E-Book specifications

[IV4ES]

Hi all,
I started a research of the ebooks brands and models to choose the right model for me.
There are 2 questions that I wanted to know, because I don't see any reason for it.

1. Why do the majority of the most popular e-book brands hide the full technical specifications of their device? In a good case I can get the RAM specs, but not the CPU and other stuff. I am talking about Kindle, Kobo and other brands.
2. Why is there a huge gap between Amazon's flagship models and Onyx Boox?
   I found out that Onyx Boox is a Chinese company, and I would rather have a good product from Amazon, but it seems that they can't compete with those of Onyx in terms of technical specifications.

[Frogm4n]

You don't need high-end and wild specs to display ebooks. The Onyx products are full Android tablets. They do much more than just read books. That's also why their battery life it terrible compared to a dedicated ereader.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by IV4ES

Why do the majority of the most popular e-book brands hide the full technical specifications of their device? In a good case I can get the RAM specs, but not the CPU and other stuff. I am talking about Kindle, Kobo and other brands.

The specifications are generally not relevant to the average customer, and both Amazon and Kobo want to appear friendly to people who aren't tech savvy. If they start listing lots of computer specifications, that will make people feel like these devices are too complicated. Besides, specs don't really matter for an e-reader. It doesn't take a beefy quad-core CPU to display an e-book.

Originally Posted by IV4ES

Why is there a huge gap between Amazon's flagship models and Onyx Boox?
I found out that Onyx Boox is a Chinese company, and I would rather have a good product from Amazon, but it seems that they can't compete with those of Onyx in terms of technical specifications.

Kindle is an e-reader (and note taker, in the case of the Scribe). Onyx Boox makes android tablets. They're different categories of devices. Yes, you can use a Boox model as a reading and writing device, but you can do many other things with it, since you can install programs from Google Play to get any type of functionality you want. You can't do that with a Kindle. The Kindle is designed to read books purchased from Amazon and pretty much nothing else (except for the Scribe, which also has primitive note-taking capabilities).

[IV4ES]

Thanks for your replies.
For me, it is really important to have internet support.
This is because I read books on foreign languages and there is always a need to check unfamiliar words and phrases or even translate the entire paragraph via DeepL translator.
Of course, the built-in dictionary cannot do that much.
I found it really convenient while using the ReadEra app on my tablet.
From the other hand I would like to have an e-ink screen on my reader to feel like I am reading a book.
Do Boox products have both of what I am looking for?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by IV4ES

For me, it is really important to have internet support.
This is because I read books on foreign languages and there is always a need to check unfamiliar words and phrases or even translate the entire paragraph via DeepL translator.
Of course, the built-in dictionary cannot do that much

If you want to mostly read ebooks bought from Amazon a Kindle is simplest.

If you want to only read novels, and from any source except B&N, then a Kobo is best, though transferring Amazon bought ebooks is simpler if you have an old eink Kindle registered on Amazon (but it doesn't need to still work). There are 6, 7, 8 and 10.3 inch Kobo models. The 10.3″ is less pixels than the 8″ and heavy for reading a novel. I've had or have all sizes. I'm getting rid of the 10.3″ as it's pointless compared to Libr2 or Sage (which I have) and grossly inferior to the TCL Nxtpaper 11 for PDFs & comics or notes. Inferior to Sage for novels & notes, or to Libra 2 for just novels. The Kobos, unlike Kindle or any MTP device are fully supported by Calibre for collections, subtitles, series, description, publisher info and annotations/bookmarks/highlights/reading position/status. The Kobo doesn't need a jailbreak. While it can't use the Playstore, there are some 3rd party apps and patches.

If you want Internet, textbooks, every kind of loan, any kind of PDF, Djvu, image, Manga, colour comics etc, then the 10.9″ TCL Nxtpaper 11 is the best option. Almost as comfortable as eink, but can do video perfectly. Very fast, long charge life, 4 G RAM, 128 G Flash and up to 1T byte (1000G) micro SD card. Less than half price of a Boox. Optional note taking with T-Pen or handwriting mode of Gboard. Android 13. The screen has to be seen and used to be believed, though it's best with auto brightness off, not Dark mode, reading mode off, eye-saver mode off and sRGB on. Powerful enough CPU for a Laptop USB-TV adaptor and perfect HDTV H.264 off an aerial. Instant response PDF or Web zoom/pan/flip scroll like a high end i7 GPU Workstation. A 2000 x 1200 screen.

A mono Boox would be a second best option for Android and eink. The Likebook/Boyue/Meebook family seem OK for reading but poor for Internet. The Pocketbook doesn't seem to support the Playstore.

I think Pocketbook app on Android is far better than Readera.

[IV4ES]

I am not a big fan of Chinese brands (as I have had some in the past and know what I am talking about).
Are there any brands I can rely on? I mean not Chinese brands.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by IV4ES

I am not a big fan of Chinese brands (as I have had some in the past and know what I am talking about).
Are there any brands I can rely on? I mean not Chinese brands.

Not all Chinese brands are equal. Also lots of other brands are made in China (Apple).

TCL made Alcatel phones back before iPhone, Android etc. When Alcatel got out of phones they licensed the Alcatel brand. Nokia still exists and Microsoft only bought their phone division, and a license for the brand for one year for phones for the 11 Billion! They got zero IP. TCL now has the license for the Nokia brand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCL_Technology
They have been involved with European companies for decades and at one stage #2 TV maker in the world.

The big phone service provider "Three" is actually a Hong Kong company and that is now in China.


Amazon Kindle is developed by an American company Labs126 bought in by Amazon about the time they bought French Mobipocket (2005 and at that time a leader in ebook sales) founded by an executive from Palm. The ereaders are made in China. The Fire Tablet is Android based and the eink is Linux based.

Kobo is a Canadian company now owned by Japanese Rakuten, who also does the excellent Viber chat system. They also took over the German Tolino and the HW is now the same as Kobo, but OS is Android rather than Linux on the Canadian Kobos. They are made in China.

Pocketbook was founded in Ukraine in 2007 and moved to Switzerland. Their products are made by Chinese and Taiwanese (Foxconn?) companies in China.
They may mostly use Android, but the models might not support the Playstore. Like Boox, they only make eink readers/tablets.


Onyx International / Onyx Boox is niche eink ebook and tablet maker since 2006 and currently in violation of GPL as they have used Linux as well as Android and don't release Source.

It's not clear if Boox or Pocketbook is bigger. They are both niche companies.

Boyue / Likebook seemed to die and resurface as Meebook. Small Chinese company with Android based ereaders.

There are also a lot of Chinese makers with obsolete eink panels and no touch making 4.7" to 6" (167 dpi) ereaders.

Bigme is a crowd-funded niche Chinese startup with very expensive eink products that are not realistically photographed. Maybe releasing products since 2020?

Sony ereaders are long gone. The reMarkable is a one-trick pony Nordic company and their tablet is a PDF/note system, not an ereader. Made in China.

Fujitsu and Sony used the same HW for a Digital Paper Tablet (made in China).

All the current companies making viable eink ereaders or tablets are using E Ink Corporation panels. All competing bistable technologies are either buried by Qualcomm (Mirasol), or bought and buried by Amazon (who uses E Ink Corporation panels) or by E Ink Corporation.
The low power is only when reading because CPU sleeps and rhe display maintains state while power is off. Page flip/refresh uses high power. It's opaque so uses ambient light (good) or a front illumination by PWM LEDS and a light spreading layer (light pipe). A replacement panel costs as much as an entire LCD tablet! Pixels on eink are cells with multiple balls. Refresh is 55ms (poor shade accuracy) to 200ms (all grey levels) compared to a response time of 0.3ms to 3ms for non-bistable technologies.

The E Ink corp has two completely unrelated technologies for "color".
1) Putting a colour filter on top of a regular mono eink panel. Triton is saturated R G B stripes so is very dark indeed in ambient light as the filter must pass the light twice. Resolution is thus 1/3rd in one direction, Kaleido uses a more expensive 2 x 2 matrix filter using pastel RG and GB squares, so colours are washed out. Because the mono is black, white and approximately 14 grey levels (slower), the total colours (hue), shades and saturations is about 4000 with both schemes compared to 16M+ on modern LCD/OLED/QLED/LED panels.
2) Using cells that have bistable Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and White layers. This allows about 50,000 variations rather than only 4000+, but refresh / update is about 1500ms, so it's only for retail signage.

There are other eink panels for price labels and similar that can have a colour as well as black and white. The biggest growth market for E Ink Corporation is retail price labels and advertising displays.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by IV4ES

Do Boox products have both of what I am looking for?

Yes, Boox can do what you want (and more). You might also look at PocketBook devices; I believe they also run Android. Neither Kindle nor Kobo are suitable for your needs. Their browsers are primitive and generally not usable.

[Quoth]

No eink is much good for browsing.

Scrolling is ghastly.

[Aleron Ives]

Boox does quite well in the fast and ultrafast refresh modes. If you get a model with BSR the ghosting performance improves dramatically, but the hit to battery life is substantial.