The Boox Go 6 finally made me an e-reader fan

Earlier this year, Boox — which makes Android-based e-readers — finally converted me. I have been a physical book purist for years and arguably still am, but after using the Boox Go 6 for several weeks, I’m fully committed to the e-reader life and am ready to sing the praises of e-ink.

And the thing is, there’s nothing particularly exceptional about the Go 6 in particular. It’s a fairly barebones e-reader with an E-ink Carta 1300 display and adjustable backlight with a mediocre CPU that’s more than enough to handle basic e-reader tasks. It runs Android, which is really only notable if you’ve spent your time in the Kobo or Kindle realm. I’ll dig into it more below, but I think the Android aspect will be really appealing to some and an absolute nightmare to others. The Boox Go 6 doesn’t have a colour display or a stylus or anything like that.

Despite all that, it’s a perfect fit for me. I don’t want a colour display, I don’t want a stylus, I don’t even really care that it runs Android. But I can put books on it with ease and get to reading, and that’s what I wanted.

Part of why I stuck to physical books for so long was that if I’m buying a book, I’m buying a physical copy. I hate the idea of buying digital books mostly because I have a nice collection of novels on my bookshelf, and I’d like to see that collection grow (not to mention all the digital ownership issues that have cropped up in recent years). A few years ago, I learned that you could connect an e-reader to your library card and borrow books digitally. That was a lot more appealing to me — I could conveniently borrow and read books digitally and then buy physical copies of my favourite titles for my collection. The only problem was that, at the time, the e-reader I had was an old Kobo Glo that had lost support for borrowing library books.

After getting the Boox Go 6 to test out, I was excited to finally be able to try borrowing digital library books. Setting it up was surprisingly easy because the Go 6 runs Android. After connecting my Google account, I was able to download the Libby app from the Play Store, sign in with my library card and start borrowing books right away.

The only real issue here is that the e-ink display on the Boox Go 6 doesn’t exactly play well with Android apps, especially ones with lots of animations and motion. And because of that, reading books with Libby wasn’t great as the app animates page transitions so you can see the text slide over. Thankfully, I realized that Libby has an option to download an .epub file of books you borrow, so I could download the .epub and read it with the Go 6’s built-in ‘Neo Reader,’ which works much more like what I had experienced on the Kobo Glo. With this setup, I was up and reading in no time and since I tend to enjoy long fantasy novels, it was a welcome break for my wrists.

Unfortunately, Libby doesn’t always deliver an .epub file when using the download option. Some books I downloaded delivered an .acsm file, which requires Adobe Digital Editions to deliver the book. After some digging around, I found an Android app called PocketBook could handle these files but it requires you to log into an Adobe account to read those files. As such, I ended up reading some books in Libby instead.

Android is a blessing and a curse

The Boox Go 6 lets you adjust the colour of the backlight.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the Boox Go 6 for me was that it runs Android. After using it, I’m not sure how much I like it. On one hand, there are a lot of upsides here — the Boox Go 6 and, presumably, other Android-based e-readers from Boox or others, have significant freedom in how you use them. Anything you could do with Android you can do here, though you are still limited by the capabilities of the e-ink display (in other words, no watching TikTok).

That means tons of customization options, freedom to install various apps and more. In fact, there was so much that I found it all a bit overwhelming when what I really wanted was something simple for reading. I think anyone in that latter camp who wants an easy experience would be better off with a Kobo or Kindle, though I’d argue that Kobo is the better of those two (especially for Canadians who like to leverage library services). But the tinkerers out there who want to push their device further will appreciate what you can do with the Android-based Go 6 software.

Examples include downloading third-party launchers (the Boox launcher is fine, but there are better options), alternate reading apps like Libby or the Kindle app, RSS readers and more. It’s overall a very flexible device, making it ideal for basically any kind of reading, whether that’s books for pleasure or PDFs and documents for work.

I also appreciated some of the included Boox software, like BooxDrop for quickly sharing files between my laptop or phone with the Go 6. But some of the included software I could have done without, like the AI assistant and the ‘NaviBall’ overlay, which I quickly turned off because it kept getting in my way. There was also a generative AI tool for accessing LLM chatbots that, naturally, went unused for me. That’s one of the downsides of an Android-based system — you have more freedom, but you may have to contend with extra bloat too.

Battery doesn’t last as long as other e-readers

Another downside I noticed was that battery life wasn’t as good as other e-reader options. My wife, an avid reader who uses a Kobo Clara almost daily, only charges it every 10 to 14 days, depending on how much reading she’s doing. However, I found myself needing to charge the Go 6 every five to seven days, depending on how much reading I was doing and how much I used the backlight. Both the Boox Go 6 and Kobo Clara have 1,500mAh batteries and e-ink Carta 1300 displays.

I suspect the software is at least partially to blame for this, as I found closing background tasks I wasn’t actively using made a big difference in battery life. For example, I noticed that the BooxDrop software was constantly running after I used it to transfer some files, and after turning off BooxDrop, I noticed an increase in battery life.

Similarly, using Android apps can be more power-intensive since those apps aren’t necessarily designed with e-ink displays in mind. The additional animations and motion present in these apps can force more frequent display refreshes, drawing more power. There are a variety of display options and settings to tweak display quality when using Android apps, which can help a little. As I mentioned above, this is what made using the Libby app less appealing and why I tried to avoid using it for reading when possible.

I’d also like to point out that the Boox Go 6 only runs Android 11 and, unfortunately, I have doubts we’ll see many upgrades in this regard (if any). Ultimately it likely doesn’t matter much, but I think it’s a bit disappointing to be running such an old version of Android, even a heavily tweaked version on an e-reader like this.

Poor performance

One of my only real gripes with the Boox Go 6 is it’s performance. Now to be clear, I don’t expect a lot with a device like this — it’s an e-reader, after all. I just need it to read books. It absolutely doesn’t need to be fast or have high-end specs or anything like that. However, I do expect it to at least be responsive to my input and the Go 6 struggles even with that.

Under the hood, the Go 6 sports a 2Ghz octa-core CPU (the Boox website doesn’t specify which CPU) and has a measly 2GB of RAM. The latter never was much of a concern for me as it was rare I had more than two or three apps open at once.

However, I definitely wish the software was better optimized for the CPU or that the Go 6 sported slightly better hardware to improve the responsiveness. The e-reader often responded sluggishly to my inputs, even when nothing was open except for the built-in Neo Reader app while I was reading. I’d tap to turn the page and then wait for it to respond. Tapping the software home button to go home would sometimes do nothing, resulting in me tapping it multiple times before anything would happen. The e-reader supports various gesture inputs as well, and I set one up to quickly turn the backlight on and off, but that also seemed to periodically ignore my inputs or just take its time responding.

Eventually, I adapted to the sluggishness, and it didn’t hamper my reading much, but I still think it’s worth highlighting. Perhaps it’s a matter of getting what you pay for, but even for the $149.99 USD (roughly $210 CAD) cost, I expect to be more responsive to my input. I haven’t tried any of Boox’s higher-end e-readers, but my wife’s Kobo Clara, which costs $160 in Canada, feels more responsive than the Go 6.

I like the Boox Go 6, but it’s not for everyone

I love the Boox Go 6’s Magnetic Case.

That wraps up most of the big things I wanted to write about the Boox Go 6, but there are a few more things I think are worth pointing out before I finish:

• Backlight has a wide range of brightness settings and adjustable colour temperature (for reading in bed at night, I love cranking the brightness down low and making the colour really warm so it’s easy on my eyes).
• The e-reader also supports a dark mode with white text on a black background.
• I love how thin (6.8mm) and light (146g) the Boox Go 6 is, it makes lengthy reading sessions very comfortable.
• Boox included the Go 6 Magnetic Case ($39.99 USD/about $56 CAD) with my review unit and I’d highly recommend it to any potential Boox Go 6 customers. It’s a great add-on that easily and securely attaches to the e-reader via magnets and turns on the display when you open it.
• I particularly like that it attaches magnetically because I like using the cover when on the go to protect it, but prefer to take it off for longer reading sessions. The magnets make this super easy to do.
• The Go 6 has a USB-C charging port and microSD card slot to expand the 32GB onboard storage.

Despite some of the issues I outlined above, I really like the Boox Go 6 and plan to make it my e-reader of choice going forward. I appreciate the additional freedom it offers and am willing to make the usability tradeoffs for that benefit.

I’d recommend the Go 6 to any readers who also enjoy tinkering with their devices, want something with more freedom than typical Kobo or Kindle devices, and don’t want an e-reader with tons of bells and whistles like colour displays, a stylus, or buttons.

The Boox Go 6 is available from Boox’s website (in USD). It’s not on Amazon in Canada, though some other Boox products are. I also found the Boox Go 6 at some other retailers, like e-reader.ca ($204-$228, depending if you want the Magnetic Case) and einktab.ca ($203.99), but I haven’t heard of either of these retailers and can’t speak to their reputability.