Bigme inkNote Color + E-Reader 10.3″ Epaper Tablet 6G 128GB E Ink Tablet Digital Paper with Dual Cameras TF Card Slot, Notetaking Tablet with Stylus and Cover

An excellent e-reader with all the apps of a tablet for customization
Here are the important things to remember. This is a fantastic e-reader device. It is a nice large size at 10″, and the e-ink screen also supports color. Color really improves the reading experience and makes coloring and drawing a real possibility. It is not a replacement for an OLED tablet. If you want to watch movies and play games exclusively, then this isn’t the correct device for you.With that said, Bigme has really innovated on this device and produced something truly unique in the market. They have done the groundwork for you to create any e-ink workspace that you want. The preinstalled software is just okay, so the first thing you will do is load up the app store and install your favorite e-reader, audiobook player, your web browser, and note-taking software. It’s up to you because this device works with virtually every app on the store!After that, all your passwords and favorites are synced, and you’re ready to get to work.One thing that is really fantastic out of the box is the settings page. This is a tablet like no other, and it has customizations like no other. They’ve included a very useful “user guide” which explains the variety of settings available. I was impressed with the detail and clarity of this user guide because some areas of the tablet still have non-English characters. The startup screen and box contain non-English characters which initially made me nervous, but the software itself is almost completely devoid. The firmware update is also not translated, but the download button was obvious. These are mostly software issues that may be changes in your version of the device and didn’t negatively impact my experience.You can make customizations to the display quality of the E-Ink, opting for faster refreshes, better colors, or crisper text. You can also customize the screen refresh frequency to eliminate ghosting. This can be adjusted on a per-application basis so your experience can be adjusted based on the main purpose of the app: faster refresh for the web browser or higher quality for e-reading.Another great setting is their screenwriting settings. Not all apps support pen input, so they have created three screenwriting settings that give you pen input in virtually any application. Screenwriting captures your input, and then after a slight delay, applies any screen input to the active application. I was concerned it would slow down color changes and switch to eraser. Amazingly, it captures all writing and tap input and then applies them in order. You can write on the screen with multiple color changes as fast as you can tap, and it correctly applies the input into the app. I tested this with OneNote and was unable to outpace it even with random scribbling and taps.The pen itself has a connection to the tablet and charges automatically while the device is sleeping. This is much more convenient than having to source AAAA batteries or carry a USB-C cable to charge the active pens. The simplicity of this makes the pen much more convenient to maintain. The matte screen does a good job of simulating a pen on paper experience and reduces glare from bright light. The pen does not include a clip, but aftermarket 9mm clip-on clips can be applied to secure the pen in a pocket or bag.The pen input works well with 3rd party slide input and is a very fast way to enter actual text. I felt like I could type faster with the slide than I could handwrite. In default mode (No on-screen writing mode), the on-screen slide is a little behind my pen, but didn’t have any impact on my sliding speed. I was immediately able to just ignore it.Color reproduction is good. Again, it’s not an OLED screen, but it displays really well in bright sunlight. In dark scenarios, there are two adjustable backlights. One is a yellow color for night use, and the other is a daylight white color. The white is better for colors, but they are both very good and can be turned on together and blended to get your desired color tone. If you want to take handwritten notes in the dark, this will be a great asset and eliminates the need for a flashlight. (Think outside or on a dark airplane)Battery life is decent. If you put it in airplane mode, it will last longer than with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth active. You can expect a full day (24 hrs) of heavy use or multiple days sitting on a desk next to your computer. It charges with USB but doesn’t have super-fast charging (10W is the real power consumption when charging from 0%).I joined a few online video meetings and video calls. The video displayed on the tablet is naturally a low frame rate. I was pleasantly pleased that the video on the recipient’s computer was smooth. Looked just like I was using a traditional tablet. This would be a great way to screen share and annotate with the pen.The speakers were good enough for music and audiobooks, although similar to other mobile devices in quality. Small and middle-range sound only. However, Bluetooth had no problems connecting to my wireless headphones. With headphones, it was just as good as my Android phone. This is consistent with other mobile devices.Bottom Line: If you’re interested in a smart notebook or high-end e-reader that can be customized to your liking, this is a great device. It’s a premium price tag but well worth it. You’ll have to do some customizations to get it exactly how you want it. The effort is worth it for the good user experience. If you can’t install an app on a smartphone, then you won’t be able to use this product.

good

The first gripe, most people have with e-ink readers, is their inherent limitations. What these people simply don’t understand is the whole point of an E-ink reader.An E-ink reader provides a digital means of displaying actual paper like qualities with digital books. To this end it reads just like an actual book without the space requirements that come with owning lot’s of books. Add to this, it’s easier on your eyes and allows thousands of books to be right there at your finger tips without the need to have racks and racks of shelving everywhere.However the most important point of e-ink is that it’s exactly like having actual paper right in front of you. It will not give you glare on your eyes, it will not be susceptible to glare issues like on Ipad or standard LCD screens. If you can read a book in the environment, you can read a book with an e-ink screen. Essentially it’s exactly like having the paper book in front of your with added benefits.My personal issue with e-ink screens has always been the size of the screen is not the size of even a standard paper back in a lot of cases(this remained the case with the last 4 devices I have owned including a larger Sony ebook reader screen.)Well good bye to that with the Bigme 10″ eink reader here. It’s in short perfect. The page turning is practically instantaneous and really allows for flipping through a book if you need to get to a particular section, but hey you can simply book mark pages and go straight there anyway with this beauty.What also appealed to me was the colour ability. Now I can read comic books on this device as well and that’s also a massive space saver. Now on this, there will be folks who winge about how the screen is not vibrant or glossy but they would be missing the whole point of an e-ink reader. Think back to when comics where printed on news print paper with somewhat dull colour due to the matt paper absorbing the ink in different ways etc. That’s what you get with this device because it simulates that type of paper, essentially your printed book style paper, which is the whole point. On this note, I don’t mind one iota because it’s authentic to a lot of the comics I read. However if your after those glossy excuses for comics largely generated with computer art these days, then this may not be the device for you and an LCD or TFT screen might be more what your after. That said the LCD or TFT will become annoying to read long actual books with as it really does gyrate on the eyes, also these devices will never last as long on a single charge as this E-ink big me here, so that should be considered as well before you go attempting to read a book like War and Peace etc.The next drama often comes in the form of applications and on this I’ve never had an issue with E-ink readers because for me, there sole purpose is…… surprise, surprise… READING BOOKS!!!! I don’t really use them for anything else.Well until now that is. You see, the Bigme comes with an incredible stylus that let’s you write notes on any book, magazine, lecture notes etc that you want to read on it and it really does support a lot of file formats. It can even take a phone sim card as well as an upgrade SD memory card(although only up to 128GB at this stage for some reason. But that with the internal 128Gb, well everyone must be aware you can fit an aweful lot of books in a 1/4 of a Terrabyte and that still applies for comics as well.)Moving on, it also features the ability to take a photo of a document and it will convert it to an ebook for you. (Very handy for students I’m sure.) Add to that, being able to write your own notes in the documents is an amazing bonus feature that will be very helpful. Oh and because it’s also got wifi networking built in, you can always print pages etc as well to any network printer you can connect to.There’s even some music playing capability(nothing new, most of my other e-ink readers had this feature) but for me, it’s redundant as I don’t use this device to play music on.Finally, you can actually watch You tube videos, browse the internet and access your emails etc if you want to. Again, amazing capability but for me, I just wanted to have the ability to store many of my books and free up book shelf to reserve space for the collector type editions which I will never part with.This device does do even more than I’ve mentioned but for my money, it’s core function which was reading thousands of books, will be a snap compared to earlier e-in readers and while some may gripe about the price, they have to understand that E-ink screens(especially of this nice size) are not a cheap technology yet. Also when you factor in the average cost of even paper backs these days, well for the price of say 36 to 38 paper backs, you have your E-ink reader that will hold all of those books in 1/100th of the space required to store them.So to conclude, with what I wanted this device for, it gets 10/10 and is right up there in the Rolls Royce of E-ink readers.The only caveats which I’m not down grading my score for as it’s more than likely just me, is that I hope a future firmware update can fix that space limitation on the SD card. I would like to be able to see this device being a 10 – 20 year investment that I can continue adding and adding and adding those books into without the problem of it filling up.The settings and features are amazing but I really don’t want that many for my reading and sometimes they can be annoying when they pop up in the middle of reading if you don’t tap the right way or place your finger on the screen casually while reading. To this end, again a future firmware update consideration, would be the ability to switch off the pop up menu when reading books so it doesn’t disturb you.The finally niggly issue is that of ‘Lithium Polymer’ batteries. I’m not a fan and would have preferred a Lithium Ion battery. In 3 of my previous E-ink readers the confounded LiPo batteries, went puffy and split the devices in half. Essentially you have to ensure they don’t run completely flat or that you don’t over charge them. With this device I’m taking it that with a device of this price point, users will be able to purchase replacement batteries years down the track to keep there Big Me devices running indefinitely.Other than that, you will seriously not be disappointed with this great E-ink reader. What Bigme, may want to consider is a stripped down version without the stylus, camera, pen or MP3 player functionality to bring these great screens to a wider market. However I was happy to support this device as it’s what I’ve been after for years but been unable to obtain till now and if we don’t support these technologies well sadly they disappear.Grab one book lovers, you will not be disappointed.

This is the most versatile e-ink tablet. It has some blazing fast refresh speeds when you need a bit more of a non-e-ink device. There’s always a delay but if you are ok with that, you can watch Netflix in full colour on an e-ink, huge screen. The included accessories are extremely premium and they feel sturdy and nice to the touch. The stylus is the fastest and best feature. Drawing and writing is insanely good and fast, even in the eReader modes with slow refresh speed. In the highest quality picture mode (the slowest screen speed with no ghosting) the stylus still writes and draws instantly. It’s like pen, brush, pencil on paper. All of my Android apps work except Retroarch which needs another app running in splitscreen mode to even refresh the video. Shonen Jump app works beautifully! I can read 100 issues a day with my subscription but I can’t access it on the Kindle Paperwhite, which I bought as well to compare. On the Bigme, the Shonen Jump android app works perfectly and looks like real ink on paper! Great on my eyes!The English language option is good but it could be better. It’s Android 11 and it runs almost everything. I just figured out how to get Parsec to work so I was streaming and controlling my computer from an e-ink tablet!! The camera seems to work well but it’s not meant to be the best camera. It’s great to have both inward and outward cameras, just in case. I wish there was vibration or haptic feedback but this is an e-ink tablet. The battery doesn’t seem to be as good as I expected. It runs out in just an hour or so of high refresh mode and I expected it to be as good as my Huawei p20 pro which also has 4000 mAh. It runs out rather quickly even in slow mode. I don’t know how to change the standby background or image, and I’d really like it to display something I choose. I wish the folding sleeve could fold into a stand but it can hold the tablet upright on a table if I angle it diagonally.I’ll update this review when I get a bit more time with it.Bigme, feel free to contact me because I’d love to help with ideas and testing, or if you think there’s an issue with the battery in my device.