Review: Bigme Read 6-inch e-reader

Review unit provided by Bigme

Bigme Read is a compact portable lightweight e-reader with a 6-inch ePaper Carta HD e-paper display panel. The price of USD 99is extremely competitive. And this tablet comes with Google Play Store so you can install whatever e-reader app you want. FYI, an Amazon Kindle is USD 109 and comes with a closed system that limits you to the Kindle store.

Specs

• Dimensions: 122 x 90 x 5 mm
• Display: ePaper, 758x1024 px (6.0"), 212 ppi
• Touch Screen: Yes
• Weight: 170 g
• Battery: Li-Po 1300 mAh
• Built-in Memory: 32 GB
• Memory Card Support: microSDXC (up to 1 TB)
• RAM: 2 GB
• Processor: 1.8 GHz (4-core)
• Operating System: Android 8.1
• Google Play Store: Yes
• Connection: Wifi, Bluetooth 5

Design

Design of the Bigme Read is clean and simple. There's a home button on the front but no page flip buttons. The whole thing's made with plastic and build quality is plasticky, not unexpected, but not too bad.

Power button located at the top. The USB-C charging port, microSD card slot and one speaker with hollow audio quality can be found at the bottom. There's no 3.5mm audio jack.

Main downside to the design is the smooth matte textured back is extremely susceptible to fingerprints. There's a slight curve on all four sides that makes the tablet more comfortable to hold in hand.

Display

The 6-inch ePaper display has 1024 × 758 resolution and 212 PPI. Text quality looks alright. Edges of text looks slightly rough to be probably due to the lack of resolution, but text is still very legible.

I happen to have the USD 439 Bigme HiBreak Pro e-ink phone (left) and the text looks better with more detail thanks to the higher resolution (300 PPI).

One downside of Bigme Read is there's no way to adjust the ePaper quality. So there's no way to adjust the quality of how text looks other than changing the font or font size with the reading app you're using.

The reading surface is matte textured and anti-glare looks alright to me. The ePaper canvas is light gray so at least the black text has good contrast on it with enough light.

There are 36 levels of adjustment for cold and warm front light. And you can set a sliding shortcut on the left and right edge to adjust the lighting quickly. Lighting looks quite even to me.

The 6-inch size means this e-reader will work great for reading text but not comics due to the limited size and lack of colour.

Software experience

This tablet runs on Android 8.1 which is ancient by today's standards but it does its job. This is an e-reader so it doesn't really need that many software features from recent Android OS releases.

One huge selling point is there's Google Play Store. However, this old Android OS version (with 2018 security patch) may not be compatible with apps that need more recent Android versions. For example, I could not get Kobo, Youtube Music, Pocket Casts apps to install.

2GB of RAM isn't much but still sufficient for a device that's made for reading. Overall performance can feel sluggish at time. For example, opening an app can take a second longer than usual and would make you wonder if the app is actually opening, or did you actually tap on the app to open it.

For reading purposes, instant responsiveness is not necessary but the overall sluggishness is not nice, but still not a deal breaker considering the low price point.

The tablet has 32GB of internal storage which isn't much, but you can get more storage by using a microSD card.

For some reason, the physical home button is actually a back button. So sometimes you may be have to press the home button several times to actually get to the home page.

The only two e-reader apps I've tested are Libby and Kindle and they both work fine. With those two apps, I have access to countless books to read.

Battery life

Battery capacity is 1,300 mAh.

Battery life is around 6 - 7 hours when reading with Wifi enabled, lights disabled. With Wifi and lights disabled, I was able to get around 10-11 hours battery life.

Conclusion

The Bigme Read is a budget e-reader that does its job. If you're looking for an affordable no-frills e-reader, this is one to consider.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Compact, lightweight, portable
+ Decent ePaper quality
+ Has warm and cool light adjustment
+ Has Google Play Store
+ Works fine with Kindle and Libby
+ Has microSD card slot
+ Affordable
- Sluggish performance
- Plasticky build quality
- No 3.5mm audio jack
- Android 8.1 may be too old and incompatible with newer apps
- Battery life 6 - 10 hours depending on whether Wifi is enabled
- Physical home button is more a back button

Availability

The Bigme Read is available from Bigme online store