Bigme B6 E-Reader Review

Firmware version: 1.9.6

Unboxing

The Bigme B6 arrived in three separate boxes: one for the e-reader itself, one for the protective folio cover, and a small box containing the USB cable and the MicroSD tray opening tool.

The e-reader packaging is, unexpectedly, really nice. The box is white, made from thick, rigid card, and features a simple outline of the B6 on the front. It opens along a hinge on the left-hand edge, with a raised lip running along the top, bottom, and right sides. The result is that it opens like a hardback book, an intentional and rather pleasing design choice for e-reader packaging. The construction feels sturdy and deliberate, with none of the flimsiness that often accompanies budget electronics packaging.

Opening the lid reveals the device itself, wrapped in wax paper. Beneath it sits a Quick Start Guide. The presentation is neat and restrained, with no unnecessary inserts or promotional clutter.

The protective cover comes in a much more generic box made from thin card, opening at the top so the folio can slide out. Inside, a piece of foam is used to maintain the cover’s shape during transit. The folio itself is fairly standard for an Android-based e-reader: two panels connected by a spine, with the device attaching magnetically. It feels competent rather than remarkable, and I’ll return to it in more detail later.

Powering on the device for the first time initiates the setup wizard. From the outset, it is clear that this is an e-reader originally designed for the Chinese market and subsequently adapted for Western users. The very first prompt asks you to select a language, but each language is listed first in Chinese script, followed by the alphabetic characters of the language itself. It’s functional, but unmistakably inherited rather than original.

The next step presents Bigme’s privacy policy and asks for consent. Following this is a welcome screen that further betrays the device’s linguistic origins. The text reads: “Welcome to use the smart E-Reader.” The meaning is obvious, but the phrasing is unmistakably non-native English – understandable, yet incorrect. It’s a small thing, but it sets expectations about the level of localisation throughout the interface.

From there, the setup process moves on to gesture configuration, allowing various finger gestures to be enabled, disabled, or customised. Wi-Fi setup follows, after which the device prompts you to register for or log in to a Bigme account. I chose to skip this step. I generally avoid proprietary accounts where possible, and I consider it important to assess whether a device remains fully usable without being tethered to a manufacturer’s ecosystem. Thankfully, Bigme devices function perfectly well without an account, and the B6 is no exception.

The final steps include an option to read the user guide, along with QR codes for Bigme support via WhatsApp or Skype. After this, the setup concludes and the home screen appears, allowing normal use of the device.

Before doing anything else, I immediately updated the firmware to the latest available version. Only then did I begin any serious testing, as there’s little point in evaluating an e-reader without first ensuring it’s running current software.

Design & build

The first thing that struck me about the B6 was that it looked quite thick and chunky. I don’t mean this pejoratively. On the contrary, that extra bulk lends the device an immediate sense of substance. It feels dense, rigid, and confidently assembled, with none of the hollow lightness that can make some small e-readers feel somewhat disposable.

In the hand, the chassis is impressively stiff. Applying torsional pressure produces no audible creaking or flex, which is reassuring. The only blemish in this otherwise solid impression is a faint rattle when the device is shaken, originating from the power button. The button itself has a small amount of lateral play in its housing, enough to be noticeable but not enough to feel fragile.

Interestingly, my initial assumption that the B6 was unusually thick for a six-inch e-reader turned out not to be objectively true. Compared to current six-inch Kindles, Kobos, and PocketBooks, the B6 is actually slightly thinner. I think my misjudgement came from two sources.

First, I’ve recently been handling a number of extremely slim devices, such as the Viwoods AI Paper Reader and the iFLYTEK AINote 2, which recalibrated my expectations. Second, the B6 adopts a distinctly “blocky” aesthetic. The edges are flat and meet the front and rear faces at right angles, rather than flowing into the softened, rounded profiles favoured by many competing devices.

This isn’t necessarily a flaw, but it is a defining characteristic. The B6 looks and feels utilitarian rather than elegant. Its design language seems to prioritise durability and straightforwardness over visual refinement.

The bezels, edges, and rear panel are all finished in black, giving the device a uniform appearance. Beneath the display sit five touch-sensitive buttons, which provide shortcuts to the Library, AI Assistant, Storage, Apps, and Settings. Their presence reinforces the sense that this is a tool designed for deliberate interaction rather than minimalist purity.

Along the top edge is a metallic red power button, which adds a small but welcome visual accent, alongside the speaker grille. The bottom edge houses the USB-C port, accompanied by a status LED, a microphone pinhole, and the SD-card tray. The left and right edges are completely bare, contributing to the device’s clean, slab-like profile.

The rear panel plastic has a subtle texture. It isn’t rubberised, but it’s also not smooth or slippery. There’s enough resistance to provide a decent grip, even when holding the device one-handed. The B6 has a noticeable heft, which reinforces the impression of solidity, but I never found it fatiguing to hold during extended reading sessions.

Overall, the design of the B6 is best described as solid and utilitarian. It doesn’t attempt to impress through elegance or thinness; instead, it conveys durability, seriousness, and a focus on function.

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 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, 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

At the heart of the Bigme B6 is a MediaTek Helio P35 octa-core processor running at 2.2 GHz, paired with a GPU and 4GB of RAM. For an e-reader, this is a relatively muscular configuration, and in everyday use it shows. General navigation, app launching, and system interactions feel quick and responsive rather than ponderous.

To put some numbers behind that impression, I ran Geekbench 6 and recorded a single-core score of 90 and a multi-core score of 855, averaged across three runs. In the context of e-ink devices, those are fairly strong results and help explain why the B6 feels noticeably snappier than more traditional, reading-only e-readers.

Internal storage is a generous 64 GB, which should be ample for most users even if they load the device with large libraries, PDFs, audiobooks, and Android apps. For those who want more, storage can be expanded via the microSD card tray.

In terms of hardware features, the B6 is well equipped. It includes an integrated microphone and speaker for recording and audio playback, as well as Bluetooth for connecting external headphones, speakers, or other peripherals. Wi-Fi provides network connectivity, and the USB-C port supports both charging, and presumably data transfer (however I was unable to connect to it via my Linux laptop). There’s also an internal g-sensor to automatically switch between portrait and landscape orientations.

That said, auto-rotation wasn’t completely flawless in my experience. Occasionally, rotating the device wouldn’t trigger a screen rotation immediately; I’d have to tilt it back or a little further before the change registered. It wasn’t a constant issue, but it was noticeable and mildly irritating when it occurred. Based on my prior experience with Bigme devices, this feels more like a software quirk than a hardware limitation.

The display is a Kaleido 3 colour e-ink panel. I discuss the broader trade-offs between monochrome and colour e-ink elsewhere, but in short: colour e-ink is usable, yet undeniably muted and grainy when compared to conventional colour displays found on laptops, tablets, or smartphones. Kaleido panels also darken the overall appearance of the screen relative to monochrome e-ink.

In practice, this means the front light is needed more often. I found it difficult to read comfortably with the front light turned off unless I was in very bright ambient conditions, such as outdoors or next to a window during the day. In most indoor environments, even well-lit ones, I needed to enable the front light at least a little.

The front light itself is good. It can be driven to a very high brightness, though I struggle to imagine a realistic scenario where the maximum setting would actually be necessary. There’s also a warm light mode, which introduces softer, reddish tones that are more comfortable for night-time reading.

Below the screen is a strip of touch-sensitive buttons that act as shortcuts to the Library, AI Chat, Storage, Apps, and Settings. These shortcuts can be reassigned in the settings menu, but the physical icons printed on the buttons obviously remain fixed. Personally, the mismatch between icon and function (after customizing the buttons) triggers a mild bout of aesthetic discomfort in me, but I suspect most users will either ignore it or quickly adapt.

Battery life is where the B6 begins to show the familiar trade-offs of a powerful, Android-based e-reader. With the front light turned off, battery drain is around 4% per hour. However, as noted earlier, this is only practical in very bright environments. Most of the time, the front light will be on. My most comfortable everyday setting was around level 20, at which point the battery drained at roughly 5% per hour.

Turning off Wi-Fi saves close to 1% per hour, and the Bigme firmware sensibly disables Wi-Fi automatically when it’s not actively being used, which helps mitigate unnecessary drain.

In real terms, overall battery life sits somewhere in the region of 20 to 25 hours on a full charge. That’s not particularly impressive by traditional e-reader standards, but it needs to be judged in context. The B6 is significantly more powerful than most dedicated e-readers and supports Android apps and broader functionality. As is so often the case with Android-based e-ink devices, that additional versatility comes at the cost of increased complexity and higher power consumption.

Native e-reading app and library management

The Bigme B6 comes preinstalled with two native e-reading applications: xReader and xReader Pro.

I began my testing with xReader Pro, largely because I assumed it was the newer, more capable iteration. My initial assumption was that the original xReader existed primarily for backwards compatibility, particularly because notes and highlights created in xReader do not transfer to xReader Pro. Unfortunately, that assumption turned out to be optimistic.

At a basic level, xReader Pro is a competent reading application. I read a couple of ebooks using it and found the core experience (paging through text, adjusting font settings, and general legibility etc.) to be perfectly comfortable. As mentioned earlier, I usually detached the B6 from its folio before reading. This made the device lighter, and the bare edges of the e-reader, while not contoured, felt better in the hand than the thin, overhanging edges of the case.

The app includes a reasonably good local English dictionary for quick word lookups, along with options to translate text or query AI for selected words or passages. These features work as advertised, but the problems begin as soon as you move beyond passive reading.

Text selection, for instance, was frequently awkward. I often struggled to grab and reposition the start and end handles precisely. The selection would jump unpredictably, resulting in highlights that didn’t correspond to the text I actually wanted. It wasn’t catastrophic, but it was irritating enough to break reading flow.

More seriously, xReader Pro does not allow highlights to span page boundaries. When you reach the bottom-right corner of a page, the app refuses to turn the page and continue the selection. This is a surprisingly severe limitation for anyone who annotates their books with any regularity.

Highlights are listed in a dedicated tab within the table of contents, but tapping on one of them doesn’t take you to the highlighted passage itself. Instead, it opens the first page of the chapter containing that highlight. This behaviour is baffling and undermines the entire purpose of having a highlight list in the first place. To make matters worse, every highlight I created lost the spaces between words, even after exporting them. That alone makes the feature pretty much unusable.

If you’re someone who relies heavily on highlighting and annotation, xReader Pro is simply not fit for purpose.

The table of contents also lacks dynamic page numbers. I often like to glance at chapter lengths to plan reading sessions, but this isn’t possible here. After finishing The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, I abandoned xReader Pro and switched to the original xReader instead.

Somewhat counterintuitively, xReader turned out to be the better option. Highlighting is easier to control with greater precision, although it’s still a little fiddly. Crucially, it doesn’t destroy spacing between words. Tapping on a highlight takes you directly to a temporary page where the highlighted passage appears at the top. I describe it as “temporary” because swiping backwards reveals the actual page containing the highlight (not necessarily aligned at the top), while swiping forwards takes you to the real next page. The intermediate page disappears once you navigate away from it. It’s an odd implementation, but at least it functions better than xReader Pro.

Like xReader Pro, the original xReader also lacks page numbers in the table of contents, and you cannot create highlights that span pages.

Overall, the native e-reading software on the Bigme B6 feels serviceable but clunky, and in places distinctly unfinished. When I was simply reading (turning pages and occasionally consulting the dictionary), the experience was perfectly fine. As soon as I attempted anything more involved, such as highlighting or navigating annotations, the cracks became obvious.

I should also note that the native reading apps crashed a few times while I was navigating configuration menus. It wasn’t frequent, but it happened often enough to warrant mention. On occasion, tapping on configuration overlays would also trigger page turns on the underlying book page, which suggests some sloppy handling of input layers.

Fortunately, the B6 runs Android and supports third-party reading apps which largely sidesteps these shortcomings. That said, I do think an e-reading device should ship with a genuinely competent native reading application. On that front, Bigme’s software still feels like work in progress rather than a polished core experience.

Other Apps and Extended Functionality

The operating system on the B6 is, in essence, standard Android adapted for e-ink. The home screen presents a grid of app icons, supplemented by the touch-sensitive shortcut strip on the lower bezel that I mentioned earlier. It feels familiar immediately; anyone who has used an Android phone or tablet will understand the layout within seconds.

A swipe down from the top right opens the Control Center. From here, you can toggle Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, auto-rotation, colour inversion and other system-level settings. Sliders allow you to adjust volume, front light, and warm light intensity.

There is also access to the E-Ink Center, which provides granular control over refresh modes for third-party applications, along with several presets. This is essential on an Android e-ink device because different apps demand different compromises between contrast, refresh rate, ghosting reduction, and visual clarity. Apps with a lot of movement, for example, require very different tuning compared to static reading apps. The ability to adjust these parameters per app is one of the core advantages of Android-based e-readers, and the B6 implements this competently.

In addition to xReader and xReader Pro, the B6 ships with a range of preinstalled applications.

The Kindle app is included out of the box and works without issue, once logged in. Other reading apps can be installed via the Play Store, which broadens the device’s utility considerably.

The Bigme Cloud app allows access to files stored in a Bigme account. For users who own multiple Bigme devices, this would simplify file transfer between them. Since I chose not to use my Bigme account with this device, this wasn’t central to my review, but having used this the functionality on other Bigme devices, I can say it is fairly straightforward, if (as seems to be a running theme with Bigme devices) a bit unpolished

There is also BigmeGPT, an AI chat application offering a choice between two large language models: “BigmeGPT” and “DeepSeek.” In practice, BigmeGPT appears to be little more than a rebranding of DeepSeek rather than a distinct model – responses were remembered across both selections. The AI is adequate for basic queries, but its training data only extends to October 2023. It cannot access the live internet or perform real-time research. This is not so much a criticism as a reality check; I would not expect a device manufacturer to bundle a premium, continuously updated AI service at no ongoing cost. Still, expectations should be calibrated accordingly.

There is a Translator app capable of converting voice input into translated text output, which worked surprisingly well, though it requires an internet connection. A separate voice recorder app allows you to capture audio notes locally.

WPS Office is preinstalled for viewing and editing Office documents. In theory, this adds productivity capability. In practice, using Office software on a six-inch e-ink screen is, for me at least, ergonomically implausible. The screen size and refresh characteristics impose hard limits on how comfortable such tasks can be.

Other included apps comprise a basic web browser, audio player, image gallery, file manager, and calculator. None are extraordinary, but all function adequately.

Crucially, the Google Play Store is installed and fully certified out of the box. There is no need for manual device certification or sideloading workarounds, which is an issue on some Android e-readers. This significantly lowers the barrier to installing third-party software and makes the B6 far more versatile than some competitors. However, as is the case with all eink devices, third-party apps do not always perform as well as they do on conventional screens.

In general use, the operating system is quick and responsive. Apps open promptly, menus are fluid, and performance is consistent with the relatively capable hardware inside. However, there are moments where the overall experience feels slightly unpolished and somewhat cluttered, and these are primarily software issues.

Some warning messages and informational prompts suffer from awkward translations, occasionally even displaying stray Chinese characters. Certain configuration menus are not particularly intuitive; locating specific settings can take longer than it should. And occasionally, features simply do not behave as expected. For example, the voice-to-text function within BigmeGPT only registered my speech reliably about 20% of the time and would provide no indication about whether it was ‘listening‘ or not. The remaining attempts involved me speaking into the device while nothing happened, until I eventually realised it had not begun recording input at all.

This is the recurring theme of the B6: increased versatility brings increased complexity. The firmware offers a wide array of options and capabilities, but not all of them feel as though they have undergone rigorous quality control. The system works, and in many cases works adequately – but it also demands patience and a willingness to tolerate occasional rough edges.

Final Verdict

Overall, the Bigme B6 is a competent and, in many respects, distinctive e-reader. Within the very specific niche it occupies (a 6-inch, colour e-ink device running full Android), it is arguably the strongest option currently available.

There are other six-inch colour e-readers on the market, including models from Kobo and PocketBook, but once Android becomes a requirement, the field narrows dramatically. Beyond the B6, most alternatives tend to be generic or white-labelled Chinese devices with less refinement or support. And even though Boox provide a far more sophisticated (and less janky) native reading app with their devices, they only offer a monochrome model of their 6″ Android e-reader (the ‘Go 6‘). In that sense, Bigme has positioned the B6 in a relatively uncompetitive corner of the market.

However, it is important to recognise just how narrow that corner is.

The Android operating system is both the B6’s greatest strength and its most significant complication. It allows installation of third-party applications, which, in my view, is almost essential, given the unfinished feel of Bigme’s native reading apps – I would strongly recommend installing another mature third-party reader to extract the best experience from the device.

But if you have no intention of installing third-party apps and simply want a polished, frictionless reading experience out of the box, then a brand with a more streamlined operating system and a thoroughly refined native reading app may be a better fit. Android brings versatility, but it also introduces complexity, occasional instability, and a steeper learning curve.

The 6-inch screen size is another defining characteristic. It makes the B6 extremely portable (it just fits into my jeans pocket, which means I can carry it without a bag or even consciously thinking about it). That degree of portability is genuinely liberating. The trade-off is screen real estate. For standard ebooks (ePubs), the size is perfectly adequate. For PDFs, it is far less comfortable. Reading PDFs typically requires switching to landscape orientation and zooming into sections of the page. It is workable, but rarely elegant. If the majority of your workload involves PDFs, a larger display is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

Then there is the Kaleido 3 colour e-ink panel. Colour eink should not be viewed as an unequivocal upgrade over monochrome e-ink. While it does introduce colour, it also darkens the overall screen and reduces resolution in coloured areas. The result is lower contrast and less crispness compared to high-quality monochrome panels. In practical terms, you will use the front light more frequently, and black-and-white text will not appear quite as pristine as on a dedicated monochrome device.

My general advice remains consistent: if you are not going to meaningfully utilise colour (for example, for comics, diagrams, annotated documents, or educational material) then a monochrome e-reader is usually the better choice, both in terms of reading comfort and price.

None of these points are specific failings of the B6 itself. They are inherent compromises associated with this particular combination of screen size (6″), operating system (Android), and display technology (Kaleido 3). Any device with these specifications will confront similar trade-offs.

If, after carefully weighing those compromises, you are confident that what you want is a six-inch, colour, Android-based e-reader, then the Bigme B6 is a very credible choice. It is solidly built, reasonably powerful, highly portable, and flexible in ways that closed ecosystems simply are not.

It is not flawless (the native e-reading app needs more refinement). It is occasionally inelegant. But within its niche, it is difficult to argue that there is a more complete option available right now.

Buying options

The Bigme B6 can be purchased from:

• The Bigme Store*
• Some Amazon Stores*

*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