Review: Bigme B7 colour ePaper tablet with 4G cellular

Review unit provided by Bigme

The Bigme B7 is a 7-inch colour ePaper tablet with 4G cellular support for calling and SMS. Price at the time of review is USD 299.

This tablet is an upgrade of the Bigme B751C released towards the end of 2024. Below's the list of upgrades:

• RAM increased from 4GB to 8GB
• Storage size increased from 64GB to 128GB
• Android 11 updated to Android 14
• Battery capacity increased from 2300 to 3000 mAh
• Cellular support added
• Camera added
• Better flip case design

Bottom line

The Bigme B7 works well as an e-reader. The increase in RAM from 4GB with the previous model to 8GB is significant, and having Android 14 means the apps will run for more years with app updates.

Overall performance is smooth enough, but this is an e-ink tablet so don't expect instantaneous responsiveness from normal Android tablets.

A 7-inch display is better for reading text. Reading comics, PDFs and magazines may not be ideal due to the limited display size, as text size cannot be adjusted.

Google Play Store is included so that allows you to install other ebook apps such as Kindle, Libby, etc.

Downsides. The gray of the e-ink canvas is dark so you'll almost always have to use the front light to compensate for that. Thankfully the battery capacity has increased to compensate for the extra energy use.

Battery life is okay and something difficult to test. If you're just reading digital books, then battery life is good. If you are surfing the web, have front light on, all that will affect battery life.

Specifications

Things included

• Tablet
• User manual
• Warranty card
• SIM ejector
• One replacement pen tips
• Pen tip remover
• Case
• Pen
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable

No charger is included but you can use any phone charger.

The included flip case has an improved design over the previous model. The pen can now be attached magnetically to the side of the tablet, and there's a flap that goes over the pen to prevent the pen from dislodging.

The flip case is made with PU leather material, and seems well made. The case does not add too much weight to the 215g tablet.

Bigme advertises a "wireless charging stylus" so it seems like this pen may have an internal battery. The pen has a cylindrical design except for a flat side that attaches magnetically to the side of the tablet.

There's an eraser at the back, but no side button.

Pen tip is quite firm, and one replacement pen tip is provided. The pen performance looks like USI pen performance. The pen supports 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity and palm rejection. Writing works fine, but there's noticeable latency. I'll talk more on note taking later.

Design

Design of the tablet is clean and simple. Design looks almost identical to the previous model Bigme B751C. Display is 7-inch so this is a compact and portable tablet. Weight is just 215g. The tablet together with case don't feel too heavy.

On the left you can find one speaker and the USB-C charging port. Speaker audio is loud enough but sounds hollow, which is not surprising. Since the USB-C port is by the side, the case has to be opened to charge the tablet.

The card tray can hold one MicroSD card and a nano SIM. Power button's located at the top. There's no fingerprint unlock.

Having 4G cellular support is interesting. Making calls is possible but it's best to use wireless earphones since there's no 3.5mm audio jack for headsets. With cellular support you can also use SMS or install Whatsapp. It's nice to see that even budget tablets can have cellular support.

Homescreen layout options are either tablet-style or office-style with tabs by the side.

Two side buttons can be customised to turn pages, scroll or adjust volume. Side buttons can now be used to turn pages for CBZ files — this was not possible before.

The edges of the displays can be customised to change brightness or warm light and it works well.

Auto-orientation works fine.

Anti-glare on the matte surface works but you'll still want to avoid reflections on the display.

Display

Resolution of the display is 1264 x 1680 at 300 DPI for BW. Text looks sharp enough but there's some grain when you look close at the e-ink canvas. Shown above is the quality from Default display mode, the Magazine display mode looks better.

Regarding the grain with text, it's normal and expected from coloured e-ink displays. BW only e-ink displays do not have such grain.

The gray of the e-ink canvas is darker compared to just BW e-ink tablets. For better contrast, it's likely you have to enable the front light, and that's gonna affect battery life.

There are 36-levels of adjustable brightness for the front light. Lighting looks quite even to me.

Warm light has 36 levels of adjustment too. You can use a combination of cold and warm light, and you can create a preset for your preferred lighting settings.

Eink Center has several display modes that affect visual quality of the colour and refresh time. I did not test all the settings as I just switch between the preprogrammed modes, namely Default, Magazine, Comic and Video. You can create a custom setting too.

Default mode shows slight grain and colours look alright. Refresh is quite responsive. This is the best compromise between visual quality and page refresh responsiveness.

Magazine mode shows cleaner colours with no noticeable grain unless you look real close. Refresh will have page flashing (two times) which can be distracting.

Comic mode increases the saturation and contrast, has noticeable ghosting (image retention) and page flashing.

Video mode has less saturated colours, more grain, faster refresh.

These are extra e-ink settings.

Here's a normal sRGB colour wheel. And shown below is how the colour wheel looks with the default, magazine, comic and video settings.

Default. There seems to be some issues with displaying green. Violets, mauves, mauve pinks, pinks are difficult to differentiate from one another. Lighter red, orange, yellows, yellow greens are difficult to differentiate from one another.

Magazine. Colours are more saturated. Colours are easier to differentiate from one another. Green is obvious. Value range is limited to mostly mid and dark.

Comics. Colours are also saturated, but certain colours can be difficult to differentiate from one another due to being similar colour and similar value.

Video. Colours look like default settings.

BW comics has slight grain and the black is certainly not as clean as totally BW e-ink tablets.

Now that there's 8GB RAM instead of 4GB, memory management is better.

Overall performance is smooth enough as an e-ink tablet. I noticed the tablet is more responsive after updating to firmware version 2.4.2.

Writing and note taking

The pen supports pressure sensitivity and palm rejection. One downside to the pen is there's no longer any side button.

The pen does not need to be powered on because it seems to be always powered on.

There was noticeable latency when writing, but after updating to firmware version 2.4.2, latency is reduced and writing feels more responsive. The improved latency after firmware update helps with capturing my handwriting more accurately.

The felt pen tip provides a nice tactile experience when writing on the matte display.

The display is almost laminated, or maybe it is laminated but the display surface has some thickness. Words look like they are on the surface of the display, but if you look at the left or right edges you can see cast shadows.

When I write, trying to position my words between lines but not touching the lines, I find that my words would usually be lower, and touch the lower line.

The default note taking app has quite a number of features and tools.

When writing with Microsoft OneNote, the lines will appear thin first before the actual style of the line is updated. Bigme has this feature to reduce the latency while writing with third party apps. Without this feature, latency would be even more noticeable.

Battery life

Conclusion

The user experience of the Bigme B7 is quite similar to the previous model Bigme B751. The few design improvements are good. The flip case is better. There's more RAM. There's 4G cellular support.

Visual quality of the e-ink is similar to the previous model. Improvement with colour quality of e-ink seems to be limited currently.

This tablet works better as an e-reader than a general purpose tablet. I would use this tablet solely for reading.

Pricing seems reasonable when you consider the flip case and pen are included.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Beautiful design
+ Solid build quality
+ Comes with case and pen
+ Case has auto wake and sleep
+ Case flap prevents pen from dislodging
+ Lightweight, compact, portable for one-hand usage
+ Reasonable speed for e-ink tablet
+ Colours look alright, but have to adjust settings for best look
+ Has Google Play Store
+ Brightness sliders are easy to use
+ Battery life is good for just reading
- Note taking performance is alright, could be better
- Colour e-ink canvas is darker than BW e-ink canvas
- Text has grain due to colour e-ink canvas. Minor issue though.
- 7-inch is not ideal for comics and PDFs
- No fingerprint unlock
- Case has to be opened to access USB-C port for charging
- Speaker is loud enough but sounds hollow

Availability

The Bigme B7 is available from Bigme online store