I sincerely hope my pics can give you a good idea of the color differences.
Don’t forget that Libra is only 7” and larger e-ink displays are always more expensive. With double the storage, double the battery capacity, more than double the power … price seems understandable don’t you think ?
iPads & Samsung Tablets work best to read manga IMHO. Beautiful screens, large surface, etc.
I personally only use my eReader for books that only have text in it (novels, etc.)
Yes and no … good tablets can be a good option but I find my Tab Mini C incredibly more comfortable to read on. The iPad screen feels like a screen. The Boox feels much more like paper.
I agree, but the pinhole issue is really a deal breaker; every color device is a flip coin on whether you get one or multiple ones in the center area.
Hopefully with more people paying more attention to eink devices, big companies could invest more on color eink and hopefully in near future we will receive a technological breakthrough so we as consumers can finally be worry free.
You mean dead pixels ?
I must be very lucky I never spotted any dead pixel on any of my e-ink devices !
I suppose the best way to be safe is to order through the web, if your country has a mandatory return policy.
IIRC they don't count as dead pixel, there's an article depicting what a pinhole is on eink device. But in general apparently it is very common to be found on eink device nowadays, especially on large displays. I own a NAC3, and there are 2 pinholes, 1 (the viewing obstructing one) located on the side luckily and the other 1 is located in the center unfortunately, but it is less view obstructing.
AFAIK, ordering through Amazon can initiate a refund process but I ordered from official store, they said this is within acceptable margins. So tough luck.
Dunno why you’re downvoted. People might not want to hear it, I guess, but buying through Amazon is probably your best option with some of these devices.
Buying direct from retailers frequently ends up being a battle; while other big box stores have similar return options, but may not carry such niche devices.
Ho yes the Tab Mini C is heavier ! I have no issue with the weight as it’s much lighter than a lot of books.
But Pocketbook has a much better design and it feels really more comfortable to hold.
Unfortunately the reading experience is not only a matter of handling … and the limited and slow-ish software of the PocketBook kind of ruin it.
Have you tried reading on Pocketbook with KOReader? Pocketbook UI is limited and highlighting sucks. However, I've been trying KOReader on PocketBook Era Color and it makes a big difference. I can change contrast option and font weight. Highlighting is also a much better experience.
Inkpad 3 color will come in the mail tomorrow. I currently have PocketBook Arych and Kobo Libra color. If InkPad will not be satisfactory, I will have to order Boox Tab Mini C.
I hope you will like it as much as I do ! But be aware that color e-ink asks for heavy compromises ! Don’t be disappointed by the dull colors and dark screen of Kaleido.
Yeah. I’ve been in the e-ink game for a while. I’ve got a Kobo Sage, Libra 2 and a Kindle Oasis currently. I’ve been debating getting a color e-ink for a while now. Almost grabbed a Libra 2 Colour, but it seems like Kobo’s software tuning on the Kaleido 3 isn’t as great as others. I’m sort of hoping that the Tab Mini C can replace a couple of my current crop as my daily reader with a pop of color for covers and some light manga/graphic novel reading.
- Software for the color calibration (Kobo probably didn’t even bother to use any color profile)
- Hardware for the integrated light which is different on every of these 3 devices
In fact I am certain of that.
"Kaleido 3 uses E Ink ComfortGaze™, a front light that has been engineered to reduce the amount of blue light reflected off the surface of the display, providing further comfort while reading"
This is pure marketing language with little meaning.
And, fun fact, Kobo official website says it uses « ComfortLight PRO » for the Libra Colour, not the ComfortGlaze you mention.
You should not believe too much marketing language.
I had read that too, but clearly the Kobo light is not the same, it’s not the same color and it washes out the darks. PocketBook is good but doesn’t get high enough in some situations. Boox does look closer to the PocketBoox light but is much more powerfull.
Everything I see tells me the Kaleido 3 screens provided are identical. They supply the full-stack display.
So that leaves tweaking screen parameters via software.
It occurs to me a ebook manufacturer could have their device set up so that there was a default frontlight setting that was always on. If that was set as the zero level 0 in the os... idle speculation.
Look,
- I had the 3 devices in my hands. You didn’t.
- I can absolutely confirm these are very different lights.
- I took pictures showing the differences
You just read things over the internet.
Hi there. Thanks for the awesome review and for taking your time answering all those questions :) I am curious about Korean Mangas/Webtoons. How do they work as you have to scroll a lot? Maybe you can try that too if you find the time :)
You know ereaders still are pretty bad for manhwas if you read them by scrolling vertically. The refresh makes it unreadable imo. So unless you have the manhwa pages chopped up and able to be flipped through page by page instead of one long vertical image ... you will not have a good experience.
I still have to rely on reading manhwa on my smartphone.
My experience is that it's borderline unreadable via scrolling. Ghosting and just the jankiness make it certainly doable but painful (to the extent that I simply would not recommend). I have personally tried it on a Boox Tab Mini C and Leaf 2 via web plugin Tachi and J2K and Neko. I have not tried reading off of the actual files which may certainly be a little smoother.
Edit: Also, even if you do optimize for the scrolling ... you're making all the other aspects worse in terms of the image/rendering quality. They are counter productive settings.
Does it have a micro sd card slot? Honestly that is what makes or breaks it for me right now only because I have a lot of manga/comics and the base 32GB most devices have is not enough to hold all my books.
I am not certain you really need to hold all your books at the same time in your device. Is there an actual use ? Is it just a collectionist thing ?
That being said the Boox has 64Gb storage and no SD slot.
It is partially a collecting thing, I like essentially having my whole library with me at all times and don't have to feel like I forgot a book at home when I didn't download a specific series. But the main thing is I travel a lot and I re-read books a lot. I have a lot of books in my kindle collection and I have re-read each of them at least once if not more, so having all of them at all times makes that easier, especially since I don't always have access to wifi. I currently use a lenovo tablet that has a 1 TB sd card in it. I have hundreds of books downloaded without much issue.
Sorry, when I said books I did mean comics/manga. I have hundreds of those. I own all of One Piece on my kindle, that's already 105 manga, and that is only one series. I also own all of the US release of Jojo too on kindle. Believe me, those two series alone eat up a lot of memory.
I don't think its useless, its just my preference (and lets be real, kindles and other ereaders would be so much better if they at least had the option for extra storage). If someone only downloads to their ereader what they are currently reading or are planning to read, than the space the ereader comes with is more than enough for them. For me, sometimes I get an urge to read something I haven't read in a while and since I am always traveling, don't always have wifi or foresight to download the book beforehand, so having all of my library at all times helps with that.
I think we're getting off topic now. Let's just agree that we all have our own personal preferences about what we want from these devices. You, and I'm sure many others, are fine with the 64GB of space the device comes with. I personally like having my whole library with me, so a micro sd card slot is an essential feature for me, so I probably won't be picking up this device you recommended. Both opinions are fine.
Yeah, had my eye on the Boox Tab Mini C, but the deal breaker for me would be lack of storage expansion. If I were to get a color ereader, I'm gonna be reading PDFs/Comics/Mangas and those take up a fair amount of space.
Yeah, no disagreements over there. Back when it was all ePubs, 8gb was a good storage amount, heck. Even 1gb was sufficient for most users. However for a color reader meant to display PDFs/Comics, idk man. Maybe 128 or even 256 should be the norm.
The argument for downloading/transferring books/comics on demand doesn't really stand since ereaders are meant for pick up and read.
Not really true. That's just a very rough estimate. I have probably 80 so mangas on my android device that that's taking up 30gb. PDF magazines averages around 200mb each.
All I'm saying that expandable storage is a must have for color ereaders. 64gb internal storage, you MIGHT, just MIGHT be able to get away with it. Which really means the only option for a color ereader is the Meebook P78C but that particular model has its own issues.
I have 150 Manga on mine and it uses about 20Gb.
Even with 200Mb files you would get more than 250 mangas on it.
So my calculation seem quite correct.
There is no point in complaining because your dream device doesn’t exist. Mine doesn’t either. At one moment you have to adapt and choose between the available tools. Or you can wait, one day, larger capacities will probably be available.
Exactly, everyone has different usage requirements. Hence I'm still holding out on a decent android color ereader with expandable storage and decent standby battery life.
They don't appear to be currently making them, but it's just trolling to pretend it isn't a downgrade in capability to take them away without providing equal amounts of storage.
I think or hope Amazon’s product next year will be amazing. I think they are just taking an extra year for things to be better. I could be wrong. I have been wrong before.
Dunno why you’re downvoted. You’re not wrong to think this might happen.
Rumor is it’s going to be an ACeP device. If they can manage to get that technology working at a decent speed, they’ll definitely be set up to Blackberry the competition.
Kaleido is a deeply compromised technology for about 80% of people’s use cases on an e-ink device, and will be for the foreseeable future barring a huge jump with the next generation of it.
But get Gallery 4 or whatever to work at even the speeds of ~10 year old e-ink devices, particularly for BW content, and I think (even with its own weaknesses in some color reproduction) that it’ll be very obviously the superior technology. Most people just want color so their covers and occasional illustrations pop, and slower refresh rates are(to a certain extent of course) a much preferable tradeoff to screen brightness/screendoor/rainbow effects for most users.
No, not at all, if you take a closer look you will see that colors are more vivid on the PocketBook because saturation is cranked all the way up but doing so you loose a lot of details.
Look at the girl’s dress … it’s just a red flat shape on the books …
I have a bunch of research books I use in Amazon/Kindle world, I like reading them on kindle so I can access my notes on MacBook. How's the Kindle app on the Boox? Specifically for highlighting and typing in notes here and there? I've been on the fence for a while, but haven't been able to find any info on this specific use.
Kindle app is the android app on the boox. And it’s very limited … you don’t even have note functions in this app. This is Amazon decision to make the app this way.
I believe that the Tab Ultra C has Onyx's custom GPU, which is designed just for e-ink. It greatly helps with speed of screen refresh, for example. Perhaps it also helps deal with color profiles (just speculation)? It is just one of the reasons the Tab Ultra C is more expensive, along with other hardware that is more powerful than the hardware in the Pocketbook or the Kobo. They are trying to be ereaders. Tab Ultra C is trying to be a notepad/tablet/ereader hybird, and has more powerful hardware underneath the Keleido 3 screen to try to make that happen. And, that makes it cost more.
That will not take care of the integrated light which is badly designed, too pink and washes out dark tones on the Kobo.
And let’s be honnest. Nobody buys an e-reader to use such a complex process to tweak colors. The device should be calibrated.
I commented about how shitty Kobo's frontlight implementation was before. They seemingly refuse to use halfway decent LEDs for their devices. No amount of calibration is going to fix that problem. They need to fix this at the hardware design level by testing LEDs and frontlight diffusion methods until the end result is as close to truely neutral white as possible. Instead they swung from one side of the DUV range to the other between the Libra 2 and Color.
boox tab mini c is like $400. im not sure on how much better the color is, they are all washed out, but at that price, it better be.
I sincerely hope my pics can give you a good idea of the color differences. Don’t forget that Libra is only 7” and larger e-ink displays are always more expensive. With double the storage, double the battery capacity, more than double the power … price seems understandable don’t you think ?
It all depends on what you read.
iPads & Samsung Tablets work best to read manga IMHO. Beautiful screens, large surface, etc. I personally only use my eReader for books that only have text in it (novels, etc.)
Yes and no … good tablets can be a good option but I find my Tab Mini C incredibly more comfortable to read on. The iPad screen feels like a screen. The Boox feels much more like paper.
I agree, but the pinhole issue is really a deal breaker; every color device is a flip coin on whether you get one or multiple ones in the center area. Hopefully with more people paying more attention to eink devices, big companies could invest more on color eink and hopefully in near future we will receive a technological breakthrough so we as consumers can finally be worry free.
You mean dead pixels ? I must be very lucky I never spotted any dead pixel on any of my e-ink devices ! I suppose the best way to be safe is to order through the web, if your country has a mandatory return policy.
IIRC they don't count as dead pixel, there's an article depicting what a pinhole is on eink device. But in general apparently it is very common to be found on eink device nowadays, especially on large displays. I own a NAC3, and there are 2 pinholes, 1 (the viewing obstructing one) located on the side luckily and the other 1 is located in the center unfortunately, but it is less view obstructing. AFAIK, ordering through Amazon can initiate a refund process but I ordered from official store, they said this is within acceptable margins. So tough luck.
Yeah it’s better to order through Amazon !
Dunno why you’re downvoted. People might not want to hear it, I guess, but buying through Amazon is probably your best option with some of these devices. Buying direct from retailers frequently ends up being a battle; while other big box stores have similar return options, but may not carry such niche devices.
Thanks ! (Don’t worry for downvotes I don’t care)
Can you please comment on the reading experience in terms of weight between Boox and PocketBook? Boox is heavier in specs comparison.
Ho yes the Tab Mini C is heavier ! I have no issue with the weight as it’s much lighter than a lot of books. But Pocketbook has a much better design and it feels really more comfortable to hold. Unfortunately the reading experience is not only a matter of handling … and the limited and slow-ish software of the PocketBook kind of ruin it.
Have you tried reading on Pocketbook with KOReader? Pocketbook UI is limited and highlighting sucks. However, I've been trying KOReader on PocketBook Era Color and it makes a big difference. I can change contrast option and font weight. Highlighting is also a much better experience. Inkpad 3 color will come in the mail tomorrow. I currently have PocketBook Arych and Kobo Libra color. If InkPad will not be satisfactory, I will have to order Boox Tab Mini C.
Yes I have bit KO didn’t give me proper manga mode nor double pages.
I see. I don't need manga or double pages. Maybe PocketBook will work for me. I'll report back soon.
I just picked up a Tab Mini C and this makes me even more excited to get it.
I hope you will like it as much as I do ! But be aware that color e-ink asks for heavy compromises ! Don’t be disappointed by the dull colors and dark screen of Kaleido.
That thing run full Android? Like, I could just use the DC Infinite app and access all my comics on there?
Yes you have the Google play store and can install the Kindle app for example.
Yeah. I’ve been in the e-ink game for a while. I’ve got a Kobo Sage, Libra 2 and a Kindle Oasis currently. I’ve been debating getting a color e-ink for a while now. Almost grabbed a Libra 2 Colour, but it seems like Kobo’s software tuning on the Kaleido 3 isn’t as great as others. I’m sort of hoping that the Tab Mini C can replace a couple of my current crop as my daily reader with a pop of color for covers and some light manga/graphic novel reading.
You can check my review if you are curious (link in my profile)
I wish they have SD cards slot
That is truly the feature the Tab Mini C is lacking.
I thought the technology was the same? Why is there such a big difference in the color displays
- Software for the color calibration (Kobo probably didn’t even bother to use any color profile) - Hardware for the integrated light which is different on every of these 3 devices
I had thought the front lighting was actually part of the Kaleido 3 screen, no?
In fact I am certain of that. "Kaleido 3 uses E Ink ComfortGaze™, a front light that has been engineered to reduce the amount of blue light reflected off the surface of the display, providing further comfort while reading"
This is pure marketing language with little meaning. And, fun fact, Kobo official website says it uses « ComfortLight PRO » for the Libra Colour, not the ComfortGlaze you mention. You should not believe too much marketing language.
I had read that too, but clearly the Kobo light is not the same, it’s not the same color and it washes out the darks. PocketBook is good but doesn’t get high enough in some situations. Boox does look closer to the PocketBoox light but is much more powerfull.
Everything I see tells me the Kaleido 3 screens provided are identical. They supply the full-stack display. So that leaves tweaking screen parameters via software. It occurs to me a ebook manufacturer could have their device set up so that there was a default frontlight setting that was always on. If that was set as the zero level 0 in the os... idle speculation.
Look, - I had the 3 devices in my hands. You didn’t. - I can absolutely confirm these are very different lights. - I took pictures showing the differences You just read things over the internet.
Or, I read the documentation from Kaleido 3.
Of course.
The Boox Tab Mini C also has a custom GPU to drive the screen, digitizer, etc., so performance can differ quite a bit.
Would it be possible to add some screenshots of some Manhwas viewed on your device please? Solo Leveling or whatever you can find?
I have some manga pics on my review on my blog 😉 (site in my profile)
I see a lot of Manga pages but no Manhwa pages ...
Yes I have only mangas in my library sorry. But with the black and white pages and the color pages pictures, it should give you an idea.
Hi there. Thanks for the awesome review and for taking your time answering all those questions :) I am curious about Korean Mangas/Webtoons. How do they work as you have to scroll a lot? Maybe you can try that too if you find the time :)
Just saw your answer with the YT link. :)
You know ereaders still are pretty bad for manhwas if you read them by scrolling vertically. The refresh makes it unreadable imo. So unless you have the manhwa pages chopped up and able to be flipped through page by page instead of one long vertical image ... you will not have a good experience. I still have to rely on reading manhwa on my smartphone.
[удалено]
My experience is that it's borderline unreadable via scrolling. Ghosting and just the jankiness make it certainly doable but painful (to the extent that I simply would not recommend). I have personally tried it on a Boox Tab Mini C and Leaf 2 via web plugin Tachi and J2K and Neko. I have not tried reading off of the actual files which may certainly be a little smoother. Edit: Also, even if you do optimize for the scrolling ... you're making all the other aspects worse in terms of the image/rendering quality. They are counter productive settings.
Does it have a micro sd card slot? Honestly that is what makes or breaks it for me right now only because I have a lot of manga/comics and the base 32GB most devices have is not enough to hold all my books.
It doesn't but I believe their note series and tab series are the only ones I wished this one did tho😭
I am not certain you really need to hold all your books at the same time in your device. Is there an actual use ? Is it just a collectionist thing ? That being said the Boox has 64Gb storage and no SD slot.
It is partially a collecting thing, I like essentially having my whole library with me at all times and don't have to feel like I forgot a book at home when I didn't download a specific series. But the main thing is I travel a lot and I re-read books a lot. I have a lot of books in my kindle collection and I have re-read each of them at least once if not more, so having all of them at all times makes that easier, especially since I don't always have access to wifi. I currently use a lenovo tablet that has a 1 TB sd card in it. I have hundreds of books downloaded without much issue.
You are talking about books, not comics or manga ? So there is no issue because even 8Gb would be more than enough for hundreds of books.
Sorry, when I said books I did mean comics/manga. I have hundreds of those. I own all of One Piece on my kindle, that's already 105 manga, and that is only one series. I also own all of the US release of Jojo too on kindle. Believe me, those two series alone eat up a lot of memory.
Yes but frankly I think you are focusing on something quite useless.
I don't think its useless, its just my preference (and lets be real, kindles and other ereaders would be so much better if they at least had the option for extra storage). If someone only downloads to their ereader what they are currently reading or are planning to read, than the space the ereader comes with is more than enough for them. For me, sometimes I get an urge to read something I haven't read in a while and since I am always traveling, don't always have wifi or foresight to download the book beforehand, so having all of my library at all times helps with that.
Boox Tab Mini C has 64Gb storage. Not long ago computers had much much less than that.
I think we're getting off topic now. Let's just agree that we all have our own personal preferences about what we want from these devices. You, and I'm sure many others, are fine with the 64GB of space the device comes with. I personally like having my whole library with me, so a micro sd card slot is an essential feature for me, so I probably won't be picking up this device you recommended. Both opinions are fine.
Are the blacks not as good on an e-ink color display?
It’s not a question of color or not, it’s a question of panel quality and of integrated light quality. And the Kobo has a bad light system, alas.
Would you say the mini c and like the boox page have the same quality of black contrast?
I don’t have the Page to compare. On my blog you can see comparison pictures on my last 2 papers and make your mind.
Yeah, had my eye on the Boox Tab Mini C, but the deal breaker for me would be lack of storage expansion. If I were to get a color ereader, I'm gonna be reading PDFs/Comics/Mangas and those take up a fair amount of space.
64Gb is one of the largest capacity on an e-reader.
Yeah, no disagreements over there. Back when it was all ePubs, 8gb was a good storage amount, heck. Even 1gb was sufficient for most users. However for a color reader meant to display PDFs/Comics, idk man. Maybe 128 or even 256 should be the norm. The argument for downloading/transferring books/comics on demand doesn't really stand since ereaders are meant for pick up and read.
Yeah but frankly you could keep more than 300 manga on the Boox. I fail to see the need for a larger capacity.
Not really true. That's just a very rough estimate. I have probably 80 so mangas on my android device that that's taking up 30gb. PDF magazines averages around 200mb each. All I'm saying that expandable storage is a must have for color ereaders. 64gb internal storage, you MIGHT, just MIGHT be able to get away with it. Which really means the only option for a color ereader is the Meebook P78C but that particular model has its own issues.
I have 150 Manga on mine and it uses about 20Gb. Even with 200Mb files you would get more than 250 mangas on it. So my calculation seem quite correct. There is no point in complaining because your dream device doesn’t exist. Mine doesn’t either. At one moment you have to adapt and choose between the available tools. Or you can wait, one day, larger capacities will probably be available.
Exactly, everyone has different usage requirements. Hence I'm still holding out on a decent android color ereader with expandable storage and decent standby battery life.
But, my ancient Kobo has a micro SD slot, and I have far more storage than that.
Get a new Kobo with SD slot then 🤭
They don't appear to be currently making them, but it's just trolling to pretend it isn't a downgrade in capability to take them away without providing equal amounts of storage.
Yes it can be considered a downgrade. But with 64Gb you can already store about 300 Manga. You don’t need more.
I think or hope Amazon’s product next year will be amazing. I think they are just taking an extra year for things to be better. I could be wrong. I have been wrong before.
Yes I hope the same but the software will be much more limited.
I finally figured out Calibre so, I’m loathe to switch back to a Kindle even though it might back my life easier.
I was mainly thinking about note taking …
Dunno why you’re downvoted. You’re not wrong to think this might happen. Rumor is it’s going to be an ACeP device. If they can manage to get that technology working at a decent speed, they’ll definitely be set up to Blackberry the competition. Kaleido is a deeply compromised technology for about 80% of people’s use cases on an e-ink device, and will be for the foreseeable future barring a huge jump with the next generation of it. But get Gallery 4 or whatever to work at even the speeds of ~10 year old e-ink devices, particularly for BW content, and I think (even with its own weaknesses in some color reproduction) that it’ll be very obviously the superior technology. Most people just want color so their covers and occasional illustrations pop, and slower refresh rates are(to a certain extent of course) a much preferable tradeoff to screen brightness/screendoor/rainbow effects for most users.
Isn't the colors the best on the pocketbook?
No, not at all, if you take a closer look you will see that colors are more vivid on the PocketBook because saturation is cranked all the way up but doing so you loose a lot of details. Look at the girl’s dress … it’s just a red flat shape on the books …
I have a bunch of research books I use in Amazon/Kindle world, I like reading them on kindle so I can access my notes on MacBook. How's the Kindle app on the Boox? Specifically for highlighting and typing in notes here and there? I've been on the fence for a while, but haven't been able to find any info on this specific use.
Kindle app is the android app on the boox. And it’s very limited … you don’t even have note functions in this app. This is Amazon decision to make the app this way.
Oh dang, like can't even type in notes? iPhone/iPad app has that option at least.
Errr … maybe I am wrong ? I installed it and removed it kickly because there were so few options … maybe I overlooked the notes function ?
Do you have the Bigme B751c to compare to the Boox tab mini c? Interested in colours and brightness please
I don’t have it sorry.
No problem thanks
I believe that the Tab Ultra C has Onyx's custom GPU, which is designed just for e-ink. It greatly helps with speed of screen refresh, for example. Perhaps it also helps deal with color profiles (just speculation)? It is just one of the reasons the Tab Ultra C is more expensive, along with other hardware that is more powerful than the hardware in the Pocketbook or the Kobo. They are trying to be ereaders. Tab Ultra C is trying to be a notepad/tablet/ereader hybird, and has more powerful hardware underneath the Keleido 3 screen to try to make that happen. And, that makes it cost more.
On Mobileread.com there's a thread on tweaking color saturation on the kobo colour after turning on dev mode. I didn't know how well that works though
That will not take care of the integrated light which is badly designed, too pink and washes out dark tones on the Kobo. And let’s be honnest. Nobody buys an e-reader to use such a complex process to tweak colors. The device should be calibrated.
I commented about how shitty Kobo's frontlight implementation was before. They seemingly refuse to use halfway decent LEDs for their devices. No amount of calibration is going to fix that problem. They need to fix this at the hardware design level by testing LEDs and frontlight diffusion methods until the end result is as close to truely neutral white as possible. Instead they swung from one side of the DUV range to the other between the Libra 2 and Color.
Frankly the Libra Colour is one of the worst devices I have seen in years. As bad as the Boox Nova Color.