Paper-like screens are regularly pitched as an eyestrain-reducing alternative to LCD or OLED. And, when it comes to reading, I have to agree. But I see a lot of people doing weird stuff on their E Ink monitors and tablets, like watching YouTube videos or browsing the web. So, I decided to take this absurdity to the extreme by loading up Minecraft on my BOOX eReader.
Android eReaders, Weird Marketing, and My Deteriorating Mental State
Very few people in my life actually own an eReader. When they read digital books, they usually do it on a smartphone or iPad. I think that this is partially due to cost—the cheapest Kindles are about $100—but it’s also a matter of convenience. Carrying around an extra device just to read books is a little bit silly. And I say this as someone who uses an eReader!
Brands like Amazon Kindle and Rakuten Kobo are slowly bringing more tablet-like features to their eReaders. The goal is, presumably, to attract customers who want the best of both worlds—a cozy E Ink screen with the capabilities of a real tablet. But E Ink screens are slow and choppy, so the “tablet-like” features that we see in some newer Amazon and Rakuten eReaders are mostly just, like, note-taking and calendar stuff.
But there are some niche eReader brands that sell real E Ink tablets. I’ve got two Onyx BOOX eReaders on hand, both of which run the Android operating system. One of them, the BOOX Tab Ultra C, was actively marketed as a productivity-focused tablet replacement (it’s a few years old now) due to its color E Ink screen, reasonably powerful processor, and relatively fast screen refresh settings. The manufacturer was actually very honest when marketing this device, never really straying away from basic reading, writing, and stylus functionality, but reviewers are obsessed with the idea of playing YouTube videos or browsing the web on the Tab Ultra C. And some come to the conclusion that this is a viable machine for media consumption or browsing, which is insane, in my opinion.
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So, when the BOOX Tab Ultra C fell into my lap through a series of weird behind-the-scenes hot-potato (a coworker reviewed it in 2023, the manufacturer didn’t want it back, it sat in our business inventory for a while, yadda yadda), I immediately wanted to use it as a testbed for stupid, inane ideas. YouTube on the Tab Ultra C is an unpleasant experience—how do I get more unpleasant than that? I want to do something so unpleasant that it makes me nauseous. A visual form of ipecac.
Behold, Minecraft on an eReader
I tested the BOOX Tab Ultra C with a handful of different games, ranging from NYT’s daily crossword puzzle to the oh-so-silly Subway Surfers. They all ran just fine, but none of them were really playable, and some of them made my eyes hurt. The eReader’s “ultra fast” screen mode introduces too much ghosting, while other modes are practically seizure-inducing because they make the screen flash so much.
After farting around with some basic mobile games, I realized that Minecraft might offer the best mix of playability and pain. So, I gave it a shot, and I was pleasantly surprised by the eye cramps that followed. It’s not too difficult to see what’s happening in Minecraft on an E Ink screen, but only during the daytime, and only if you’re capable of enduring the horrendous ghosting effect that builds up after about two seconds of gameplay. The sky becomes a mess of gray shadows, and blocks become so jumbled together that you can walk past a pig without even noticing it. Cracking up the render distance doesn’t help, it just adds new onscreen details that can cascade into a sludgy mess of gray lines and flat colors.
Believe it or not, but I genuinely tried to play the game like this. I built a little dirt house, started knocking down trees, and completely lost track of where I was. After enduring the most painful in-game sunset you could ever imagine, night befell me, and I couldn’t see anything. So, I died and tried again. Eventually I had to set the eReader down because my eyes hurt so much that I started to get dizzy.
I achieved my goal of having an extremely unpleasant experience on an eReader, and it only took me about 30 minutes to do it. Honestly, I tried to go longer—I was hoping to go online with some friends! But it was just too painful.
For what it’s worth, I was surprised by how well Minecraft ran on the BOOX Tab Ultra C. And I feel like it would be less painful if the eReader offered deeper contrast or a broader color coverage. E Ink could be a somewhat reasonable option for gaming, but it’ll need to improve a lot before it reaches that point.
I should also clarify that the BOOX Tab Ultra C is a pretty competent device, although I’m not a particularly big fan of color E Ink because the color layer strips away a lot of contrast. You can’t really use a color eReader without turning on the frontlight (or sitting in direct sunlight), which kind of defeats the purpose of a paper-like display, in my opinion. If a powerful black and white Android eReader comes my way, I’ll put it through the Minecraft test to see if there’s any improvement in playability.
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