Final bump: I've decided to settle on the Meebook M7 for now, and if I don't like the screen size for manga (unlikely, i tend to hold my phone pretty close to my face due to intense nearsighting (-7) and I doubt this'll fix that, and this is pretty much only for night reading wherein i won't be wearing my glasses) I'll switch to the Meebook P78 Pro.
I'd actually like to shout out a youtube channel that MASSIVELY helped assuage my fears of bad contrast near the end,
Sherry.
Their videos seem to be under good neutral lighting, nicely paced, showing off the features of each device and the screens are well represented unlike some other channels.
Of course, shipping is a concern, but Tachiyomi is just much too big a boon to make any of the other options worth it, since AFAIK Boox don't use Clara 1200 (and they're MUCH more expensive).
I'll probably report back with an actually detailed review somewhere else on the forum later, as details on these things are SCANT besides the above 600 subscriber Youtube channel.