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The Onyx BOOX Poke5 is an eBook reader with a 6 inch, 1072 x 1448 pixel greyscale E Ink Carta touchscreen display featuring 300 pixels per inch and a front-light with adjustable brightness and color temperature.
With a $170 price tag, it might not look all that competitive with cheaper devices like the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite or Kobo Clara 2E (which both have list prices of $140). But the Onyx BOOX Poke5 is a versatile gadget that runs an Android 11-based operating system, which opens the possibility of running third-party apps on the eReader.
The Poke5 is powered by an unspecified quad-core Qualcomm processor and features 2GB of LPDDR4x memory and 32GB of eMMC storage. It also has a microSD card reader for removable storage.
Other features include a 1,500 mAh battery, support for WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0, a built-in microphone, and a USB Type-C port that can be used for charging or data. It’s also a USB OTG port that can be used as an audio jack for plugging in a pair of headphones or other accessories like a USB flash drive or wired mouse or keyboard.
Clearly the Poke5 is first and foremost meant for reading eBooks, and it supports a wide range of formats including EPUB, AZW3, TXT, DOXC, HTML, PDF, CBR, and CBZ. It can also display PNG, JPG, TIFF, and BMP image formats or play audiobooks in WAV or MP3 formats (you’ll need a pair of wired or wireless headphones though, since there’s no speaker).
But you can also install third-party apps for reading newspapers or periodicals, web browsing, or other activities (assuming you can find Android apps that play well with devices that have E Ink displays, slow processors, and small batteries).
The eReader measures 148 x 108 x 6.8mm (5.8″ x 4.3″ x 0.27″) and weighs 160 grams (5.6 ounces). Onyx also offers an optional magnetic case/cover to customers who spend an extra $10.
The Onyx BOOX Poke5 replaces the BOOX4 Lite that launched last year for $150, and which is no longer available. That model had a 212 ppi display and 16GB of storage, and lacked some of the features included in this year’s model like a microSD card reader, microphone, and support for magnetic covers.
Check your wording in the last paragraph. Last year’s model had 16 GB of storage, not of RAM. Seeing it had 16 GB of RAM made me double-take (and consider trying to buy one used), because that’s on par with current flagship phones.
Whoops, I’ve fixed that, thanks!