The Onyx Boox Leaf 2 has undergone a tremendous redesign from the original model. It now has built-in page-turn buttons, so it is super easy to turn pages of an eBook or PDF document. It is available in black and white color versions with different screen types – the black one has a flush screen and the white version has a sunken screen to achieve better display quality. You get the best of both worlds with the Leaf 2.
The Onyx Boox Leaf 2 features a 7-inch E INK Carta 1200 display with a resolution of 1680×1264 with 300 PPI. The good thing about the new Carta screen on this model, is it increases page turn speed and overall performance by around 35% vs the previous generation Leaf. What I like best about this model is the choice. You can choose between a flush screen and bezel, with a layer of glass protecting the screen or a sunken screen and bezel design. You can read at night with the front-lit display and color temperature system. The cool and warm lighting can be blended together to give you an ideal illumination.
Underneath the hood is a Qualcomm 2.0G Quad-core (4 x Arm Cortex-A53) processor, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. This is a dedicated e-reader with no note taking functionality. This sets it apart from many of the other products in the Onyx portfolio. I can can recommend this model to people who want manual page turn buttons and not be locked into a specific ecosystem like Amazon, Kobo or B&N. The Leaf 2 has Bluetooth 5.0, a speaker, mic, G-Sensor for automatic rotation, and USB-C. It is powered by a 2,000 mAh battery and the dimensions are 156x137x6 and weighs a paltry 160g.
The Leaf 2 is running Android 11 and has full access to the Play Store, so you can download millions of free and paid apps. It comes preinstalled, so all you need to do is input your Google account and you are ready to rumble. Onyx has also included their world-class e-reading app that is one of the best in the business. It supports pdf, djvu, azw, azw3, doc, docm, docx, epub , fb2, fbz, html, mobi, odt, prc, rtf, sxw, trc, txt, chm, ppt.
The Leaf 2 is available right now and is retailing for $199 for both the black and white model and can be purchased from the Good e-Reader Store.
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.