Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra With ‘Super Refresh’ Launched: e-Paper Tablet That Doubles As Laptop?

The e-Ink or e-Paper technology and its market has been growing steadily in the past few years. Amazon Kindle is one the best examples which truly changed consumer perception about e-Ink tablets. The Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra could help the e-Paper technology move into a category: laptops. Let’s look at the specifications, features, price, and availability of the sleek e-Paper tablet which transitions into an Android laptop with a magnetic keyboard cover.

Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra Specifications

Onyx has been working in the e-reader market since 2006 and has offered some compelling eBook readers. The company has now launched the Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra. With this product, the company has created and entered a new product category: e-Paper Tablet PCs.

The Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra doesn’t appear to be a consumer-grade product, although anyone can purchase it. The BOOX Tab seems geared toward professionals and has the hardware for specific use cases.

The Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra features a 10.3-inch e-Ink Carta HD display. It has a resolution of 1404 × 1072 with a 227 PPI density. These specifications might seem unimpressive for a standard tablet, but do note that this product features an e-Ink screen. The tablet can be paired with a keyboard case that has a magnetic holder.

Onyx has embedded a Qualcomm octa-core CPU 662 processor within the BOOX Tab Ultra and paired it with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. While this should be more than enough for eBooks, the tablet also gets a dedicated SD card slot that supports up to 2TB of flash storage.

The Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra packs a massive 6300mAh battery and can be charged as well as synced via a USB-C port. The device measures 225x184x6.7mm and weighs 480g. Needless to say, this is a very lightweight device compared to other standard tablets.

Can The Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra Be A Decent Laptop?

Besides the capable mid-range Snapdragon 662 SoC and 4GB RAM, the Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra has all the hardware to replicate the performance and functions of a laptop. The device is running Google’s Android 11 operating system. Google Play Store access is available and it comes preinstalled. This means buyers can quickly install their desired apps.

The BOOX Tab Ultra ships with a Boox Pen 2 Pro stylus. This can be used on the touch-enabled e-Ink display which has 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity and can even recognize irrelevant input as it features palm rejection.

Onyx claims the BOOX Tab Ultra has a fast and responsive display because of the “BOOX Super Refresh” algorithm. Users can rely on ‘Fast Mode’ for web browsing, ‘Ultrafast Mode’ for generic Android applications, ‘Balance Mode’ for typing, and ‘HD Mode’ while reading books.

If these features aren’t enough, the ePaper tablet also features a 16MP rear-facing camera. This piece of optical equipment supports OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. It seems the Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra can scan documents and make digital copies without relying on external hardware.

The ONYX BOOX Tab Ultra is available for pre-order starting today for $599.99 (approx. ₹49,000). There are several compelling Google Chromebooks (some are even available at a lower price), but none have an e-Paper display.