u/Core2score

I been obsessed with cutting down my smartphone addiction so I sold my smartwatch in favor of a bunch of Swiss mechanical and Casio quartz watches, I gifted my aging Lenovo tablet to a relative, and I deleted most of my social media apps. I also started leaving my phone in a different room when I go to bed or at home when I go out to exercise.

That left a huge gap in my life though. See I love to listen to relaxing music in bed, sit in a park under a tree and read after my jog, and plus I gotta listen to my gym playlist when I'm working out.

I decided to get simple E ink devices to replace my phone most of the time.

The most obvious choice is Kindle e readers but Amazon's walled garden ecosystem is a huge deal breaker for me, and they can't play music. Remarkable devices seem cool but are too expensive.

Then I found this, it's basically an android tablet molded after an e-reader. The screen is amazing and contrasty and very readable especially in bright daylight, you get 8 GB RAM and 128 GB built in storage (so way better than a Kindle), it can run virtually any android app like Kindle or Adobe reader or whatever, and it has Bluetooth, speakers and microphone in case you want to listen to audio books. And it only cost me like 250 bucks on sale, taxes in!

Now obviously there are some downsides. Most obviously being an android tablet means it's not very minimal, although I don't have any apps installed outside of a bunch of office and PDF apps and obviously kindle and an offline music player. It's probably not very convenient to use it like an Android tablet anyways, cause neither the screen nor the refresh rate or CPU are very appropriate for social media and video streaming. But if you fear you won't be able to resist trying to use it in that fashion then it's not for you. Personally, I use it just like a slightly more flexible e-reader that's also a good notepad.

Battery life isn't nearly as good as a Kindle but I mean on my days off when I'm reading for 4 to 5 hours a day I use like 20% at most. 5 days of battery life is plenty IMHO and the fact that I'm not stuck in Amazon's walled garden easily justifies the sacrifice.

Being a color E ink the white BG isn't exactly as shiny and white as a regular B&W eink display. But the difference is tiny under bright light and you can turn on the front light to help with that when it's too dim. Worst comes to worst, Bigme makes a bunch of B&W tabs in the 6 to 7 inch screen size range and some are even cheaper than this one.

And I got a tiny offline music player with an e ink screen but that's a story for another thread.

Overall highly recommended. Love this thing.

I been obsessed with cutting down my smartphone addiction so I sold my smartwatch in favor of a bunch of Swiss mechanical and Casio quartz watches, I gifted my aging Lenovo tablet to a relative, and I deleted most of my social media apps. I also started leaving my phone in a different room when I go to bed or at home when I go out to exercise. That left a huge gap in my life though. See I love to listen to relaxing music in bed, sit in a park under a tree and read after my jog, and plus I gotta listen to my gym playlist when I'm working out.

I decided to get simple E ink devices. The most obvious choice is Kindle e readers but Amazon's walled garden ecosystem is a huge deal breaker for me, and they can't play music. Remarkable devices seem cool but are too expensive. Then I found this, it's basically an android tablet molded after an e-reader. The screen is amazing and contrasty and very readable especially in bright daylight, you get 8 GB RAM and 128 GB built in storage (so way better than a Kindle), it can run virtually any android app like Kindle or Adobe reader or whatever, and it has Bluetooth, speakers and microphone in case you want to listen to audio books. And it only cost me like 250 bucks on sale, taxes in!

Now obviously there are some downsides. Most obviously being an android tablet means it's not very minimal, although I don't have any apps installed outside of a bunch of office and PDF apps and obviously kindle and an offline music player. It's probably not very convenient to use it like an Android tablet anyways, cause neither the screen nor the refresh rate or CPU are very appropriate for social media and video streaming. But if you fear you won't be able to resist trying to use it in that fashion then it's not for you. Personally, I use it just like a slightly more flexible e-reader that's also a good notepad.

Battery life isn't nearly as good as a Kindle but I mean on my days off when I'm reading for 4 to 5 hours a day I use like 20% at most. 5 days of battery life is plenty IMHO and the fact that I'm not stuck in Amazon's walled garden easily justifies the sacrifice.

Being a color E ink the white BG isn't exactly as shiny and white as a regular B&W eink display. But the difference is tiny under bright light and you can turn on the front light to help with that when it's too dim. Worst comes to worst, Bigme makes a bunch of B&W tabs in the 6 to 7 inch screen size range and some are even cheaper than this one.

And I got a tiny offline music player with an e ink screen but that's a story for another thread.

Overall highly recommended. Love this thing.