Looking for differences: a review of 6-inch Onyx Boox readers

Being
one of the leading manufacturers of devices with screens based on electronic
ink, Onyx
Boox
only in the last year managed to release several dozen identical-looking
models. It is quite easy for an inexperienced user to get confused among all these
names and serial numbers. Today we will try to deal with this
problem by comparing 6-inch readers with each other. In the study
Seven of the most popular Onyx Boox gadgets of 2022 will take part: Da Vinci, Volta 3, Faust 3, Poke 4 Lite, Darwin 9, Livingstone 2 and Poke 3 Special Edition.

Equipment

Every
the reader, regardless of the cost, comes in a presentable book box:
In this case, anyone will be pleased to receive a gadget as a gift. Complete with all
Comes with manuals and USB cable.
Type-C — it’s nice that even the initial models
finally switched to this interface. The differences here lie in the “smart” cover: Faust 3 and Darwin 9 have the usual “plump” cases, while Volta 3 and Livingstone 2 have
built-in paging keys to the right of the screen, and Poke 3 SE has the most elegant protection, which
practically does not increase its dimensions. Da Vinci and Poke 4 Lite come without covers, but they
can be purchased separately. All cases have a hard plastic base covered with
leatherette with embellishments in the form of embossing and decorative seams. Inner part
The covers are made of velvety material so as not to scratch the screen. Poke 3 SE has a snow-white cover (looks
beautiful, but quickly dirty), the rest — brown. All cases are not just
protect the device, but can also enter / wake it from sleep mode.

Design

Books
Da Vinci, Volta 3 and Livingstone 2 are made in a single
design, and gray soft-touch plastic is chosen as the material. In the eyes
quite wide frames immediately rush: 23 mm from the bottom and 12 mm from the other sides.
However, in the case of readers, wide does not mean bad, because for them there is much
more comfortable to hold the device. Below the screen is a physical key.
To protect against damage, the display itself is recessed into the case. On the top end
there is a power button, on the bottom there is an open slot for microSD and a USB Type-C connector. The edges of the back panel are rounded.
It is especially convenient to use these gadgets in a case, since its two keys
flips are located just under the thumb. Device dimensions
156×112.5×8.8mm, weight 155g, and cases are much
increase these values ​​​​- 158x123x14 mm and 260 g, respectively.

Faust 3 and Darwin 9 are also made in the same body of
the same soft-touch plastic, but slightly different in shape from the first three
books: the rounding of the back panel has become more gentle and on the front side
there was a chamfer around the perimeter. Also, the keys from the cover «creeped» onto the reader itself,
located on the left, right and bottom of the screen. On the top end to the button
inclusion, a microphone hole was added, and from the bottom to the microSD and USB Type-C ports — a mini jack connector. However, it is worth noting that Faust 3 has neither a microphone nor an audio jack.
are functioning. The bezels also protrude above the screen, and here they are even wider: 35 mm
from below and 14 mm from all other sides. It is convenient to use readers as in
Case, and without it, you do not need to reach for the buttons. Device dimensions 170x117x8.7 mm, weight 174 g.
the mass increases greatly — 174x121x15 mm and 274 g.

Poke 4 Lite and Poke 3 SE are made in a similar Slim design, but the first has a screen recessed into
case, and the other is made flush with the front panel and covered with a protective
Asahi glass.
In addition, the Quartet uses the already well-known gray plastic, and
«troika» — smooth white polycarbonate with black elements. What is there to say
– Poke
3SE
Definitely the most stylish in this collection. Flat back panel of books
made without rounding. Unlike previous models, there are no keys in the Poke line
controls, no microSD slot:
on the top end there is a lock button, on the bottom — USB Type-C and a microphone hole. Frames here
much thinner: 23 mm from the bottom, 8.5 mm from the other sides. Dimensions Poke 4 Lite and Poke 3 SE — 153x107x7.1 mm and 153x107x6.8 mm, and weight 152 g and 145 g
respectively. Poke cover
3SE
it doesn’t “full” it much — 155x109x11 mm and 220 g. Due to the smaller
dimensions, but still a wide bottom frame, hold these devices in your hand
more convenient than the rest, but the lack of physical keys somewhat worsens
ergonomics.

Display

Devices
equipped with 6-inch e-paper screens that are easy to
Ideal for reading fiction on the go. Da Vinci, Volta 3, Faust 3, Poke 4 Lite displays are made using E Ink Carta technology, while Darwin 9, Livingstone 2 and Poke 3 SE are E
Ink Card Plus. In fact, this is the same thing, only with a different resolution: 1024 × 758
(212 ppi) in the first case and 1448×1072
(300 ppi) in the second. I want to note that on such a diagonal to notice
the difference will be quite difficult.

The aspect ratio is approximately 90×70 in portrait format.
The substrate has a slightly grayish tint. The screens of all considered readers are touch-sensitive with multi-touch. They can display up to 16 shades of gray
settings, you can «play around» with saturation and contrast.

used
proprietary SNOW Field technology that removes residual
artifacts in case of incomplete update. Da Vinci, Volta 3 and Faust 3 displays support two modes of operation with
different quality and response speed, the rest of the books have four of them.

Backlight

Everybody
tested readers are equipped with the most progressive backlight version: MOON
Light 2. The light spreads evenly over the substrate and does not hit the eyes.
The user can independently adjust the intensity of cold and warm
shades: blue light reduces the production of the sleep hormone melatonin, yellow light
increases. Flicker-Free technology eliminates
flicker. Everyone has a large margin of brightness: for comfortable operation of Da Vinci, Volta 3 and Faust 3, you need 50% of the maximum, for the rest even 25% is enough.

«Iron»

AT
Da models
Vinci,
Volta
3 and Faust
3 is a Rockchip RK3128 processor (4xCortex-A7 1.2 GHz, Mali-400 MP2). Its main problem in the 40 nm process technology is that
makes the chip gluttonous and not particularly productive. Number of operational
memory is also in doubt — 512 MB. The interface works thoughtfully, although for
«Readers» is not such a big problem. Opening a text file
takes from 4 to 25 seconds, depending on the size and format. per load
the operating system takes 30 seconds, but to exit sleep mode — only 2 seconds.
There is not much permanent memory: out of 8 GB, only 4.9 GB is available to the user. For
Fiction will suffice, while audiobooks and PDF documents
You can also record to microSD. There are built-in Wi-Fi 4 and Bluetooth 4.1 modules.

Platform
Darwin
9 Livingstone
2 and Poke
4 Lite is under construction
based on the more advanced 14nm Qualcomm Snapdragon QCS2290 chip
(4xCortex-A53 2GHz, Adreno
702). There is also more RAM here — 2 GB. In direct comparison
the difference in speed becomes obvious: the interface is almost
slows down, and opening files takes from 2 to 7 s. For download speed
more advanced hardware had no effect — the same 30 and 2 s. Devices have
16 GB internal storage (7.2 GB available), which can be increased with a memory card for Darwin 9 and Livingstone 2. Wireless
more modern interfaces: Bluetooth
5.0 and Wi-Fi 5 Dual.
Poke
four
Lite and
Darwin
9 have a built-in voice recorder, the latter can also be connected to wired
headphones (mini
jack). USB port
Type-C recognizes flash drives.

«Heart»
Poke
3 SE is an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 (4xCortex-A73 1.8GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 1.6GHz, Adreno 509), also
created on 14 nm process technology. RAM 2 GB, but the constant is already 32
GB (22.7 GB available), support
microSD
no. The interface does not freeze, opening files takes the same
2-7 s. Bluetooth modules installed
5.0 and Wi-Fi 5 Dual, there is a microphone. USB Type-C
supports OTG mode,
allowing, among other things, to connect headphones.

Operating system

Da Vinci, Volta 3 and Faust 3 run Android 4.4.4, Poke
3SE
– on Android
10 and Livingstone
2, Poke
4 Lite and
Darwin
9 — on fresh Android
11. However, everywhere the interface is heavily redesigned and adapted
for reading books. The main menu is displayed at the bottom of the screen and consists of four
items: «Library», «File Manager», «Applications» and «Settings», the Poke series also has a fifth section — «Store»,
where you can download various literature in English. In the «Library» Da Vinci, Volta 3 and Faust 3 are displayed
covers of the last opened books and reading progress, you can also configure here
filters and sort all texts stored on the device by authors,
titles or series. At the Poke line
the section is arranged a little differently, showing the covers of all the books on the device. Both display options are available for Livingstone 2 and Darwin 9
bookshelf.

On
devices with old OS in the top line
located quick functions: backlight, display mode, wireless
interfaces, battery (no exact number), time, as well as standard Android buttons,
although programmable physical keys are quite enough. Most settings
display and control here is hidden directly in the program for
reading. On
new OS settings are moved to the corresponding section of the main menu, and on top
a whole panel with functions is put forward. Poke 4 Lite
and Poke
3SE
support swipe management, and there is also a floating button where you can
place up to six teams. Livingstone
2 and Darwin
9 has both physical keys and virtual. Smooth movements along
right or left screen borders on all models can be independently adjusted
the brightness of both backlight components.

Several basic applications are preinstalled: Mail, Gallery,
The calendar,
Browser, Player (except Da Vinci),
Dictionary and others, installation of third-party APK files is also supported. Da Vinci, Volta 3 and Faust 3 do not support the Play Market, on the rest it appears after
activation of the corresponding item in the settings. Readers with Android 10 and 11 also have their own app store. Regardless of the model, device
support most book formats (TXT, HTML, RTF, FB2, FB3, MOBI, CHM,
PDB, DOC, DOCX, PRC, EPUB, PDF and DjVu), comics (CBR and CBZ), pictures (JPG,
PNG, GIF and BMP), as well as audio (MP3 and WAV) for
with the exception of Da Vinci. Files can be transferred via shared
local wireless network, free cloud storage, microSD, via Bluetooth or wire, and for new operating systems and via a flash drive.

Reading

For
readings in the Poke series
only Neo Reader 3 is installed, which is rather optimized for opening PDF,
DjVu and comics, allowing you to display the page in parts and cut off empty margins.
In all others, AIReaderX Pro is additionally loaded, more
“sharpened” for reading fiction, because it has a large
number of text display settings, allows you to add bookmarks, highlight
snippets, convert text to speech, translate words, download books from
network libraries and more. However, this is Android, and each user
can install for reading the application to which he is accustomed.

autonomy

Good
autonomy is what you expect from a reader on
electronic ink. Da
Vinci,
Volta
3 Faust
3, Darwin
9 Livingstone
2 is equipped with a 3000 mAh lithium-ion battery, Poke 4 Lite and Poke 3 SE — a 1500 mAh battery — slim
the corps still requires sacrifice. However, do not forget that some models work on
more power efficient processor. To determine the characteristics of autonomy,
three tests were carried out:

• flipping with an interval of 5 s and the backlight turned off, the number of pages to full charge was measured;

• flipping with an interval of 60 s and active backlight (50% on Da Vinci, Volta 3, Faust 3 and 25% on the rest), the time to full discharge was recorded;

• charging from a power source (5V, 2A), the time was measured until the battery was fully restored.

record holder
battery life became Darwin
9 (31,500 pages and 60 hours), and the Poke line is expected to charge the fastest (100 minutes). Full test results
are shown in the summary table.

Price

For
the purity of the experiment, the prices of all devices were taken from the official website.
The most affordable model on our list is the Da Vinci at $730, but if you
If you plan to buy a cover for it, the price will increase by $130. Next comes Volta 3 for $1030 and Faust 3 for $1130. Poke 4 Lite will cost $ 1230, and even
You will have to pay $230 for the cover. Prices for Darwin 9 and Livingstone 2 were the same
— $1330. The most expensive, of course, was the Poke 3 SE — $ 1830.

pivot table

For
for clarity, we will summarize the data for all tested devices in one table.

findings

As
you could see that all 6-inch Onyx Boox devices have certain differences in
design, screen resolution, performance, wireless interfaces,
operating system, covers and autonomy. All these nuances form a different
price. Such a variety is necessary in order to fully satisfy
user requests: one will be enough for the capabilities of the most basic reader,
others care about physical keys and high resolution, while still others just want a stylish
gadget. I hope that after reading this text, you will no longer get confused in the nuances, and when
If you wish, you can choose the model that best suits your needs.
requirements. Remember that reading is useful, and with the help of electronic readers it is
can be made more convenient.