So, I've got a 9th generation Kindle Oasis and its battery is really starting to show its age. This is also one of the models where it is damn near impossible to replace the battery. Any attempts that I have read about online resulted in broken screens and sadness.
I'm not too wedded to the Amazon ecosystem, but I do like being able to borrow library books, which my local library allows in the form of sending them to your amazon account. I have a few books from the kindle store, but not a ton.
I've been looking around online for a replacement e-ink reading device, and the Boox Page has caught my eye. I'm curious how those have been performing for anyone who's got one here, since they've been out for a while now. I like the idea of it not being tied to any particular vendor's store, and the fact that I could install the Kindle and Libby apps on it, along with, apparently, pretty much anything else available in the Play store.
Important things for me are battery life and having physical page turn buttons, as well as a built in light so that I can read in bed without bothering my wife with a table lamp or something.
I would love to see some feedback from people who own these devices.
Also, does anyone know how often the Boox store restocks them? It's been showing as unavailable every time I check over the past few days.
I bought a Boox Poke3 a couple of years back and it's honestly the best purchase I've made in a long time. I previously used a cheap Tolino e-reader so I have some experience in the difference between an e-reader and an e-ink tablet with android. In all, I consider the tablet to be well worth the money I payed for it. Regarding the battery life, while it is true that the tablet does not last for as long as an ereader, the battery capacity is still large enough so that it only requires charging once in a week under heavy use. That is unless you use the wifi, which will drain the battery quite faster. For comparison I charged the Tolino once every three weeks. Having the ability to install Android applications is a game changer in my opinion, especially if you wish to use a unified method of reading articles (like Instapaper or Pocket). E-ink Bro is extremely useful too. The Boox tablets have a magnificent way of side loading books (and files in general) called Boox Push which allows for direct control of the tablet filesystem from the browser of another device, phone or computer. Just scan the QR code with the phone and you can transfer, move, rename, etc any file you wish to. I can not stress how convenient this is since it works with or without an account, it can connect using the local IP of the table and transfer files over the local network. The backlight options are also great, Boox tablets can control the warmth of the backlight to reduce eye strain when reading at night. Another great feature is that the tablet is extremely light, making holding it very convenient. I think that the Page model is bigger though so I don't know about that. As far as I can see the Page has physical buttons too while the Poke doesn't. Finally, the performance of the tablet is good as far as I can tell but I have heard from others that generally Android tablet are a bit slower than ereaders. I use KOreader though which is very snappy.
Also, does anyone know how often the Boox store restocks them? It’s been showing as unavailable every time I check over the past few days.
I bought mine over a local vendor and not from the official Boox store so I can not answer you that, my guess would be that depending on your location this will vary. I would suggest that you check some reseller company in your area.
Those features sound excellent. I think I will mostly be running the device with WiFi off just for reading books at night. I'll turn it on when I need to load new content or apps on it, so hopefully the battery life is good. Right now the battery on my kindle is so clapped out that I'm charging it maybe once every three days with WiFi turned off.
Update for those who are interested: I bought a Boox Page from B&H photo in New York, and received it today. Spent probably far longer than I needed to fiddling around with the settings and loading content onto it, but it is now ready to rock and roll. I really like the Boox Drop feature - just wirelessly dropping files onto it through a web browser on my local network rather than having to rely on a cloud service (while also still having that available as an option) is cool.