Bigme B6 (Black & White) E-Reader Review

Firmware version: 2.2.6

I want to start out by saying that here will inevitably be a certain amount of repetition in this review for anyone who has already read my review of the Bigme B6 Color, simply because the two devices are, in almost every respect, identical. The principal distinction is that the model reviewed here replaces the Kaleido colour display with a conventional monochrome E Ink panel.

I have been using the Bigme B6 on and off for around a month. Usually my testing process lasts around 2 weeks, but I’ve been a little sidetracked with the FIFA World Cup, so it has been a bit more ad-hoc.

As with all of my reviews, the intention is not to determine whether this is the best e-reader on the market, but to establish who it is most appropriate for. Every device represents a collection of compromises, and what may be a disadvantage for one person can be entirely inconsequential to another. Throughout this review, I will therefore focus on my genuine day to day experience with the Bigme B6, highlighting both the aspects I appreciated and the areas where I believe there is room for improvement.

Unboxing

Bigme sent me three separate boxes for the review. One contained the B6 itself, another housed the protective cover, and the third included the accessories, namely a USB cable and the micro SD card tray removal tool.

The e-reader arrives in a remarkably sturdy box made from thick, rigid card. The front features a simple outline of the device, while the lid opens on a hinge along the left hand side, rather like the cover of a hardback book. It is an understated design choice, but one that I thought added a pleasing touch of refinement. Overall, the packaging feels robust and offers a reassuring level of protection during transit.

The protective cover is packaged separately in a thinner cardboard box. Inside, it is enclosed within a plastic sleeve, with a sheet of foam placed between the front and rear panels to help it retain its shape while being transported. It is a straightforward presentation, but everything arrived in perfect condition.

With the unboxing complete, the first thing I did was power on the B6. The initial setup process begins by asking you to select a language. Naturally, I chose English, however it is worth noting that although the word “English” itself is displayed in English, it is preceded by the Chinese characters for the language. It is only a minor observation, but it immediately gives the impression that the device has been designed primarily with the Chinese domestic market in mind.

That impression is reinforced on the following screen, which displays the message, “Welcome to use the smart e-reader.” The meaning is perfectly clear, but it is not idiomatic English, again hinting at the software’s Chinese origins.

The remainder of the setup process is familiar enough. After selecting the preferred gesture controls, I connected the B6 to my Wi-Fi network before being prompted to either sign in with, or create, a Bigme account.

Although I already have a Bigme account, I deliberately chose not to sign in. Wherever possible, I prefer to evaluate Android based e-readers without relying on a manufacturer’s proprietary ecosystem. In my view, a capable Android device should remain fully usable without requiring the user to register for yet another account, so I wanted to see how well the B6 functioned in that scenario.

The final setup screens offered access to a user guide and several QR codes for Bigme support before taking me to the home screen. Before doing anything else, I disabled the persistent navigation bar, which I personally find rather intrusive, and then installed the latest firmware update, bringing the device up to version 2.2.6. With that complete, I was ready to begin exploring the B6 in earnest.

Design & build

My first impression of the Bigme B6 was that it resembles a tablet, although not the electronic kind. Rather, it has the shape of an oversized oblong medicinal tablet, with flat sides, squared off edges and generously rounded corners. It is an unapologetically utilitarian design that I feel prioritises substance over elegance.

If I am being completely honest, for a device with a 6 inch display, the B6 has a noticeable amount of heft. Comparable models from Kindle, Kobo and Boox all feel somewhat lighter in the hand.

It also feels overly thick. That said, I suspect part of this impression comes from the design itself. The edges are completely flat and meet at perfect right angles, making them appear thicker than they actually are.mIn reality, the B6 measures just 6.9 mm thick, making it competitive with many other 6 inch e-readers. The squared profile simply creates the illusion of a chunkier device than the measurements would suggest.

That same design also contributes to what is undoubtedly one of the B6’s strengths: its structural rigidity. It feels exceptionally solid in the hand. There is no creaking when gentle bending pressure is applied, nor is there any hint of internal movement or rattling when the device is shaken (conversely, on the B6 Color, the power button rattled within its housing when the e-reader was shook). The B6 BW gives every impression of being engineered to withstand the rigours of everyday use.

The physical controls and ports are sensibly arranged. Along the top edge are the power button and the speaker grille. The bottom edge houses the microphone, a USB C port for charging and data transfer, and a micro SD card slot for expandable storage. Both the left and right edges are otherwise free from buttons or connectors, contributing to a clean and uncluttered appearance.

Overall, I think the design and build quality are very good. Personally, I would have preferred something a little lighter and perhaps slightly more stylish aesthetically, but there is no denying that the B6 feels reassuringly well constructed. It may be more practical than beautiful, yet it gives the impression of a device that has been built to last.

Protective casing

Like the e-reader itself, the supplied folio case follows a plainly functional design philosophy. There’s nothing ornamental or experimental here; it exists to protect the device and little more.

The construction consists of a sheet of UPVC wrapped around two rigid panels, one protecting the screen and the other the rear of the device, joined by a flexible spine that allows the folio to open and close like a book. The exterior is finished in a dark blue-grey faux-leather texture, with a small metallic Bigme logo set into the lower-right corner of the front panel. It’s understated and inoffensive, if somewhat generic.

Inside, the colour shifts to a slightly lighter blue-grey, and the material becomes smoother and marginally softer to the touch. The B6 attaches magnetically to the rear panel of the folio and, once seated, remains in place with reasonable firmness. During normal, everyday use, it’s unlikely to come loose accidentally. That said, it doesn’t take much deliberate effort – a firm pull or a vigorous shake – to detach it, which reinforces the impression that this is a convenience attachment rather than a rugged mounting system.

When the folio is closed, the front panel snaps lightly to the right edge of the e-reader using a weaker magnetic catch. This isn’t intended to clamp the device shut so much as to prevent the cover from inadvertently flapping open during transport. Opening and closing the folio also triggers the expected wake and sleep behaviour, which works reliably and without noticeable delay.

The edges of the folio extend slightly beyond the perimeter of the e-reader, offering a modest degree of side protection. While this is sensible from a protective standpoint, I found it came at the cost of comfort. The overhanging edges aren’t sharp, but they do press into the fingers a little when holding the device for extended reading sessions. As a result, I often chose to detach the B6 from the folio entirely while reading, only returning it to the case once I’d finished using the device.

In practical terms, the folio does its job, but it’s not something I found myself wanting to keep attached during prolonged use. It’s a serviceable protective cover rather than an integral part of the reading experience.

Hardware and Battery Life

Powering the Bigme B6 is a MediaTek Helio P35 octacore processor running at up to 2.3 GHz, accompanied by 4 GB of RAM. To gain a more objective indication of performance, I ran Geekbench 6, where the B6 achieved a single core score of 197 and a multi core score of 907.

These results represent a noticeable improvement over the Bigme B6 Color, which scored 90 in the single core test and 855 in the multi core test. In day to day use, the B6 generally feels responsive, with applications opening promptly and navigation around the interface remaining smooth.

The device includes 64 GB of internal storage, which should comfortably accommodate even a substantial ebook library. For anyone who requires additional capacity, there is also a micro SD card slot supporting cards of up to 1 TB.

As this is the monochrome version of the B6, it benefits from the inherent strengths of a traditional E Ink display. I discuss the differences between monochrome and colour E Ink technology elsewhere on eWritable, but the short version is that monochrome panels produce noticeably sharper text with less grain and greater apparent contrast. This is because every pixel contributes to the grayscale image, whereas colour E Ink screens divide their pixels between colour information, reducing the effective colour resolution.

Another advantage is brightness. Colour E Ink displays are naturally darker because of the additional colour filter layer sitting above the screen. Consequently, they often require the front light to be used more frequently to achieve comfortable contrast. The monochrome B6 does not suffer from this to the same extent, producing brighter whites and darker text even with the front light switched off.

For reading in darker environments, the B6 includes both a cool white front light and an adjustable warm light that adds an amber tint, making prolonged evening reading more comfortable. Brightness is controlled via a sliding scale. Personally, I found the upper end of the brightness range unnecessarily intense, and I rarely needed to exceed the lower half of the scale.

As with virtually every front lit e-reader, the additional lighting layer introduces a small separation between the protective surface and the E Ink panel beneath it. This creates the impression that the text sits slightly below the surface and can produce subtle shadows where the display disappears beneath the bezels. This is not a criticism unique to the B6, but rather a characteristic shared by almost all front lit E Ink devices.

The B6 also includes a respectable selection of additional hardware features. There are integrated speakers and a microphone, which are perfectly adequate for listening to audiobooks or recording voice notes. Wireless connectivity is provided by both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, while a USB C port handles charging and file transfers.

The B6 Color would not reliably appear as a storage device when connected to my Linux laptop, making file transfers unnecessarily awkward. Thankfully, the monochrome B6 did not exhibit this behaviour and was recognised immediately, allowing files to be copied across without any difficulty.

A built in G-Sensor automatically rotates the display between portrait and landscape orientation, while Bluetooth can be used with headphones, speakers or other compatible peripherals. Although it is technically possible to connect a Bluetooth keyboard, I struggle to imagine many situations where I would want to use one with a device of this size.

One feature that I found both ‘useful-yet-slightly-irksome‘ is the row of touch sensitive shortcut buttons positioned beneath the display. By default, these provide quick access to the library, the AI chat interface, storage, applications and settings. The shortcuts themselves can be reassigned, which is certainly useful. However, the printed icons remain unchanged. As someone who likes interfaces to be logical and consistent, I found it mildly frustrating when an icon no longer corresponded to the function it launched. Personally, I think generic symbols or programmable labels would have been a better solution.

Battery life is another area where the monochrome B6 improves upon its colour sibling. During my testing, reading with the front light disabled consumed approximately 2% of the battery per hour. Setting the front light to level 20 (which I found comfortable for most dimly lit environments) increased consumption to around 4% per hour. Enabling Wi-Fi added roughly another 1% per hour, although the software intelligently disables the wireless radio when it is no longer required, helping to conserve power.

Overall, I was impressed by the hardware package. Performance and battery life are noticeably stronger than the B6 Color, and the monochrome display offers all of the clarity and contrast that I expect from a dedicated E-Ink reader. Combined with the generous storage expansion and comprehensive connectivity options, it makes for a well equipped device.

Native e-reading app and library management

As I mentioned earlier in the review, I personally find the monochrome B6 to be a considerably better reading device than the B6 Color. The display is noticeably sharper, the contrast is higher, and the absence of the colour filter results in cleaner text with crisper character definition. For long periods of reading, these differences are far more significant than they may initially sound.

The compact dimensions also make the B6 comfortable to hold. Although it is slightly heavier than many competing 6 inch e-readers, as I noted previously, I never found the weight to be fatiguing during extended reading sessions. It strikes a reasonable balance between portability and solidity.

Getting books onto the device is straightforward. Ebooks and documents can simply be copied into the Books folder over USB, after which they appear automatically within the native library application. Alternatively, books can be imported over Wi-Fi, or transferred using third party applications such as Gmail or Dropbox. I appreciate this flexibility, as it allows you to use whichever workflow best suits your existing setup.

Within the library, books can be organised into hierarchical folders and sorted by title, creation date or modification date. For anyone with a sizeable collection, these organisational tools are perfectly adequate and make it relatively easy to keep everything in order. However, there is no tag-based organisation such as Kindle’s Collections.

I do not want to dwell on Bigme’s native reading application, XReader Pro, because I have discussed it at length in several previous reviews. Unfortunately, my opinion has changed very little.

The application is certainly functional, and for basic reading it does the job. However, it quickly begins to feel clumsy, unintuitive and occasionally unreliable. Almost every time I review a Bigme device, I encounter some new irritation within the software.

During my testing of the B6, I noticed an intermittent rendering issue where the final line or two of one EPUB page would sometimes reappear at the beginning of the following page. It was not constant, but it occurred frequently enough to interrupt the flow of reading – every page-turn I was expecting to have to manually find the place where the previous page left off!

Text selection also remains awkward, with highlighted text unable to span across multiple pages, while the table of contents lacks dynamic page numbering, making navigation less convenient than it ought to be.

For these reasons, I continue to believe that the B6, and indeed most Bigme devices, are at their best when paired with a mature third party reading application. I tested KOReader, Kindle and Kobo, and all three performed well on the B6. Thanks to Android and Bigme’s extensive display optimisation settings, these applications perform remarkably well with the hardware and generally provide a superior reading experience to the bundled software.

It is somewhat disappointing that a company producing dedicated e-readers still struggles to deliver a truly polished native reading application. For a long time, I felt this demonstrated that Bigme prioritised hardware development over software refinement.

My opinion has evolved slightly over the past year, however. Bigme has clearly invested considerable effort into improving the operating system itself, expanding compatibility with third party applications, refining its E-Ink super-refresh technology (xRapid) and keeping its devices relatively up to date with modern versions of Android. The native applications have certainly not stood still, but they have not progressed all that much either.

Increasingly, I find myself wondering whether this is now a deliberate strategy. Rather than attempting to compete directly with mature reading applications such as KOReader or Kindle, Bigme appears to be focusing on creating capable hardware and an Android platform that allows those third party applications to perform exceptionally well. Whether intentional or not, that is ultimately how I found myself using the B6. The hardware provides an excellent reading experience, but I achieved it by relying on software developed by others rather than the applications supplied with the device.

Other Apps and Extended Functionality

The Bigme B6 runs Android 14, which immediately gives it an advantage over many dedicated e-readers. Rather than being confined to a heavily restricted ecosystem, you have access to a familiar Android interface, complete with icons, widgets and the Google Play Store.

Navigation is straightforward. Applications can be launched directly from the home screen, while swiping down from the top right corner opens the Control Centre, giving quick access to commonly used settings and utilities, such as wifi, bluetooth, speaker volume, and frontlight brightness. The operating system also supports a variety of edge gestures/swipes, many of which can be customised to suit individual preferences. I found these gestures useful once I had become accustomed to them, although I suspect most users will naturally gravitate towards whichever navigation method they are already familiar with.

One minor irritation I encountered was the on screen keyboard. It functions perfectly well for typing, but when it is displayed there is no obvious way to temporarily minimise it. On several occasions the keyboard obscured information that I wanted to see, and I found myself wishing there were a simple button to dismiss it without leaving the current input field.

One area where Bigme continues to impress is its E-ink Centre. This allows refresh behaviour, image quality and display parameters to be configured independently for individual applications. The level of granularity is greater than that offered by many competing Android e-readers, making it much easier to optimise third party applications for the unique characteristics of an E Ink display. However, the B6 does not have as many settings as some other Bigme models that offer super-fast refresh rates.

The B6 ships with a reasonable collection of pre-installed applications. As with Bigme’s native reading software, however, I generally found them to be usable without ever becoming particularly polished.

BigmeGPT provides an integrated AI chat interface and functions adequately, although responses are noticeably slower than modern cloud based services and the underlying language models feel several generations behind current state of the art systems. It is also possible to switch to DeepSeek, but this too appears to rely on an older model.

WPS Office is also included, allowing Word documents, spreadsheets and presentations to be viewed and edited. While the application itself works as expected, I found the B6’s 6 inch display simply too small for productive office work. Documents feel cramped, interface elements become tiny, and the modest processor means it is unlikely to be the ideal platform for more demanding productivity tasks.

Several smaller utility applications are also pre-installed, including a calculator, calendar, gallery, music player, dictionary, web browser and file manager. Bigme also includes a document translation utility capable of translating supported text documents into other languages, although I did not spend enough time with this feature to form a meaningful opinion.

One native application that genuinely impressed me was the voice recorder. It can record spoken notes and automatically transcribe them into text with surprisingly good accuracy. I found the results to be consistently usable, making it one of the more successful additions to the software suite.

Similarly, the voice translation application allows spoken language to be transcribed, translated and then read aloud in another language. When it works, it is an impressive demonstration of what modern cloud services can achieve. Unfortunately, I found its reliability somewhat inconsistent, and because it depends upon an internet connection, it occasionally refused to function altogether.

As with any Android device, much of the B6’s appeal lies in the ability to install third party software. During my testing I installed KOReader, Kindle, Kobo, CPU-Z, Geekbench 6, the New York Times Games app and Globle (a geography quiz application). The latter two I use pretty much every day as modest brain workout. All of these applications ran well and demonstrated how flexible the platform can be when paired with Android.

It is worth remembering, however, that these are all relatively lightweight applications. More graphically intensive software, or applications requiring frequent animations, are unlikely to perform particularly well on either the modest hardware or the comparatively slow refresh characteristics of an E Ink display.

I also installed ChatGPT. Although the application installed successfully, I was unable to sign into my account during my testing. I suspect the issue could probably have been resolved with further investigation, but it was not something I felt justified spending a significant amount of time troubleshooting during the review period.

Overall, I continue to feel that Bigme’s greatest software strength is not necessarily the quality of its own applications, but the flexibility of the Android platform itself. Combined with the decent hardware and comprehensive E Ink Centre, the B6 provides an excellent environment for running lightweight third party software, and that is ultimately where I found myself getting the most enjoyment from the device.

Final Verdict

Viewed purely as a piece of hardware, I think the Bigme B6 is a very capable e-reader. It offers a sharp monochrome E-Ink display, respectable battery life, expandable storage, Android 14, Google Play certification and a processor that performs well by the standards of Android based e-readers.

That last point is worth placing into context, however. While the B6’s benchmark scores compare favourably with many other E-Ink devices, they remain modest when measured against conventional Android smartphones and tablets. This distinction matters because it inevitably limits the types of Android applications that can be used comfortably. Likewise, not every Android application has been designed with a small 6 inch E-Ink display in mind, meaning some apps cannot be installed, fail to scale correctly or simply do not provide a particularly pleasant user experience.

Within those limitations, though, the B6 performs admirably. Android 14, Google Play certification and Bigme’s comprehensive E-Ink Centre combine to create one of the more flexible software platforms currently available on an e-reader. During my testing, the device handled a variety of third party applications without difficulty, and it was this versatility that I found to be one of its greatest strengths.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I would also recommend using a third party ebook reading application in place of Bigme’s native XReader Pro. Applications such as KOReader, Kindle and Kobo all worked extremely well and, in my opinion, provide a considerably more polished reading experience than the software supplied by Bigme. Similarly, lightweight applications such as the New York Times Games app and Globle broaden the device’s usefulness beyond simply reading books, adding an extra dimension that dedicated ecosystems cannot always provide.

The monochrome display is another highlight. Compared with the colour version of the B6, I found it noticeably sharper, clearer and more comfortable to read for prolonged periods. Unless colour content is a priority, I personally prefer the reading experience offered by the monochrome model. And although I mentioned earlier that it has a little heft, I was still able to hold it comfortable for long periods without fatigue.

The trade-off for all of this flexibility is complexity. To get the very best from the B6, I found myself installing alternative applications, tinkering with E-Ink settings and configuring the device to suit the way I wanted to work. None of this is particularly difficult, but it does require a degree of experimentation and time that simply is not necessary with more tightly controlled ecosystems such as Kindle or Kobo. Those platforms offer fewer choices, but they also demand considerably less effort from the user.

Ultimately, I think the Bigme B6 is aimed at readers who value openness and flexibility over simplicity. If you are happy to customise your software, experiment with third party applications and take advantage of Android’s versatility, it is a capable and enjoyable e-reader with solid hardware and an excellent monochrome display. If, on the other hand, you simply want to switch on a device and start reading with the minimum possible configuration, then a more tightly integrated ecosystem may prove to be the better fit.

Buying options

The Bigme B6 BW can be purchased from:

• Some Amazon Stores*
• The Bigme Store*

*Clicking on the links above and going on to make make a purchase results in a small commission being paid to myself from the manufacturer. This does not incur any additional charges to yourself, and really helps to support this website, so if you’ve find my reviews useful, please use my links before buying 🙂

Full Bigme B6 Specs