Review: Boox Go 7

I had little expectations and I’m genuinely surprised by how much I enjoy this device.

To set some context: I’ve had pretty bad insomnia over the last year. Both the “wake up at midnight and can’t fall back asleep” and “wake up at 2 am and can’t fall back asleep” kinds. Meds get me back to sleep, but they also make me groggy during the day, so I’ve been desparate to figure out a solution.

One recent realization is that maybe I shouldn’t blast my eyes with blue light first thing in the morning. For about a decade, I’ve been waking up at 4 am and starting my work day by immediately jumping on the computer. I then get increasingly short-changed on sleep as the week progresses, and end up exhausted on Friday.

Enter the Boox Go 7, an Android device with e-ink display that retails for $250. I was stuck between “I want to delay my blue light exposure” and “I want to be able to read and write when I wake up”, and it solves my needs… perfectly?

First of all, it kinda works exactly how I want it to. Because it runs Android, I can install the apps I want from the Google Play Store: Instapaper, Simplenote, etc. In fact, I even found an RSS reader, Capy Reader, that seems to be a good clone of my favorite iOS RSS reader, Reeder. Each of the apps work well-enough, albeit with minor quirks. For example, I’m typing this into Simplenote with a Bluetooth keyboard. The app is responsive and screen refresh rate sufficient.

This brings me to a subtle point: I actually think the device has ample power under the hood. When I think “e-ink device”, my stereotype is “underpowered device.” I think it’s actually “quite a powerful computer hiding behind an e-ink display.”

The combination of these two makes the Boox Go 7 a surprisingly delightful device. Computing on an e-ink display is a lot calmer than a full color display. I’m able to read and sit and think without getting pulled into a dopamine slot machine. I originally thought the screen might be too narrow, but the horizontal device orientation (buttons on the bottom) is a great screen width for text.

The downsides of the device are simply a collection of quirks. For example, Instapaper has a pagination feature that works well with the hardware buttons. Capy Reader, on the other hand, only supports scrolling with the hardware buttons and scrolling on an e-ink display isn’t particularly smooth. As another example, for whatever reason, CMD + Shift + arrow key doesn’t select an entire line of text in Simplenote. I’m not sure if that’s an app thing or an OS thing.

But I can live with the quirks because the Boox Go 7 brings me joy in many ways. If I was writing on a laptop, I would’ve already been distracted by now. However, on this pleasant screen with a CPU and memory, I’m able to sit and write for a full 60 minutes. The Boox Go 7 is unexpectedly awesome.

To close the loop on the insomnia: this week (knock wood) is my first great sleep week in many. In addition to delaying when I jump on the computer, I’ve also stopped wearing my watch at night (to track my sleep) and started going to bed later (9 pm instead of 8 pm) to build up more sleep drive. Life’s a lot better on a good night’s sleep!