The Onyx Boox Page is a dedicated ebook reader with physical page turn buttons similar to the Amazon Kindle Oasis, and this model is now available for purchase. It builds upon the first and second-generation Leaf, except this model has better hardware and a bigger battery. The big selling points are the latest generation E INK Carta 1200 e-paper panel, which increases performance and page turn speed, in addition to the Onyx refresh technology. It employs Google Android 11 and has full access to the Google Play Store, providing access to millions of free and paid apps; it also has Play Services. You can purchase this for $249.99 from the Good e-Reader Store.
Hardware
The Onyx Boox Page features a 7-inch E INK Carta 1200 display panel with a resolution of 1680×1264 with 300 PPI. The screen is flush with the bezel and protected by an AG glass flat cover lens. The colour scheme is piano black, with two manual page turn buttons on the right side. The back platting is plastic but has a neat design featuring little perforated book covers everywhere—the front-lit display and colour temperature system for reading day or night. The light produces both cool and warm lighting or a mixture of both. Slider bars in the quick settings menu allow you to blend the two lights.
Underneath the hood is a Qualcomm 2.0Ghz Octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. A MicroSD card slot has support for 1TB of extra storage. There is a speaker to listen to audiobooks, music or podcasts; there is also Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless earbuds or headphones. You can connect to the internet or browse the web, thanks to the WiFi (802.11b/g/n/ac) 2.4G + 5G chip. USB-C allows you to transfer content to your device or for charging. A microphone is available for voice communication apps, and a g-sensor will rotate it from portrait to landscape. This is perfect for people who are left-handed and want the page-turn buttons. It is powered by a 2300 mAh battery, and its dimensions are 156 X 137 X 6.0mm, weighing 195g.
It is running Google Android 11 and has full access to the Google Play Store. This is not an e-note but an e-reader; it replaces the Onyx Boox Leaf 2 but has better hardware specs. The Neoreader book reading app is excellent for people who have an extensive book collection, and it supports PDF, djvu, azw, azw3, doc, docm, docx, epub, fb2, fbz, html, mobi, odt, PRC, rtf, sxw, trc, txt, chm, and ppt. If you don’t have a collection of books, you can download your favourite e-reading or manga app from Google Play and always keep them updated.
I have always enjoyed the first and second-generation Onyx Boox Leaf e-readers. The page-turn buttons make it a standout; since only a few brands do this on most models. Pocketbook have always been bullish with physical buttons, sometimes, they have them on the side of the screen, and some models have them positioned near the bottom. The Barnes and Noble Nook series also has page-turn buttons. The Kindle Oasis and Kindle Voyage also have buttons to turn the page. The one advantage that Onyx Boox has is that they run Android and have Google Play; it is like choosing your adventure, where you aren’t locked into any specific ecosystem but can choose the ones you want to do business with. The Page builds upon the Leaf and is an incremental update that deserves a very long look.
Software
The Page runs Android 11 and has full access to the Play Store so that 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. The Onyx Boox Page does not have a vanilla Android 11 experience. Instead, it is going Boox OS, a skinned version of Android. They have their own unique Launcher, which makes it ideal for E INK screens. Many features come directly from Android, such as pull-down notifications and pull-down options, such as Bluetooth, WIFI, and Airplane mode. There are numerous options to screencast content from your device to another, adjust the volume, take a screenshot or adjust the front-lit display and colour temperature system. I like the screen recording option.
The E INK Control Center has recently been redesigned and is tremendously helpful for fine-tuning the entire Leaf experience. The E INK Control Center allows you to adjust the refresh rate with four different options; each one gradually increases the performance of the e-Reader at the expense of resolution. The least fast ones are good for zipping through manga and PDF files, while the fastest ones are great for Android apps with animations or streaming music. Global contrast settings will make everything darker, but contrast can also be manually adjusted per app. So, you can have the Kindle app have darker fonts, which makes things readable, or if an app has light fonts, you can darken them—and contrast settings not only for the system but also for your current app. The app optimization settings are easier to access.
There isn’t a dedicated home screen per se. It defaults to your library, where there are no preloaded books by default, so it is pretty empty. Once you sideload some books in they will appear on your library shelf. You can sort by grid or list view, check out reading statistics or search for an author or title. The stock app supports a myriad of sideloaded content, such as PDF, djvu, azw, azw3, doc, docm, docx, epub , fb2, fbz, html, mobi, odt, prc, rtf, sxw, trc, txt, chm, and ppt.
The main navigation bar is at the bottom of the screen. UI elements include Library, Store, Storage, Apps and Settings. Onyx operates its bookstore, which has audiobooks and ebooks. However, most content is royalty-free, so you will not find any best sellers. Primarily you will have the same type of free books and audiobooks that Project Gutenberg or Librivox. Storage shows you a directory structure of your entire device, including content on your SD card. Apps include the Onyx App Store and typical Android apps such as music player, gallery, calculator etc. Boox has its web browser called NeoBrowser, and users can access the Play Store. However, you can’t just log in and download apps. You need first to visit the settings menu, click on enable Google Play, click on GSF ID and bind it to your account, and sometimes you have to wait 24 hours for the ID to attach officially before you can log in and download apps. Once you do this once, you can always log in and download/update apps as you usually would.
The main settings menu is not something that you would typically access. This would be an occasional visit. You can set up or change your language, adjust date and time, power management settings, WIFI network settings, and check for firmware updates. One of the most important settings here is called Gesture Support. This system allows you to gesture in specific directions to do different functionality. You can swipe up from the bottom of the screen upwards and access the E INK Control Center, Home Screen or Back. Swiping from the far right or far left can also trigger the volume level of adjusting the warm light. The gestures can do what you want and can be enabled or disabled completely.
Overall, Page is a book reader, which is the goal. Enough features and advanced settings allow users to craft their own experience. You are not forced to use the Onyx Book Store to buy books. You can download reading apps from Google Play or other ones. Spotify sounds great with wireless headphones or Audible to listen to audiobooks. I use the Kindle Lite app since it is stripped down and provides the best E INK experience. However, no matter what type of content you like, you can download it. Since this has Google Play Services, YouTube, Google Maps, GMAIL, and all other Google apps will work fine.
Reading
The Onyx Boox Page has a seven-inch screen. The e-reading experience has multiple facets; there is a stock app called Neoreader; this is where you can sideload in all of your content and begin reading with many options for font sizes, font type, alignment, line spacing and margins. It supports PRC, RTF, Doc, Text, DJVU, PDF, Mobi, FB2, EPUB, CBR and CBZ. Having CBZ and CBR support is excellent for sideloading in Manga files since this is the most popular format found online. However, Amazon delivers manga in AZW3 and Kobo/Google and others deliver it via EPUB.
As a rule of thumb, the Neoreader app is ideal if you download royalty-free books from the Onyx Boox Store, have an extensive collection of ebooks or manga on your PC and MAC, and don’t mind sideloading. Onyx is an excellent brand if you want to develop your collection and manually load them into every new e-reader you purchase.
The Page shines when you install Google Play and download your favourite apps. This gives you tremendous flexibility and freedom to use whatever reading or news apps you normally use on your smartphone or tablet. I know many people always install Libby to read eBooks or listen to audiobooks borrowed from the public library. The Kindle reading app tends to be the most popular since it was originally developed for smartphones and tablets. The page turn animation always looks nice and pretty, but it struggles on E INK devices due to the refresh issue. This is why Onyx made enhancements to the app on a system level to eliminate animated page turns, so it is seamless and robust when you turn a page. Over the years, they have optimized many other apps but tend to focus on the writing experience on their extensive line of e-notes. When installing apps, I recommend adjusting the speed mode from the E INK Center to ensure they are running properly.Wrap up
This e-reader is a cheeky way to get more money out of you as there are no differences between this and the Leaf 2. It’s $50 more, has the same body construction, and has the same page-turn buttons that the leaf two had<. It has a slightly bigger battery, and it is twice as fast on paper, but they got rid of the white sunken screen and bezel variant, which was a little bit of a letdown. It does have a 300 PPI screen which is solid, and I suppose the mappable page turn buttons / Keys give it a little bit of a bonus. I would recommend the Page to anyone wanting an affordable e-book reader and not wanting to be locked into a specific ecosystem. This is the freedom of Onyx; you get a whole tablet experience but with an E INK screen.
Onyx Boox Page
$249.99Pros
- Dedicated book reader
- Great hardware specs
- Android 11 and Google Play
- Page turn butons
- Fast refresh
Cons
- Not that much different than the Leaf 2
- No different colour models
- You will be stuck with Android 11, Onyx doesn't update the OS
- Onyx is not a household name
- Leaf 2 slowly discontinued, so this is the only option now.
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.
