By Jason Snell

January 22, 2024 9:00 AM PT

Two e-readers that made me reconsider why I use e-readers

I’ve been writing about e-readers—Kindles, Kobos, and the like—since the first month of this site’s existence. I write about them not just because I’m an enthusiastic user of the devices in this category but also because I’m fascinated by these strange devices that are so very different from the phones, tablets and computers that fill the rest of our lives.

This month, I’ve been using a few different devices that push the definition of an e-reader to its limits. As a result, I’ve ended up challenging myself to define exactly why I like e-readers—and why I’m not satisfied just using an iPad or an iPhone to read books.

The unlikely contenders

After a somewhat underwhelming experience with the Boox Leaf 2 and a strangely satisfying time with the phone-shaped Boox Palma, I decided to take one more trip to the parallel world of Boox devices, which run Android but have E-Ink displays rather than the traditional backlit screens found in modern smartphones.

This time, I tried out the $250 Boox Page, which has physical page-turn buttons and uses the same screen as the $190 Kobo Libra 2 and $160 Kindle Paperwhite. It was a pretty great experience—with all the caveats that I’ve brought up before when writing about an Android-driven E-Ink device.

When you buy a Kindle or Kobo, you can just turn it on and use it without any configuration beyond logging into your Amazon or Kobo accounts. Android devices aren’t like that—there’s a lot of work to get it the way you want it, including downloading apps and then configuring various extensions that make those apps behave better on the slow-refreshing E-Ink displays.

That all said, if you’re a relatively nerdy person who really wants a device that’s at the same level as the Kobo Libra or Kindle Paperwhite—but with slightly better hardware than both, as it’s got a flush screen like the Paperwhite and page-turn buttons like the Libra—you could be at home with the Boox Page. If you’re someone who wants access to the Kindle store and the Kobo store and the ability to read DRM-free ebooks with another reader (Moon Reader was my favorite, though there are many others), the Boox Page can do it all.

Unfortunately, I started down this Android tablet path largely because I wanted to read other stuff on the same device I use to read books. Think RSS feeds, newspapers, newsletters, and the rest. When it comes to this stuff, it’s hard to get past the fact that apps are built for fast-refreshing phone screens and just don’t work well with E-Ink displays. Even if you configure your RSS reader to be just right, you’ll end up having to jump to a web browser to read stuff that’s not contained in the feed—and the web experience on these devices just isn’t great.

So, while I really enjoyed reading several books on the Boox Page, I’m not sure there are enough good use cases for it. Even if you’re devoted to DRM-free ebooks, you can sideload those to either a Kindle or Kobo via an app like Calibre. I’ve been back on my Kobo Libra for the past few weeks, and it’s nice to have the simplicity, though I sure do miss the flush screen of the Page.

But wait: What if someone could build a device that had a screen that looked like E-Ink but offered full color and refresh rates that matched phones and tablets? Someone did, sort of. Which is why I also spent a little time with the NXTPAPER 11, an 11-inch Android tablet from TCL that claims to offer “an e-book viewing feel.”

It’s weird. It’s a regular Android tablet with a regular tablet screen, but TCL has applied a coating to the screen that feels very much like a Paperlike iPad screen protector. It reduces blue light and glare and makes the display textured like paper. TCL has also shipped Android extensions that let you push the tablet into “reading mode,” which is basically a black-and-white mode meant to ape the look of an e-reader.

It… sort of works? Leaving aside that the tablet screen is so huge that it’s basically a two-page version of a Kindle, when it’s in reading mode and you’re using the Kindle app, it’s a pretty close approximation of the look and feel of reading a Kindle book. At night, the backlighting makes things a bit bright, but there’s a white-on-black mode that’s pretty good.

And, of course, it’s still a regular display—so I read full-color comics on it, and they looked very good. Beyond that, I could pretty much run any Android app I wanted, including RSS readers and newspaper apps, and it provided the substandard iPad experience I’d expect from an Android tablet. (Also, while the NXPAPER 11 had decent battery life for a tablet, it pales in comparison to the low power consumption of an E-Ink device.)

This made me ask myself: Did I really want an e-reader, or did I just want an iPad mini with a glare protector running in a black-and-white accessibility mode?

What do I want, really?

Which brought me full circle. Nearly ten years ago, I wrote:

Backlit tablets just can’t compete with E-Ink-equipped Kindles when it comes to reading in the bright sun…. At night, the inverse applies. My Paperwhite, turned down all the way, is much darker than my iPad’s backlight at the lowest setting. Which means it’s much less likely to disturb my wife while she’s sleeping and I’m reading.

Whether dark or light or in between, I prefer reading on these devices. They never push notifications at me, I’m never tempted to switch over to Twitter or email, and the static black-and-white calm of words on a page evokes the best things about reading a paper book or newspaper.

This was a good reminder of what drew me to these devices in the first place. Namely:

• A reflective (rather than backlit) screen that’s readable in bright sunlight and offers gentle side lighting for use in the dark without being blindingly bright.

• Good ergonomics. A device should be light enough to be held in one hand easily, with dedicated page-turn buttons that don’t require me to do a lot of swiping and tapping just to read a book.

• No distractions. I shouldn’t be able to flip over to social media or read my email or do anything else on the device that isn’t reading text. As my friend and e-reader aficionado Scott McNulty told me, “The more features you add to an E-Ink device, the worse it gets.”

• Great battery life, with the ability to go a week or more without a charge.

In other words, while a $499 iPad mini with an anti-glare screen might be a pretty decent e-reader, it would fail most of these points. Even with anti-glare film, I doubt the iPad screen could match E-Ink’s visibility in bright light or its very low light capability, and volume buttons aren’t placed properly to act as comfortable page-turn buttons. And sure, I could keep my iPad in Do Not Disturb and make sure that no distracting apps were present on it, but would I want to? Am I going to buy two different iPads? No.

So, I’m back where I started. Last year, I read more than 50 books, and probably 99 percent of those pages were read on an E-Ink display. When I put my iPad down at night and pick up my Kobo, I’m saying goodbye to the outside world and focusing on the “printed” page. When I’m reading on an airplane, I’m not worried about draining my iPhone or iPad battery unnecessarily.

Maybe someday, the e-reader will be made irrelevant. But it’s been fifteen years since I bought my first Kindle, and it hasn’t happened so far. E-readers are really good at what they do—and when I say that I’ve tried the alternatives, I really mean it.

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