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You can blame that headline on all my watching of Alton Brown – why have a uni-tasker when you can have a multi-tasking device? Of course, for a phone case, so long as it keeps your expensive pocket computer safe, that’s the main thing. With the Oaxis Inkcase i7, that’s not all it has to be limited to, though.
By this point, everyone should be familiar with what an e-ink screen is, and what it can offer: low power-consumption grey-scale displays. Here, we’ve got a 480×800 (217dpi) display. For comparison-sake, a Kindle Paperwhite has a 300dpi display. So it won’t be quite as crisp, but it then begs the question – is it still good enough?
I’ve been using it to read on, and I say yes. It’s a bit of an adjustment to rely on the physical buttons below the display (we’re conditioned to touch screens now), but the page turns are quick enough, and the reading is easy enough to do. The text isn’t quite as crisp, and I will say there can be some slight ghosting. That all said, it’s still perfectly fine to read from. Ghosting I found to be more prominent when it pulled up the images I loaded (via an associated app, you send them over via bluetooth) for the standby and power-off screens, as shown just below here.
Standby ghosting 
Power off ghosting
What’s curious is that their own loading screens are VERY clean and legible, so it could be that there’s a very specific size or format that would help prevent it. I was still happy to have various Batman-related images popping on there. As I mentioned, you can put these on via bluetooth, and that’s also how you get the books on. I had hoped to use Calibre (which we wrote about earlier this week) as the product page touts it. For the life of me, I could not get the app to recognize the Oaxis Inkcase i7 (the case has a dedicated USB cable with a magnetic connection to the case), so it was some manual file moving around that needed to be done.
For me, the main use cases for the Oaxis Inkcase i7 are to protect the phone, and do some reading (for those times you don’t want/need to carry a dedicated e-reader). That said, you can also do things like have it display your scheduled, or even a clock (shown up above). Those feel a little less interesting, but that’s just me. I suppose some could find the benefit of having that agenda showing there without needing to open up the phone.
At it’s list price of $129 you might balk, especially if you already have a case you like. However, it’s on a discount right now of $79.90 which makes it a bit easier on the wallet, especially if you’re looking to reduce what you’re carrying daily. For me, I liked the Oaxis Inkcase i7. I think if they got the Cailbre compatibility solved, it would make for a much more compelling device, at least in how I’d envision it being used. If you’re looking for a phone case that offers you a bit more, this is worth checking out. oaxis.com
