The Boox Go 7 Monochrome let me see life in black ...

Here in the US, the e-reader is almost synonymous with Amazon’s Kindle. When I first got into e-reading several years ago, I didn’t even consider that there were e-readers beyond the Kindle, as everyone I knew personally with a reading device had one of Amazon’s ubiquitous little tablets.

I was hesitant to step out of Amazon’s ecosystem, but the Boox Go 7 Monochrome challenged me to try something new with the promise of an e-reader that could do more than just open books. Powered by Android, this little beast can download any app, making it possible not only to read and take notes, but also to browse the web, play games, listen to music, and do pretty much everything that you would do on a standard tablet, just in black and white with an E-ink display.

The freedom this gave me at first was a little overwhelming, but once I got into the groove with this device, I was pleasantly surprised by all it could do.

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Price, availability, and specs

More horsepower than your average e-reader

The Boox Go 7 has a bright, beautiful 300 ppi (pixels per inch) e-ink display that renders text sharply and cleanly on the device’s petite 7-inch display. And thanks to the device’s onboard octa-core processor with 4 GB memory, browsing the internet or using apps like Spotify is a breeze. With default sleep and power settings, the device’s battery is fairly impressive; I charged the device to 100% as soon as I received it and after two weeks of heavy usage I’m still working off that initial charge, though I will need to plug in soon.

The device is on the smaller side, measuring 6.1 x 5.4 x 0.25-inches (56 x 137 x 6.4mm) and weighing 6.8oz (195g), making it only just slightly bigger and heavier than a standard Kindle. It has a large bezel on the right side with two buttons that can be used for page turning while you’re reading, adjusting the volume while listening to music, or even scrolling a social media feed. Though the built-in speakers don’t exactly deliver the highest quality sound, they work well for listening to music or podcasts while you’re reading, and if you need something a little more high-quality, the device does have Bluetooth support, so you can easily connect your wireless earbuds.

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What I liked about the Boox Go 7 Monochrome

A versatile little device

If you’ve always wished that your e-reader could do a little more than just read books, this is hands-down the device for you. The Boox Go 7 Monochrome can basically do everything your standard Android tablet can do, just with an E-ink black and white display. When I first started testing the device, I was honestly a little overwhelmed by the possibilities. After all, I was mostly planning on using the device to read. What else would I even do with an E Ink tablet?

However, I quickly answered my own question after downloading the various library and reading apps I have access to, quickly making myself a little reading oasis on this device that didn’t require me to download and sync books via my phone or use third-party tools to get the content I wanted. I could simply download the app I needed, and no matter whether I wanted to read something on Hoopla, Libby, Kindle, or grab something directly from a website like AO3, I could just tap the app I needed and immediately start reading. I had become so used to going through extra steps to access content on a Kindle that I forgot such simplicity was even a possibility.

I also found myself really loving the Boox Go 7 Monochrome’s onboard notes app, which uses the Boox-branded InkSense Stylus to allow users to draw and take notes on the fly, with little to no lag or ghosting from the E Ink display. During my time with the Boox Go 7 Monochrome, I was deep in Blue Prince, a rogue-like video game that requires players to take notes to solve puzzles. I had a blast using the various templates in the app to draw diagrams, write down important clues, and I found the interface to be very responsive, allowing me to add text where I needed to, circle important data, and mark things like codes, puzzle solves, and item combinations with special icons so I could refer back to them later with ease.

Another aspect of the Boox Go 7 Monochrome that came in handy while I was playing Blue Prince was the onboard browser. I like to solve puzzle games on my own, but with Blue Prince’s twisty timeline and massive lore infodumps, I was getting really confused as to how some of the story elements in the game fit together. Fortunately, GameRant has a great explainer that I was able to easily boot up once I reached the game’s initial ending. I was very skeptical that the onboard browser would be all that useful, but I found scrolling through text to be surprisingly effortless, with most sites loading quickly with minimal ghosting thanks to the automatic optimization settings in the onboard browser.

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What I didn’t like about the Boox Go 7 Monochrome

A steep learning curve

Once I got a handle on all I could do with the Boox Go 7 Monochrome, I wanted to try and use the tablet to its fullest extent, taking notes, playing games, browsing the Internet, making to-do lists, I wanted to do it all on my handy new device. However, I quickly ran into a problem: settings.

Though each of the Boox Go 7 Monochrome’s onboard apps are perfectly calibrated to work with the device, third-party apps suffered from massive issues right off the bat, and I had to go into each app’s settings and calibrate the E Ink so it had appropriate refresh rates and minimal ghosting. I actually spent over an hour trying to calibrate the Libby app, which has a page-turn animation that literally hurt to look at with the default settings. Like with so many tech issues, I found myself reaching out on Reddit to others experiencing these problems to try and get advice on how to make the app usable, which doesn’t feel great when you’re used to an e-reader just working right out of the box.

And unfortunately, this issue repeated itself with almost every other third-party app I tried to use on the device. Button functionality also has to be manually set, so even if you’re in an app for reading, the Boox Go 7 Monochrome won’t automatically know that, and you’ll have to set page turn functionality every time, for every app, which is a bigger pain than I expected.

Though this is probably the opposite of a bad thing for those who crave control over their devices and enjoy tinkering with settings, I must admit I had a hard time optimizing my device for what I wanted it to do, which led to some serious frustration on my part.

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Should you buy the Boox Go 7 Monochrome

If you crave control, personalization, and variety, this is your e-reader

I really enjoyed using the Boox Go 7 Monochrome, and something as simple as being able to listen to music while I read a book or write a to-do list really helped open my eyes to the potential of E Ink tablets. It also helped me realize how closed off the Kindle series of e-readers is, and what I had been missing by staying in Amazon’s ecosystem for so long.

I wouldn’t say that the Boox Go 7 Monochrome offers readers a perfect experience, as dealing with some of the more technical aspects of the device left me frustrated, and I suspect I’m not alone in that. Still, if you don’t mind putting some work in to not only learning how to use the device but also how to optimize it for your own needs, this is a great little tablet that offers surprising versatility for the price. It may not replace your iPad, but your Kindle may have just been put on notice.

Resolution

300ppi monochrome

Storage

64GB

Brand

Boox

Screen Size

7-inch

The Boox Go 7 Monochrome is an Android-powered E-ink tablet that is suitable not only for reading, but for drawing, Internet browsing, listening to music and more.

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