When I’m using an e-book reader, I want a “reading processor” — a single-purpose tool that provides the most delightful, efficient, and frictionless reading experience possible.
So… what do I mean by delightful? Several things:
- I want a distraction-free reading experience. No text messages or social media notifications. No web browsing. No YouTube, Netflix, or ads. I want books. Just books.
- I want something light. Tablets like the iPad (even the iPad mini) and Kindle Scribe weigh enough to make me reconsider carrying them. I want to hold my e-book reader for hours without fatigue.
- I want something small. While my aging eyes love big fonts on big screens, my e-book reader should be small enough for one-handed use — about the size of a paperback.
What do I mean by efficient?
- I want to read books. I don’t need a notepad for my illegible handwriting or to draw my husband, Clyde, “like one of my French girls.” I don’t want to keep up with (or keep charging) a stylus.
- I want my entire library of 966 e-books with me. I may never re-read Frank Herbert’s Dune (Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve read it twelve times!), but if I do, I want it there, wifi or not.
- I want to highlight passages and take notes, and I don’t want those notes stuck on the device! They should magically sync to Obsidian, my note-making tool of choice.
And, finally, what do I mean by frictionless?
- I want to pick up the e-book reader, open the cover, and dive right into my book.
- I want to turn pages with minimal effort and fuss.
- I want my reading location synced, so if I switch devices, the book opens where I left off.
Clarifying what I want from an e-book reader has a major advantage: in a crowded market, these criteria eliminate many options.
Escaping Amazon’s Ecosystem
My Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition excels at providing a high-contrast reading environment in various lighting conditions. Frankly, no ebook reader on the market has a better-looking screen, and no other hardware beats the Kindle’s battery life. However, the Kindle lacks something I prefer: physical buttons for turning pages.
On the Kindle, my taps to reveal the menu are often mistaken for swipes to turn pages (and vice versa). It’s a first-world problem, sure, but a minor frustration repeated a hundred times can feel significant.
I considered the Kindle Oasis (the only Kindle with page-turning buttons), but Amazon inexplicably dropped it from the U.S. product line.
Thinking the most expensive Kindle would offer a premium experience, I ordered the Kindle Scribe. While I enjoyed the screen size, holding it in one hand for long periods of time was tiring. Worse, despite the premium price, the touch-sensitive screen had the same menu-tapping issues.
In the end, the Scribe’s price reflects its competition with the reMarkable tablet’s note-taking features. Since I don’t need a digital notepad, I returned the Scribe to Amazon.
So: with no page-turning buttons from Amazon, no interest in the Scribe’s features, and the Paperwhite line feeling dated, I found myself, for the first time, looking beyond Amazon for an e-book reader.
A Brief Flirtation with Kobo
Mostly because podcaster Jason Snell recommends the Kobo Sage or Clara, I tried a Kobo—but intrigued by color, I ordered the Kobo Libra Color. This was a mistake. (Jason tried to warn me!)
Here’s what you should know about the Kobo Libra Color: especially when photographed by iPhones, its color e-ink screens look more vibrant than they are. (The iPhone’s magical photography process boosts the brightness of the Kindle screen, then saturates the colors. This photo, though, shows how a full-color cover really looks when the Libra Color light is turned off completely:
Crank up the front light all the way, and colors appear washed out, as though faded by the sun:
On the Libra Color, then, color images are either muddy (light off) or bleached out (light on).
Honestly, though? The surprise and delight of seeing *any* color at all on an e-reader screen might have persuaded me to hang on to the Kobo … if the reading experience had been any good at all.
Here’s the problem: like the Kindle, the Kobo features a highly reflective layer behind the e-ink screen. (That’s what makes a Kindle so readable in harsh sunlight.) But with the e-ink layer covered up by three additional color layers and a touch-screen layer, it’s hard for light to reach the reflective layer at the bottom of the stack. The result? The Kobo’s screen was dim and lacking contrast … even in an office bathed in morning sunlight:
Here’s how my Kindle looked in the same room at the same light levels without its front light on:
To create a satisfactory reading experience on the Kobo Libra Color, I had to use the frontlight at 100%. This drained the battery quickly and increased the “screen door effect”—a peculiar sparkle where individual pixels of the e-ink screen are visible. If you’ve never seen it, it looks like the washed-out image has been lacquered with glittery eye-shadow.
With the front light off or dimmed, the Kobo’s screen looked unpleasantly muddy. Combined with frequent screen glitches and three spontaneous reboots in the first hour, I decided to return it.
Checking out Boox
After the Kobo Color debacle, I was cautious about trying more devices using the same tech. Still, I ordered both the Boox Tablet Go Color and the black-and-white Boox Page, which I found only at B&H.
In terms of hardware, the Boox devices could easily be mistaken for Kobos. The Go Color uses the same e-ink technology as the Kobo, with the same drawbacks: washed-out colors, the screen-door effect, and muddy text.
Both the Page and Go have hardware buttons for turning pages, but they don’t feel as crisp and they aren’t as ergonomically placed as those on the Kobo. Still, now that I’ve adapted to them, they do the job.
The turning point in my decision-making came when I placed the Go Color next to the black-and-white Boox Page on my desk with backlights off, under ambient light. The difference in brightness and clarity between the black and white Boox Page and the Boox Tablet Go Color was immediately apparent.
The Boox Page is a Great Kindle Alternative
My Boox Page gets almost everything right.
Although this Android tablet could run everything from browsers to social media apps, I haven’t installed them. Despite being small and light, text on the Boox Page is crisp and legible in a wide range of lighting, even with the backlight off.
Because I keep the backlight and wifi off most of the time, battery life is good. (After two weeks of frequent use, I’m down to 42% this morning.)
At first, I thought I’d enjoy loading books via Calibre and reading them in the Page’s library. This is appealing, mainly because it lets me dive into my library instead of Amazon’s ad-heavy “Home.”
But in the end, since many of my books are Kindle books, and I occasionally read on my iPhone (with synced progress), I installed the Android Kindle app. I’ve ended up reading from it most of the time, mostly because my reading progress and notes sync from that app to all my other devices.
Final Thoughts
My brief flirtation with color e-ink drove one insight home: most of the time, I’m not looking at color. I’m looking at black text on a white screen! Paying extra for color — especially when the color capability degrades the reading experience — makes no sense at all.
Honestly, had I started with a black-and-white Kobo, I’d likely be a Kobo user. I suspect the Kobo Clara (despite the smaller screen) or Kobo Sage (with a slightly larger screen) would’ve worked just fine.
That said: I love my Boox Page. Setup isn’t as seamless as with a Kindle (which just needs to be turned on and signed into), and there’s some tweaking involved—screen refresh rates, font sizes, contrast levels—to make it feel just right. There are new e-ink performance settings to adjust, but I never accidentally trigger them while turning pages with those mushy hardware buttons.
If you’re looking for a good alternative e-book reader, have tastes similar to mine, enjoy the convenience of the Kindle app, and don’t mind some initial setup, I think the Boox Page could be a great option for you.
