The Onyx Boox Poke 2 Color has always been an impressive piece of e-reader hardware. It offers a 6-inch Kaleido color E Ink display with a resolution of 1072 × 1448 pixels and a 300 PPI and 100 PPI pixel density in B/W and color mode, respectively. With a front light feature christened Moon Light, the e-reader always offers a comfortable reading experience irrespective of the ambient lighting conditions.
Under the hood, the Poke 2 Color sported decent specs, including a 2 GHz octa-core processor, 2 gigs of memory, and 32 GB of native storage. Essentially made of plastic, the Poke 2 Color offers compact dimensions—153 × 107 × 6,8 mm—and weighs an equally lightweight 150 grams. With a 1500 mAh battery, the e-reader could easily last several weeks of usage. It runs Android 8 open system and supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity.
Much of the specs would easily be outdone by contemporary e-readers of this age, though some ingenious thinking has brought the e-reader back in the news again. As Liliputing mentioned, a YouTuber identified by the name 2Old4Toys added a keyboard unit to the e-reader, which made it look a lot like many of the keyboard-enabled smartphones or the UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PCs) of yore. There used to be the likes of the Nokia N900 or the Sony Vaio UX, which had a display on the top and a keyboard below.
The entire thing might not be as slick as any of the devices mentioned above, though it is functional nonetheless and serves the intended purpose. As demoed in the video, the e-reader works flawlessly and can be used to make inputs on the display using the keyboard that slides out from the bottom. How the keyboard has been attached to the bottom of the e-reader hasn’t been shown, though.
In any case, it is nice to see someone bringing a concept back to life after so many years, and that too on a device designed for reading e-books.