Onyx International will be releasing the Onyx Boox at CeBit in a few days. The last few days have seen the announcement of 3 separate eBook Readers that’ll take on the Kindle 2, and two of these (Onyx Boox and BeBook 2) will be unveiled at CeBit.

After diving into the specs and the video I’m very impressed. The software on the device is very, very impressive.

Onyx Boox eBook Reader

The key highlights of the Boox are -

1. The specifications page lists 6″, 8″ and 9.7″ screens.
2. The web browser uses WebKit customized for the eInk screen. Using WebKit is pretty impressive – both Safari and Chrome use it too.
3. They have a pretty good looking folders system, and use thumbnails etc. well.
4. Its a touch screen with a pen included and handwriting recognition.
5. Support for  Wi-Fi, CDMA, EVDO, and GSM is listed as optional.
6. It supports a wide variety of formats including ePub, PDF, and Amazon’s own Mobipocket (.prc).
7. There’s no keyboard and there’s an iPod scroll wheel type control on the front.
8. There’s a rather intriguing button on the back identical in design to the scroll wheel on the front.
9. They say – “full screen scribble will bring you real handwriting experience – Search, annotate, highlight, and input text easily with a pen.”
10. Also support for multiple languages – English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Simple and Traditional Chinese.

Onyx Boox Pictures

There is a button on the back of the Boox that is identical to the one on  the front. It might just be a design feature or another button with separate functionality. The Onyx Boox looks pretty good.

Onyx Boox eReader Photo

Onyx Boox Video

They’ve put up a video that shows the Boox in detail and some pretty impressive functionality -

Onyx Boox eReader Specifications

Operating System: Linux, WinCE (Optional)
Interfaces:

1. I/O: USB 2.0 OTG.
2. Slot: SD/MMC/SDIO/SDHC
3. Headphones: 2.5mm Stereo

Connectivity: Wi-Fi/CDMA/EVDO/GSM and more
Battery: 1700mhr Li-ion
Hardware Spec.

1. 400mhz & up Processor.
2. 6″, 8″, 9.7″ E Ink screens.
3. 16 level grayscale.
4. 128MB RAM.
5. 512MB FlashFormat Support

Text to Speech: Enabled.
Formats Supported: PDF, TXT, HTML, CHM, RTF, PDB, PRC(Mobipocket).
Audio Formats Supported: MP3.
Image formats supported: JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF.
Customized formats optional.
Feature Support: Text Reflowable, Zoom in/out, Pan/Search, Annotation, Text to speech “TTS”, Dictionary, Various connectivities

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