A brand new Onyx Boox phone was showcased at this years Consumer Electronics Show and many people thought it would be out sometime this year. This is not the case and I have it on good authority that it will not come out until 2021. I have heard that their engineers are retooling the device, although the exact changes are unknown. I think they are going to try and ship it with Android 10, which is the same OS that the Max Lumi and Note Air are running.
The Onyx Boox Phone features a single screen 5.8 inch E Ink Carta HD display with 300PPI. It has a front-lit display and color temperature system. Underneath the hood is a octa-core processor, but the amount of RAM and internal storage is unknown. It has a USB-C port and there is a fingerprint reader to lock or unlock the phone. There is dual microphones, so call quality will be pretty good. There will be SD card via the SIM card tray. You can have 2 SIMS or 1 SIM and one SD card.
There are two speakers to play music, audiobooks or podcasts. There will be WiFi, 4G / LTE and Bluetooth. Onyx has told me that this device shown at CES is a prototype and it will be refined and more specs will be shared in a month or two. There is a dual camera system on the back, the design is similar to the iPhone XS MAX. The exact number of megapixels is unknown, but it will likely be 12MP to 18MP.
It was initially running Android 9, but it is likely they will upgrade it Android 10, or even Android 11, since it is being released this fall. It will also have Google Play and Play Services.
What exactly is Onyx going to do to the phone. I believe that aside from upgrading Android, they might add a color filter array, so it can display 4,096 colors. They could also be upgrading the processor to modern Snapdragon one. At least we know for certain that the Onyx Phone will not released this year and it has not been killed off in development, but will eventually see the light of day in 2021.
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.
