Hi! I’m writing this review because it’s information I would have liked but couldn’t find before I purchased this e-reader, so perhaps the dark arts of SEO will work in favor of other potential buyers. I’m sharing my experience, I bought this with my own money, I’m not making a commission, etc.

The Background

Many years ago — like, almost 15 — I had a Nook from B&N. I got a Nook because I was very early on the bandwagon of not wanting to be trapped in Amazon’s ecosystem… not that I’m not trapped in B&N’s, but I’d rather they get my money than Amazon. That was back when dedicated e-readers were new-ish (the first Nook I got didn’t even have a backlight). It was neat, e-books were fairly cheap, huzzah.

It wasn’t exactly great technology. It got the job done and I eventually upgraded to one with a backlight once that existed, but I got frustrated when an update started forcing me to side-load any ebooks I purchased from outside their store via a weird Android transfer app. (I didn’t realize Nook was probably running on an Android OS, which didn’t play all that well with my Mac.) I fell out of the habit of using it after awhile and didn’t replace it.

Fast forward a few years and I realized there was a Nook app, and eventually I started using that on both my phone and my iPad. It worked great! Books were very shiny and pretty on those devices and all-told I accumulated a pretty decent library.

And then a few years later I discovered the magic of Libby and CloudLibrary, the apps my library uses. And how many, many, many books those give me access to. For free! Because I’m a library user!! With instant downloads (aside from holds)!! Incredible. Sometimes living in the future rules.

So all is well and has been for a long time. Except…

The thing is, I work at a Computer Job. And then outside of that job, I’m a writer, which is also on the computer. And most of my entertainment? Also on the computer. And oh boy, sometimes my eyes are tired. I’m slowly working on reading more (mixed results) and to do so, removing as many barriers between me and reading as possible…and sometimes one of those barriers is just, I don’t want to focus on another bright screen. This is especially true for reading before bed — I really don’t want to be staring at my phone or iPad when I’m about to shut my eyes.

So before bed I started reading, gasp, actual printed books… but my space for those is limited by my actual bookshelf size (and they’re expensive). So what else won’t cause eye-strain and isn’t terrible to use before bed? E-ink, which is to say, the thing most black and white e-readers use. So after all these years, I decided it was time to purchase a new e-reader.

Requirements (or, why not another Nook?)

Here was what I decided I needed in an e-reader, and why it took me awhile to find one:

• Not part of Amazon’s ecosystem (so no Kindle of any kind)
• Will allow me to access my Nook library
• Will allow me to side-load books if I get them from other sources
• Will allow me to use library apps
• Must be e-ink

All that, plus I was assuming lightweight, a decent battery life, and preferably not too expensive.

So what didn’t work?

• Kindles, disqualified immediately
• Nooks — no library apps
• Kobo — no Nook app

Which just left weird ones I had never heard of.

The winner: ONYX BOOX GO 6

A friend on Bluesky mentioned she was enjoying her Boox tablet e-reader and when I asked about it she suggested the cheaper black and white, non-tablet-y version to me. When I looked into it I got pretty excited, because it met all of that criteria.

The thing to note: Boox e-readers run on Android OS. That means you can load any Android apps on them. Nook, Libby, and CloudLibrary all have Android apps, so we were in business!

I looked at some reviews and Youtube videos and the general consensus seems to be: it’s fine. You might have to do some poking around at settings to get things to run the way you want, but it’s a perfectly capable little e-reader. No one likes using it as much as a Kindle, but if you’re anti-Kindle it’ll be a pretty good experience.

Shipping was pretty pricey, which was a little annoying. All told, the Boox plus shipping came in just shy of $200 — a little steep but not outrageously so. (For comparison, the modern equivalent of my old Nook is about $130 and I could pick it up in person; a Kindle Paperwhite is about $160 plus shipping.)

Once I got it, I began experimenting.

So do I like it?

The answer is… it’s fine. I will be honest: I’m not super impressed by it, but will happily keep using it. I don’t think most of the shortcomings are huge problems, and they all seem to stem from the same reasons it meets my needs, so… there we go. And importantly, it does meet my needs. (With one caveat, in a moment.)

It’s pretty slow.

It’s not outrageously slow and it’s not usually a problem that it’s slightly slow, but it is noticeable — though less so once you’re really in the thick of reading.

It takes about 30 seconds to start up from being turned off. (And you have to hold the on button for a full second or so; I keep giving it a quick press and nothing happens, and then having to remember to press and hold.) However, it only takes a second to wake up from a sleeping state, and you can decide how long you want it to sleep before fully shutting off. (Also its off, sleep, and booting screens are very cute.) I set mine to four hours, and then expanded it to eight.

It also takes a second or two to switch apps. I set my default screen to the app menu rather than its built-in library, since most of my reading is going to be done in one of those three apps anyway. It always takes me a few seconds, and a few taps, to get any of them to open. (I think this is a combination of it wanting a really firm tap and also it being slow.) Then it flickers for a second or so as the app starts up before my book really opens.

That all sounds pretty dire but it’s not actually in practice. Yeah, it can take maybe 10 seconds to get into your book. For me, by the time I’m starting to be annoyed by it, I’m in to the book and can start reading. (If you’re reading in its native library it’s much faster; sleep to reading took me about one second, because it re-opened to the book. For other apps you may need to start up the app and then select the book, which is what causes a lot of the delay.)

There are definitely settings I could fiddle with to try to maximize its performance… but those things are not easy to find or understand. I looked for some advice and tutorials and didn’t find much out there so haven’t been able to improve it much. Whatever those settings are, they aren’t easy to find or intuitive to set, and that’s a bit of a bummer. I’m not using this thing as a tablet, I don’t want to run random apps on it, I just want it to open my books quickly.

Black and white and read all over

(Sorry.)

I wanted a black and white, e-ink e-reader. That is exactly what I got. Hooray!

The issue is that the apps I keep talking about using? They aren’t designed for black and white. That’s why I think that, while this is a drawback, it isn’t really the Boox’s fault.

If you think about the main use case for the Boox being its native e-reader, and the ability to add other apps as a bonus, then it’s doing great. My current read is actually on its native reader and I like it a lot. It’s pretty speedy and once I turned off the weird floating preferences shelf there was nothing to distract me. (For some reason, that shelf, and the system’s navi-ball, are supposed to be good things? But I find them intrusive and banished them immediately.)

Once you’re outside of that native reader and using other apps, then you run into a system trying to translate them into black and white and deal with any animations, flourishes, or preferences that those apps contain. And those, uh… don’t translate super great.

For comparison, here’s a book cover on the native reader:

And here’s the same book cover in Libby:

The good news is, I don’t read much that’s graphic heavy (and if I did have something like a graphic novel I’d definitely use my iPad app version for that instead). I don’t care that much if the book cover or even the splash screens of these apps look wonky. As long as they read smoothly, I’m good.

So uh… that’s the issue. The one caveat I mentioned above. The Nook app seems fine (I haven’t read extensively in it yet, but haven’t run into any issues except the shelves being ugly when rendered in b&w, which again, not Boox’s fault). CloudLibrary does, too. But Libby…

Libby is nearly unusable on the Boox. Which is a huge freaking bummer, and if I’d known I might not have bought it.

The issue is that Libby has animation when you advance pages. Nothing major, the new page animates in from the side when you tap forward. On a speedier system, this isn’t an issue and you won’t even really notice it at all. But on the Boox, which is a bit slow, and rendering things a little bit funky to begin with…

Every page turn is jerky. There’s at least one brief stop in the middle of that animation, sometimes more. It still isn’t lengthy, well under a second, but it’s no longer invisible. And yes, this is with “reduce animation” turned on under Libby’s accessibility settings. I’m sure it does reduce something but that animation is still there, and there’s no way to turn it off.

It is massively distracting. I improved performance a little with settings, now I could probably read through a book there if I had to, but there’s a reason I could get pictures of the same book on both apps: I just did not want to put up with reading in Libby on the device.

Being able to use Libby was a huge draw of the system. I don’t really blame Boox for the fact that an app they don’t control doesn’t work well on their system, but it does suck as a user experience.

Beep Boop, Android and Stuff

I mentioned back at the beginning that I was annoyed when I suddenly had to side-load books on my Nook via an Android transfer app. I assumed that would be the case for the Boox as well, since I know up front this time that it’s running on Android. But it’s 2025, not 2015, and so while I think technically if you want to plug it in to a Mac and transfer that way, yes, you’d need that app… why would you do that??

It has a built-in app called BooxDrop which you can easily configure. You open a URL on your computer’s browser, drag and drop files, and a second later they’re available on your Boox. Simple! Neat! Easy! (I think you can also transfer via Bluetooth, but I haven’t tried to set that up, the BooxDrop method works fine for me.)

The other concern with running on Android is that it’s actually a few versions behind. According to the website, Boox runs on Android 11. The current Android version is 15, and 11 is no longer maintained. That seems… not great? I’m not looking for major bells and whistles here, only for general updates for security… and for apps to keep running. If the OS is outdated apps may cease support on the system, and/or be pulled from the system so that no one has to try to maintain them.

But for now: it’s fine! I like that I can grab apps if I need to as different e-reader services pop up. (I’ve heard the bookshop.org e-book service doesn’t feel quite ready for prime time yet but haven’t tested it, but I’ve got my eye on it.) I think for folks who are using a more tablet-y, color Boox system, that would be even more useful since they could also get news apps and such, if desired.

Conclusion

I feel like this all makes it sound like I don’t like it or I regret the purchase, and that’s not accurate. It’s just that the things I like about it are invisible — as they should be.

It’s small and light weight: yeah, of course it. I can toss it in a bag and get on the subway, it’s easy to read while I’m holding on to a pole, and not a burden to carry.

The e-ink means my eyes don’t strain to read it: that’s the whole point. It’s clear, even without constant full refreshes (the ghosting is very mild and if you aren’t reading something graphic-heavy or with a ton of unusual formatting you basically won’t notice it between refreshes). The light works like a charm, and you can easily adjust brightness and tone form a more blue-y white to a more yellow. It means that it’s great for reading in all situations, including in bed.

The battery is also fine. Again, this is something I’m sure you could optimize to squeeze even more out of if you want, but my impression right now is that I can read a couple of books on a single charge. It would be fine on an international flight where you don’t want to worry about plugging it in.

Overall what I’d say is: I really wanted to be wowed by this little device and I wasn’t exactly, which is a bummer, given its cost. However, it’s entirely serviceable and it meets my needs. It lets me read e-books easily across most of the apps where I have them stashed, it avoids Amazon, and it works fine. Even as frustrated as I am about the Libby animation, that’s not something the device can control. I don’t regret buying it at all and I hope it’ll last me a long time.

Overall, mild annoyances but no major regrets. Hopefully I’ll get at least a few years out of it, and we’ll see what the e-reader field looks like then…