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Judging by the name alone, you'd probably never forgo Amazon's Kindle Colorsoft for something called the Bigme B751C—the former is one of the most trusted names in e-books, and the latter sounds like a cheap knockoff.
But Bigme is actually a well-established Chinese tech company that has been making e-ink devices for other companies since 2008, and releasing them under its own branding since 2020. It's no Amazon, but it's hardly a fly-by-night startup. And it's not using unknown parts, either—both the Colorsoft and the B751C use the same color display technology, called Kaleido 3 (in fact, virtually all color e-ink devices use Kaleido screens).
But pedigree and screen tech aside, these are still not the same devices: Amazon boasts that the Colorsoft uses a proprietary "display stack" that results in more consistent color reproduction, but it is yoked to the Amazon ecosystem. The Bigme B751C, meanwhile, runs on an open version of Android that allows you access to any app in the Google Play store, but it hasn't been optimized to work as well as the Kindle.
Lifehacker has already given the full review treatment to both the Kindle Colorsoft and the Bigme B751C, so now I'm putting them against one another to tell you which I think is the better buy.
Image quality
With the caveat that color e-ink is a developing technology and that the colors on even the best e-ink screen will look duller than they would on an LED tablet, if all you care about is image quality, the Colorsoft is the easy choice here. Though both devices use a Kaleido 3 screen, Amazon really has done something special to improve color images.
As Lifehacker tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt noted when comparing the color Kindle to the Kobo Libra Colour, Amazon's boasts about having, "supplemented [the Kaleido 3 display] with a special oxide backplane for sharper contrast and a light guide to help keep light rays from bleeding into areas where they’re not wanted" really do go beyond marketing speak—the Colorsoft just looks better.
This held true even after I fiddled around with the Bigme B751C's settings (while the Colorsoft only lets you choose between "standard" and "vivid" color, Bigme lets you use sliders to tweak the contrast and color brightness to your liking). No matter what I tried, the Colorsoft simply offered improved detail, contrast, and depth of color.
While at first glance, the Bigme B571C (on the right in the image above) does look brighter, take a closer look and you'll see the Colorsoft's more muted hues convey significantly more detail and color consistency.
This holds true for black and white content as well. Check out this comparison of a page of manga, where detail on the Colorsoft (on the left) is crisper and more defined:
Then there's the matter of ghosting (or a visible afterimage after turning a page) and page turn speed. The Colorsoft does a full refresh every time you turn the page, and as a result, there is next to no ghosting—and even still, it is faster at page turns than the Bigme B751C running the Kindle app, which by default shows a ton of ghosting, even when in the preset "Comics" mode, which ostensibly maximizes color settings and refresh speed to make this sort of content look its best.
While color content can look good on the Bigme B751C, it clearly suffers in direct comparison to the Kindle Colorsoft. And even if you aren't looking at it side by side with another device, getting rid of ghosting on the Bigme requires a manual refresh with every page turn.
Winner: Kindle Colorsoft
Performance
To expound upon that point, the Kindle Colorsoft doesn't only look better; it's also significantly faster than the Bigme B751C, whether you're reading a black and white book or thumbing through a volume of manga.
In head to head tests, the Kindle felt smooth and snappy for whatever I tried to do on it, from navigating through my library to turning pages in a comic to zooming in to enlarge an image. The Bigme felt slow and stutter-y, lagging noticeably on page turns, opening apps, and changing fonts. Just look at how the two devices handle turning pages in a volume of manga (I opened the same volume of One Piece on the Bigme from within the Kindle Android app):
Of course, it's probably not too surprising that the Kindle is faster, considering it was built to do one thing—run content purchased from Amazon—and has been optimized to do just that. The Bigme is definitely more sluggish when reading Kindle books—but it's impossibly faster running the Marvel or DC apps, because the Kindle can't run those at all.
Mostly, using the Colorsoft just made me frustrated that the Bigme and its Android OS weren't faster, as the openness of that latter means it does way more of the things I actually want it to do.
Winner: Kindle Colorsoft, if only on a technicality
Design and build
While the Colorsoft and the Bigme B751C have the same screen (the former's better color notwithstanding), the two devices otherwise couldn't look more different.
Unless there's a color image on the screen, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the Kindle Colorsoft from the Kindle Paperwhite—it's basically your standard e-reader, with a glass screen, a chunky bottom bezel, and a smooth plastic back. It lacks both a volume button and speakers, so if you want to listen to audiobooks, you'll have to connect a Bluetooth headset and use the touch screen controls. It feels nice and solid in your hands, weighing in at 215g.
The Bigme B751C, on the other hand, takes its design cues from a different Kindle, most resembling the much loved, long discontinued Kindle Oasis with its more squarish shape, offset bezel, and (praise be) physical page turn buttons. It also has speakers on either side, providing surprisingly decent stereo audio, as well as a microphone for recording audio notes or making calls over wifi. Instead of smooth plastic, the back is made of a textured faux leather that looks slightly cheap but feels good in the hand. According to my scale, it weighs the same 215g as the Colorsoft.
Both of these devices are very well built, but I give the Bigme the edge for the buttons alone.
Winner: Bigme B751C
Other considerations
There are a few other areas worth commenting on if you're still on the fence about which device to buy.
Battery life
Amazon has made long battery life a selling point since the earliest incarnations of the Kindle, and the Kindle Colorsoft doesn't change that, though according to Amazon it boasts only up to 8 weeks of battery life, versus the Kindle Paperwhite's 12 weeks. In real world usage, reading for about an hour a day at full brightness will mean charging the Colorsoft every three to four weeks (in her dedicated review, Lifehacker tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt says her charge dropped by 22% after a week of use).
The Bigme B751C, on the other hand, is a bit of a battery hog, in my experience. With brightness up all the way and wifi enabled, it drains relatively quickly, especially if you're using an app like Marvel or Shonen Jump to read comics. My son has been using mine to plow through manga, and an hour reading session will reduce the charge by 15% or so, which means charging it every few days if you're a heavy user.
Winner: Kindle Colorsoft
Lighting
While both devices have temperature adjustable front lighting, placed side by side, the difference is pretty stark: The Kindle is significantly brighter, and the lighting significantly more uniform than the Bigme's. Even with brightness cranked all the way up, I tend to feel like the latter is too dark. The Kindle is the easy choice here.
Winner: Kindle Colorsoft
Storage
Here's an easy one: The Kindle Colorsoft has 32GB of storage. The Bigme B751C has double that, at 64GB—the better to store all those extra apps and files that the Kindle can't handle.
Winner: Bigme B751C
Stylus support
The Bigme B751C also boasts another advantage the Kindle Colorsoft lacks: It supports a stylus (sold separately or in a bundle along with a protective cover for an extra $40—incidentally taking it to the retail price of the standalone Colorsoft). I don't think note-taking on the B751C is particularly enjoyable—there's noticeable latency and the writing experience is far from paperlike—but it's at least possible.
Winner: Bigme B751C
Compatibility
Out of the box, the Kindle Colorsoft is compatible with AZW3, AZW, TXT, PDF, MOBI, and PRC file types. Meanwhile, the B751C can handle a much longer list, including PDF, EPUB, EPUB3, DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF, HTML, FB2, CBZ, CBR, OEB, AZW3, MOBI, and PRC. Whether you're using apps or sideloading your content, the latter is simply far more flexible.
Winner: Bigme B751C
And the Winner Is...
It's hard to beat an open Android operating system.
But as much as I love a good David versus Goliath story, it gives me no real joy to proclaim the Bigme B751C the winner in this face off. The Kindle Colorsoft is noticeably better when it comes to performance and color quality—ostensibly the reasons you are investigating buying a color e-ink device in the first place—but superlative technology only matters if you can do with it what you want, and being locked into the Amazon ecosystem significantly curtails what you can do with the device.
Unless you are 100% onboard with buying all of your books and comics from Amazon, then I'd say the Bigme, quibbles with the hardware and software aside, presents a far better value—and not only because it retails for $40 less. (Though it's worth noting that as of this writing, the Kindle Colorsoft is $55 off the retail price, making it $15 cheaper than the Bigme.)
For me, the B751C's stylus support is nice, but Google Play access is a defining difference: I read a ton of manga from the Shonen Jump and Viz apps, and have dabbled in subscriptions to the read-all-you-want Marvel and DC apps as well. The Colorsoft can run none of them, let alone games, multiple internet browsers, Gmail, and any other app that can tolerably be used on an e-ink screen.
While the Colorsoft's screen looks better and it speeds through books more quickly, that's just not enough of an incentive for me to forgo the freedom an open operating system grants me—plus, I love those clicky page turn buttons.
