyx Boox Poke 3 is designed to be an e-reader first and foremost. It is the only product in Onyx’s portfolio that does not have a WACOM screen and a stylus, instead the touchscreen display is great for audiobooks, comics, ebooks, magazines, newspaper or PDF files. Android 10 and Google Play will ensure all of your modern apps will be compatible. This device is available tomorrow and will retail for $189 from the Good e-Reader Store.
The Poke 3 features a 6 inch E INK Carta HD capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1448×1072 and 300 PPI. It has a glass based screen that is flush with the bezel. It has a great front-lit display with white LED lights, that provide a great reading experience when in dark rooms. There are amber LED lights, they provide a warm candlelight effect, so you can read at night, and help mute the white light. There are 10 LED lights total, 5 white and 5 amber. There is no WACOM layer with this product, so you cannot interact with the screen with a stylus.
Underneath the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor, 2GB of DDR4X RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The Poke 3 now has a USB-C OTG port to power and transfer documents. It also has Bluetooth 5.0 to connect up wireless headphones or an external speaker. This is great because the Poke 2 only had Micro USB and an earlier version of Bluetooth. It has a microphone and powered by a respectable 1,500 mAH battery. The Poke 3 is around 33% faster than the Poke 2, primarily because of the new processor and faster RAM.
One of the big selling points is Android 10 and Google Play. You get a really modern OS, that will be relevant for years to come. It is compatible with basically any app you want to install, such as Kindle, Overdrive Libby, Scribd, Kobo, Nook, Moon+ Reader and tons of others.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.