No. Or at least, they had not about six months ago when I went through my usual dance on buying the Boox color of the moment and then deciding not to for that exact reason
This is more… product-y than I’d normally submit here, but I heard about this device from elsewhere and it was so weird that I had to find some kind of explanation of what it is and share it. So, this is the least product-y description of it I could find.
It’s an ereader made by a semi-sketchy Chinese company that has a fairly decent ePaper display. I have one, it’s nice when my Kindle Oasis is either too heavy or large, and full Android is nicer than the heavily restricted OS on Kindle devices.
I used to own a Supernote A5x, and currently have a Boox Page, and a Boox Tab Mini C which I keep forgetting to list on eBay.
I think the concept here is simply that we do a lot of reading on our phones. Onyx gets products to market very quickly so I’m guessing dealing with getting cellular working in it is either taking longer than they liked or they just thought they’d feel out this market and see if there is interest. They are absolutely capable of just throwing some stuff at the wall to see what sticks—several Chinese hardware manufacturers are kind of like this now with an enormous product line that is constantly changing, Anbernic is kind of the same in the retrogaming handhelds niche. They have been releasing color eInk devices for years even though the consensus on them was that they were basically garbage until the current generation, which is merely niche.
Unless this thing is a runaway success (which it might be because of the novelty), I would not expect them to do it again without 5G.
Ratta Supernote are a much more ethical company, kind of the opposite of Boox in that they release hardware very rarely and do tons of software updates. But people are often reticent about buying because the hardware seems “old” and nobody wants to buy a device on the eve of a new one coming out. But they don’t make weird niche devices the way Boox does.
Funny you mention Anbernic ‘cause I actually really like them. XD You’re right though, they definitely have the same pattern of “make ~3-4 general platforms, then have like a million variations of each and see which ones people want to buy”. Must be nice to have your mechanical engineering and logistics pipeline so solid that’s the easiest way of doing market research!
Ratta’s products certainly do look nice, do you know how hackable they are/aren’t on the software side? I dearly love my dumb little Kobo, but the company stabbed me in the back by taking some books that I’d already paid for off of their library and I do not intend to forget that.
So, the A5X and I believe the new A6 Nomad are both Android and not very hackable, but they are committed to releasing the next version of the A5, the A5X2 IIRC, dual-booting Linux and Android, and the Linux side is fully open for hacking.
It’s unfortunate that it doesn’t have full 5G or cell connectivity. Other than that, it looks like a good piece of hardware. Although the Android 11 thing scares me a bit.
Have they changed their stance on not releasing kernel sources?
No. Or at least, they had not about six months ago when I went through my usual dance on buying the Boox color of the moment and then deciding not to for that exact reason
This is more… product-y than I’d normally submit here, but I heard about this device from elsewhere and it was so weird that I had to find some kind of explanation of what it is and share it. So, this is the least product-y description of it I could find.
It’s an ereader made by a semi-sketchy Chinese company that has a fairly decent ePaper display. I have one, it’s nice when my Kindle Oasis is either too heavy or large, and full Android is nicer than the heavily restricted OS on Kindle devices.
I used to own a Supernote A5x, and currently have a Boox Page, and a Boox Tab Mini C which I keep forgetting to list on eBay.
I think the concept here is simply that we do a lot of reading on our phones. Onyx gets products to market very quickly so I’m guessing dealing with getting cellular working in it is either taking longer than they liked or they just thought they’d feel out this market and see if there is interest. They are absolutely capable of just throwing some stuff at the wall to see what sticks—several Chinese hardware manufacturers are kind of like this now with an enormous product line that is constantly changing, Anbernic is kind of the same in the retrogaming handhelds niche. They have been releasing color eInk devices for years even though the consensus on them was that they were basically garbage until the current generation, which is merely niche.
Unless this thing is a runaway success (which it might be because of the novelty), I would not expect them to do it again without 5G.
Ratta Supernote are a much more ethical company, kind of the opposite of Boox in that they release hardware very rarely and do tons of software updates. But people are often reticent about buying because the hardware seems “old” and nobody wants to buy a device on the eve of a new one coming out. But they don’t make weird niche devices the way Boox does.
Funny you mention Anbernic ‘cause I actually really like them. XD You’re right though, they definitely have the same pattern of “make ~3-4 general platforms, then have like a million variations of each and see which ones people want to buy”. Must be nice to have your mechanical engineering and logistics pipeline so solid that’s the easiest way of doing market research!
Ratta’s products certainly do look nice, do you know how hackable they are/aren’t on the software side? I dearly love my dumb little Kobo, but the company stabbed me in the back by taking some books that I’d already paid for off of their library and I do not intend to forget that.
So, the A5X and I believe the new A6 Nomad are both Android and not very hackable, but they are committed to releasing the next version of the A5, the A5X2 IIRC, dual-booting Linux and Android, and the Linux side is fully open for hacking.
I do love my RG Cube, by the way. :)
It’s unfortunate that it doesn’t have full 5G or cell connectivity. Other than that, it looks like a good piece of hardware. Although the Android 11 thing scares me a bit.