Oh i didn’t think you were saying anything, just providing additional context to anyone looking at the pictures

Fwiw I would definitely get a color ereader again. It’s not the most incredible color but I think it’s worthwhile to have especially for the price to get color vs non color. But if you’re only reading text with no images (like my mom only ever reads novels on her kindle) I think the non color is the better option bc the contrast is higher

It’s a shame this is such a niche market to eink and that they’re so focused on signage. I get that’s a much larger market but it still sucks. The newest panels like the spectra have pretty amazing color but the refresh time is even worse than the acep/gallery3 panels, which were outright rejected by boox despite having more vibrant color bc of the slow refresh rate. A spectra panels performance with kaleido3 or better refresh would change the game and imo make color e ink readers/tablets way more viable for more people

the picture was taken indoors under warm lighting. I do keep the front light at about 30% or ideally off because it strains my eyes when reading a lot (which I do, I use this thing several hours a day)

but I think that’s fair because I do the majority of my reading in this scenario, indoors under warm lighting, and I’d imagine many are in the same boat

I also have a 7 year old phone that I used to take the picture, and that part may be unfair. I’m actually getting a better phone soon and can maybe take a new shot

Software does make a difference though and perhaps go is doing more. With the boox you can use adb and surfaceflinger to increase the color saturation, but this doesn’t persist through reboots and is finicky to tune so I haven’t done it recently

Also fwiw as mentioned the replacement panel was not of the best quality. I mentioned the dead pixels but what I didn’t mention is when I got it the panel overall seemed warmer/redder in hue. This could all be in my head because I didn’t have it for 2 months while they were repairing it, but it could also be that some panels are better than others. They’re basically all kaleido3 panels, I think there are only 2 acep panel readers and one was that bigme kickstarter that they never actually sold, only ship to backers then basically abandoned. But maybe the limited production capabilities and somewhat high demand for panels means they’re rushing them out? I got the device on release so the initial panel was an early one and the replacement was about 2 years later. But again this could all be my in head

Depends on how you read. I have 3tb of manga locally hosted and with android readers I can just stream the books directly to the device. With kindle or some others I’d have to copy the books to my computer and then to the kindle, which is a total chore because I read a lot

Kindle does win because of repairability though, if only because you can actually source panels for most of them due to their popularity. A handful of boox readers can have their panels sourced but most can’t, including the most expensive color ones. This is more the fault of e ink though, who literally would rather have a monopoly on the panels rather than increase supply and lower costs (or relax their patent nonsense and maybe get some more innovation in the space)

Color page on boox ultra tab c. They (and basically all manufacturers with kaleido3) do post processing on marketing images that make things look more vibrant. It’s fine for manga and I like it but it’s definitely underwhelming and washed out.

Additionally the color filter lowers the contrast of the display and makes the image overall dimmer. Like op I think it looks best with no front light but this one is so dim i often have it on unless I’m under intense light (reading outside for example). I can’t upload a second image with my app but it looks good, just dim

The color also increases ghosting. This is remedied by refreshing the screen fully on page turns but this eats up battery. Heavy reading (like 10+ hours a day) gets me 2 days at most. If I read more typically, like 2-3 hours a day, I get 4-5 days. The huge battery makes it heavy

Also fwiw boox is a mixed bag. The device itself is nice but their customer service is dogshit. I broke the panel, which is very easy. Mine broke from a roughly 1 foot drop onto carpet. The panels are much more fragile. Getting it fixed was expensive, over 50% of the cost of the device. That’s not their fault, of course, but then on top of that I had to pay shipping to them. Again, smaller company, but also a $600 tablet. Then the repair literally took 8 weeks and they gave me replacement panel with 5 dead pixels and 3 pixels “stuck on” that are super distracting, but they only define dead pixels as a problem if it’s in a small box that is the dead center. They don’t have enough panels, which is why the repair took so long, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are okaying shit panels because they are scarce. They also broke the fingerprint reader during the repair. They did offer to fix what they broke for free but I still had to pay to ship to them again (its like $30) and wouldn’t have the device for god knows how long again. I just use it without a fingerprint to unlock but typing the passcode (or anything) is a pain because of the latency for the screen to update.

On the other hand their software team is great. The software has some rough edges but it runs mihon fine and when the software has issues I report them and often get an update on how to fix and occasionally have gotten feature suggestions implemented even.