Bigme has released a new ereader with a 6″ color E Ink screen called the Bigme B6 (they really should start coming up with better names for their devices) and it has some interesting features for the price.
At $169 on Amazon, it’s only $10 more expensive than the Kobo Clara Colour, and it has some notable advantages over it. The fact the Bigme B6 runs Android 14 gives it a big edge in the versatility department since it can run Android apps (the Google Play Store is built-in).
The Bigme B6 also has some hardware upgrades. It has an octa-core CPU with 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM, and it has a microSD card slot that supports cards up to 1TB in size. It also adds a microphone, a rotation sensor, and an external speaker. It has a 2100mAh battery, and it supports dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth. The weight is listed at 176 grams and the dimensions are 108 x 149 x 6.98mm.
One unique aspect of the Bigme B6 is it has virtual buttons below the screen that aren’t actually part of the E Ink display. This gives the screen more usable space without the navigation buttons taking up part of the screen. Bigme claims this makes it seem like it has a 6.3″ screen but with the size of a 6″ device. That’s an interesting marketing spin that I haven’t heard before.
Like all other 6″ color ereaders on the market, it uses a Kaleido 3 screen from E Ink with the usual 300ppi for black and white content and 150ppi for color. It has a frontlight with adjustable color temperature as well.
Since the Bigme B6 runs Android, it has some different software features not found on some other ereaders, including AI features. There are various customization settings too, and there are four different refresh modes to choose from for different types of content—magazine, comic, video, and default. It even supports real-time voice translations and text-to-speech.
Looks like every company is going color this year. The smart move for many companies might be to have a black and white variant for each sku. For me, a 9 or 10″ reader from Kobo would be ideal. I might be moved to try the overly complicated(for me) Boox. I expect Amazon will go to a color Scribe in the next year.
Not sure I see the point in the 6″ size with color, but they will sell well.