Verdict
The Onyx Boox Go Color 7 ’s compact body and colour Es Ink display makes it great for run through strip and illustrated books on the go . The want of piss resistance and stylus backup handicap it against the similar Kobo Libra Colour , but superior app and file cabinet support bring it back level .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Amazon has the traditional e - reader securities industry all sewn up with itsKindle range , and this is forcing its contender to do thing a little differently . The Onyx Boox Go Color 7 , like theKobo Libra Colourbefore it , seek to offer up a more colorful option .
We mean that quite literally , with a 7 - inch color E Ink showing making this compact e - reader better fit to strip and illustrated book content than anything Amazon has to provide .
Is that enough to recommend the Onyx Boox Go Color 7 over its rivals ? in all probability not , but thankfully it has a few more tricks up its sleeve . With an request price of £ 249.99 / $ 249.99 / € 279.99 , it ’s going to need every one of them .
Design and accessories
Unlike theBoox Go 10.3 , Onyx is n’t trying to do anything fancy with the Boox Go Color 7 ’s design . It ’s a classical square - ish e - reader with a relatively compendious 156 × 137 mm footprint . At 6.4 millimeter thickset and 190 gee , it ’s a shade thinner and lighter than the Kobo Libra Colour , but not massively so .
Its body is made from the kind of hard - fag out plastic we ’ve come to await from the mathematical product category , while the back cover has a stippled texture that makes it palpate affectionate and grippy .
One side of the e - lector ( the cover orientation can be freely rotated in the setting menu ) has a thick screen bezel for holding purposes , and this also domiciliate the up and down button for volume and page - turn . There ’s something fundamentally unsatisfying about how these two button find and click under the quarter round , but they ’re still right smart preferable to the gross ghost controls favoured by the Kindle range , and their function can be customised .
The superpower clitoris sits on one of the narrower edges of the Boox Go Color 7 , while the side of the thicker bezel also houses the USB - 100 port , microSD tray ( something the pricy Boox Go 10.3 lacks ) , and twin speaker grille – though only one of these is an actual officiate speaker . The latter is fine for spoken word content , but suffers with anything fuller or more melodious .
All in all , it ’s a passably standard e - lector purpose that feel encouragingly robust . Another quibble is how much of a fingerprint magnet both incline of the machine proved to be – though I should say that I did my testing during one of the hot weeks of the class here in the UK .
One big skip equate to the aforementioned Kobo Libra Colour is the want of any sort of IP certification . For a gadget that many people will want to handle by the syndicate or on a beach this summertime , that ’s a unknown affair to dominate – specially at this , a higher - than - mean Mary Leontyne Price .
Of course , you could say that the Boox Go Color 7 ’s bundled in magnetic cover justifies such a Mary Leontyne Price . In the event , I much prefer this accessary to the fiddly case that come with the Boox Go 10.3 . It ’s easy to align , thanks to a recess for the pageboy wrench buttons , and there ’s no removable clench . Everything fit into place using subtle magnetisation , and it works precisely as you ’d want it to .
One supplement you do n’t get , unlike its vainglorious crony , is a stylus in the boxful . That ’s understandable , if only in the name of observe costs down , but to except compatibility with the Onyx Boox Pen 2 Plus stylus seems like a missed opportunity . This is in demarcation to the Kobo Libra Colour , which let you annotate books and scribble note with an extra £ 70/$70 spending .
Screen
The main component part of any tocopherol - reader is its display , and especially so with the Onyx Boox Go Color 7 . As the name suggests , this 7 - column inch vitamin E Ink Kaleido 3 touch screen can output in color .
It only has a limited range of 4096 colour , and if you ’re expecting the punchy photorealistic look of even a bog standardAndroid tabletyou’re in for a dashing hopes . However , this screen retains all the benefits of a classic east Ink display – print - like text reproduction ( albeit not as ink-black as the Boox Go 10.3 ) and impressive energy efficiency – whilst being able to render more than simple monochrome .
As well as gain volume masking art pop much more , this makes the Onyx Boox Go Color 7 workable as a comic book reader . Again , it ’s not perish to do justice to anything especially vivacious , but reading through issues of Invincible proved much more pleasant here than on the monochrome Boox Go 10.3 , despite the latter ’s turgid and decipherable black and white word-painting .
Such color content does n’t look particularly sharp , though . As with every other colour E Ink display , the colour mode halves the resoluteness from 1264 x 1680 and 300ppi to 632 x 840 and 150ppi .
My biggest issue with this screen , specially when reckon mirthful Word of God , was ghost – that is , previous textbook and target remaining on screen for a metre . It ’s a problem that ’s inherent to E Ink screens , but that does n’t make it any less irritating . This can be partially mitigate by selecting the Regal output alternative in the E - Ink Center scene covert , but it never entirely proceed away , and I felt compelled to make the manual Refresh button on more than one social occasion .
One affair the Onyx Boox Go Color 7 screen includes that the Onyx Boox Go 10.3 quite fatally does n’t is a front sparkle . You ’ll be able to show in lesser lighting experimental condition , or even the glum , while you’re able to also adjust the warmth of the presentation to prevent eye strain and catch some Z’s to-do .
Performance and software
Onyx does n’t condition the processor used here , merely describing it as an 8 - core C.P.U. with 4 GB of RAM . It would seem to be a low - end Qualcomm Snapdragon micro chip , the sort you ’d expect to see run acheaper smartphoneor tablet .
Not that using the Boox Go Color 7 feels particularly snappy . Navigating through its menus continue a middling laggy , lumbering experience , largely thanks to an E Ink presentation that prioritize clarity and efficiency over refresh rate .
The reason the Boox Go Color 7 might need that Qualcomm chipping could be because it runs on Android 12 , much like a traditional tablet from a couple of years ago . It ’s an super stripped - back take on Google ’s full - blooded OS with a basic tabbed UI .
While this does n’t make for the most fluid navigation , it ’s fine for an e - reader . More significantly , it grant the Boox Go Color 7 access to the Google Play Store and all of the media - allow apps that entails . you could download Amazon ’s Kindle app and download your library , or indeed the Google Play Books app .
Why not download your chosen podcast or audiobook app and use those speakers to listen to something ? Or well yet , use the Bluetooth connectivity and hook up your headphones . We ’ll all give thanks you for it . With some 25 stomach file type , Boox eastward - readers are some of the most far - reach out and flexible around .
I mentioned the ability to adjust the orientation course of the display in the options bill of fare , but I did keep a few occasions where the image would appear upside down until I moved to a novel app or menu screen . It would seem to be a microbe , as it occasionally flips when moving to a different discussion section of the same app .
Onyx has also include access to OpenAI ’s GPT-3 chat dick , letting you involve any question you like and receive a instinctive , pithy answer . This seems rather unneeded in an vitamin E - reader , and smacks of a bandwagon - stick out utilisation , but it certainly influence .
There ’s 64 GB of repositing , which is double that of the Kobo Libra Colour , and you also get a microSD one-armed bandit for expansion determination . That ’s another feature article the pricier Onyx Boox Go 10.3 lacks .
It ’s always tricky to estimate battery life story in e - readers , given that they generally last way longer than a stock review full point on a single cathexis . Suffice to say , the Boox Go Color 7 has a highly militant 2300mAh battery ( significantly turgid than the Kobo Libra Colour ’s 2050mAh ) that should last the average reviewer weeks rather than day .
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Should you buy it?
Unlike some of its rivals and fellow Boox e - lector , there ’s no support for Onyx ’s style .
Final Thoughts
The Onyx Boox Go Color 7 is a well - built 7 - inch vitamin E - reader with a neat colour display , crap it great for digital comic book interpretation , as well as fans of Koran art and illustrations .
It ’s a little too expensive for our liking , and it lacks a couple of core lineament that the Kobo Libra Colour does n’t such as an IP rating and stylus compatibility . accession to the Google Play Store , a more lithe build , and a quality bundled casing go some room to balance those negative out .
There ’s plenty of way for improvement , but when it comes to consuming the widest sort of digital medium possible in a orderly , portable form factor , it ’s difficult to look past the Boox Go Color 7 .
Trusted Score
How we test
We try out every e - reader we review thoroughly . We use the gadget over the review period . We ’ll always tell you what we line up and we never , ever , accept money to review a product .
FAQs
Yes , the Onyx Boox Go Color 7 ships with a seemly magnetic causa .
