I switched from Kindle to BOOX, and I have mixed feelings

I’ve been a Kindle user for well over a decade, so in some ways the idea of jumping ship feels traitorous. I genuinely love my devices and the place they’ve earned on my nightstand, carry-on, and tiny Grinch heart. Unfortunately, Amazon’s locked-down approach and recent sunsetting policies have made me wonder if it’s time to cut the cord, and I’m not alone. Lots of users are shopping around for devices outside of the Kindle ecosystem.

I’ve given a few BOOX options a go, including, most recently, the BOOX Go 10.3 Gen II, which I hoped could replace my Kindle Scribe. What I’ve found across the brand is a very different e-ink experience. The transition isn’t seamless, and there have been some surprises, but the bottom line is, there are both clear pros and cons to leaving Kindle behind for a BOOX alternative.

Compared to Kindle’s intentionally simple software, BOOX feels almost overwhelmingly open-ended. Suddenly, I can download multiple reading apps, scramble files around, sync cloud storage, and spend 20 minutes adjusting settings I didn’t even know existed. Needless to say, my first few sit-downs with a BOOX were mildly chaotic.

The biggest advantage is app freedom via the Google Play Store. I can still dip into my Kindle books, but also Kobo titles, saved web articles, Google Drive PDFs, and note-taking apps, all on the same device. That flexibility makes BOOX tablets feel far more useful than just reading books. The file support alone is dramatically better than what I’m used to on Kindle.

Yet, for all BOOX offers, there are reasons Amazon’s devices became so dominant. The biggest thing I miss is the battery life. With Android running in the background, BOOX devices simply can’t match the Kindle experience, where battery management fades so far into the background that I rarely think about it at all. I’ve been spoiled by years of charging my e-readers whenever I happened to remember, so the first few times I picked up my BOOX and found it nearly dead was a rude awakening.

I also still find Kindle’s software smoother and far more streamlined. On BOOX devices, I sometimes feel like I’ve wandered behind the curtain and can suddenly see how the machine works. There’s powerful customization, but that means more menus, settings, and opportunities to tinker with things that were never on my mind as a Kindle user. There are also moments where the software feels a step less polished than what I’m used to.

The most surprising part of switching is not how I read, but what I read. On Kindle, my device was almost exclusively for books. On BOOX, I regularly bounce between ebooks, long-form articles, PDFs, saved research, newsletters, and random documents I had stashed away in Google Drive.

The device’s flexibility also means there are more opportunities to get sidetracked. When I take my BOOX into bed at the end of the day, I spend less time doing the thing I bought an e-reader for in the first place (reading). I settle down, fully intending to knock out a chapter, but decide to dip into New York Times Games first. Then I get the itch to play a quick chess game. Before long, I’ve spent half an hour “building my brain” and barely touched the book I opened the device to read.

BOOX is unquestionably more versatile than a Kindle, but versatility doesn’t necessarily mean a better reading experience. If your goal is genuinely to read more books, Kindle’s limitations are actually an advantage. Of course, that take may say more about my self-control than the devices themselves.

While the company’s devices can technically do a lot of tablet-like things, that doesn’t mean they’re enjoyable on an e-ink screen. BOOX’s sweet spot is reading, annotating, journaling, and mixed document work. Scrolling social media and long-form typing are considerably less appealing.

My advice is to identify the two or three specific tasks you are hoping to do on your e-ink device and determine if they actually make sense on e-ink. Then think about your own self-control and make sure a stripped-down e-reader isn’t the only reason you finished four series this year.

I would also highly recommend shopping the full lineup. BOOX has a wide range of devices, from the pocketable Palma 2 to larger note-taking tablets to dedicated e-readers. While the Go 10.3 Gen II struck a nice balance for my needs, it’s far from a one-size-fits-all option. One of BOOX’s biggest strengths is the sheer breadth of its lineup.

I started this experiment looking for a Kindle replacement. What I found was something a little messier. BOOX didn’t convince me to stop loving my Kindle devices, but the switch did make it clear that I’ve been tolerating a lot from Amazon solely because, for so long, Kindle has been the only game in town.

I still wish Amazon would stop making it so easy to root for alternatives. Kindle remains the easiest way I’ve found to disappear into a book, short of picking up a physical copy. But BOOX proves that e-ink devices can be much more than e-readers. Whether that’s a benefit or a distraction depends entirely on what you’re looking for.