Coming from the world of Kindle e-readers, switching to Boox’s Android-based e-reader requires some “courage”. I’ve had two Kindle e-readers before, one was lost on a plane and the other gifted to my daughter. I suspect my daughter hardly ever reads from the device but I still hope one day, she will. As much as I find reading on the Kindle pleasant and straightforward, as a woke 21st century man, I’d like to distance myself as far as possible from the evil empire of Jeff Fucking Bezos. Sure I never bought any of the ebooks on Amazon but buying a Kindle, even secondhand ones still feels like a helping hand to his evil domain. Hence the decision to jump onto Boox.
Boox is growingly popular with e-reader fans. The Boox Palma, a smartphone-like e-reader is enormously popular and successful as well as their other e-ink readers and tablets. The 6 inch Boox Go 6 which costs as much as a brand new basic Kindle is a great entry-level device if you’re keen of switching. The screen offers a beautiful e-ink Carta 1300 panel with 300 ppi black and white resolution. Reading on the tablet is a pleasure because the text looks as crisp as a printed paperback. At 146 grams, it is pretty lightweight too and won’t drag your sling or backpack down.
The Go 6 runs on Android 11 and while this opens up the device to Google Play Store and unlimited side-loading and customization, the paltry 2GB RAM proves to be its ultimate downfall. You immediately notice its sluggishness from the first boot. From power off, the device practically take over a minute to boot into the home screen. Sure, reading ebooks, texts or documents are fine on the Go 6 but forget about playing games or running heavy apps on the device.
You wouldn’t want to watch any videos or YouTube on it anyway. The moment you hit play, it immediately turns into a choppy, black-and-white flipbook. The ghosting—where faint traces of previous frames linger on the screen—is absolutely everywhere. You would be lying if you said the constant flashing and smearing didn’t completely ruin the viewing experience. And the audio? Let’s not forget that the Go 6 doesn’t even have built-in speakers or a headphone jack. If you want to hear what the YouTubers are actually saying, you have to pair some Bluetooth earbuds. Otherwise, you are essentially watching a silent movie from the 1920s.
Without a SIM card slot, this tablet relies fully on wi-fi and the battery would drain after 1 or 2 days with online use. Turning the wi-fi off would make the tablet last 3-4 days longer. It is also not water-resistant but does come with USB-C for convenient charging.
That said, can you really expect so much from a 700 ringgit Android e-ink tablet? The critics are divided on this. Yes you can get a decent full-fledged Android smartphone for that price but bear in mind this is an e-ink, (albeit low end) greyscale Android tablet. There are other better and faster e-ink Android tabs out there but they easily double in price. Would I recommend the Boox Go 6? Maybe not brand new and at that price. Getting a secondhand unit would make much more economic sense. Unless you really need some Android apps on your device, I would rather suggest you choose the Kobo e-reader instead which lacks Android but is much faster and cheaper than the Go 6.
