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If you’re looking for a cheaper Kindle Colorsoft alternative, then there’s a strong chance you’ll come across the Bigme B6 Color.
This ereader is cheaper but still boasts a six-inch color e-ink screen, 64GB of storage, and 4GB of RAM paired with a MediaTek Helio P35 processor.
That’s an entry-level smartphone SoC from 2018 and would be a poor choice for a standard tablet, but it is actually pretty powerful for an ereader, being significantly faster than the chip found in the Colorsoft or other similarly priced competitors like the Kobo Clara Color.
The Bigme B6 Color needs that added juice because, unlike mainstream options, it runs on a modified version of Android 14 like a standard tablet rather than a locked-down custom OS.
This means you can expect oodles of added functionality like downloading apps from the Google Play Store or reading online articles in the surprisingly capable web browser. If, like me, you’re coming over from a Kindle, you’ll still be able to access your entire library via the Kindle App in addition to exploring new options like Kobo Books or Google Play Books.
FutureFutureFutureThe freedom of Android means getting your own ebook files on the Bigme B6 Color is a breeze via the included Type-C cable or by making use of its microSD card slot.
The Bigme B6 Color also boasts a little mono speaker. It’s a bit tinny, but it means you can use the device to listen to audiobooks and podcasts in a pinch. It’s impressively versatile, and all of this functionality is packed into a sleek and premium form factor that is easily pocketable and can be used one-handed.
But what's the reading experience actually like? Text is sharp, and there is minimal ghosting when flicking between pages, so novels are a breeze — even at night, thanks to a backlight with a good level of brightness and adjustable warmth levels.
I’ve had a perfectly pleasant experience with comic books and manga as well. Monochrome illustrations look pin sharp, while the color screen elevates color splashes. I do wish the colors were a little richer, though, as they’re slightly more washed out than on the Colorsoft.
It’s sometimes spoiled by the many bugs in the operating system, but the biggest issue with the Bigme B6 Color is undoubtedly its battery life. Android is much more power-hungry than most ereader operating systems, and it really shows here. With the brightness cranked up, the battery meter steadily ticks down with every page turn.
I managed to squeeze only about five hours out of a single charge flicking through manga on the Kindle app. That was closer to ten hours for a basic PDF novel stored in the system files, which would at least see you through a full week of reading, but it's still a fraction of the multi-week usage a Kindle Colorsoft or Kobo Clara Color would give you.
To make matters worse, the battery life drops quickly when the ereader isn’t even in use. Tossed in my bag with its screen off, it lost about 10% charge each day, so you’re forced to shut it down fully every time you put it away or risk sitting down for a long train ride and finding it out of juice (something that happened to me more than once in even my relatively short testing period).
(Image credit: Future)Bigme B6 Color review: Price & availability- Costs around $179 / £149 / AU$280
- Available via the Bigme website and other retailers
- Comes with a case
At the time of writing, I can find the Bigme B6 Color on sale for around $179 / £149 / AU$280. You can find it on the Bigme website in all regions. Shoppers in the US can also find it at Amazon and Newegg, while in the UK it’s also available via JoyBuy. In Australia, you can find it on AliExpress too.
There are three colors available: black, white, and light green. It also comes bundled with a magnetic protective case. It’s a nice case too; my review unit came in black with a navy one, and it attaches neatly to the back via strong magnets and puts the ereader to sleep when closed.
The Bigme B6 Color comes with 64GB of storage, and the value is extremely strong when you consider that the Kindle Colorsoft costs $279.99 / £269.99 / AU$449 for just 32GB of storage and doesn't come with a case.
- Value score: 4.5/5
Display type:
Kaleido 3 Color E-Ink
Screen size:
6-inch
Resolution:
300ppi in B&W; 150ppi in color
CPU:
MediaTek Helio P35
Frontlight:
Warm and cold
Storage:
64GB (expandable)
Battery:
2,100 mAh
Speaker:
Mono
Water protection:
None
Software:
Android 14
Connectivity:
WiFI, Bluetooth
File support:
Epub, PDF, etc.
Dimensions:
108 x 149.3 x 6.98mm (4.25 × 5.88 × 0.27 inches)
Weight:
~176g (~6.2oz)
Bigme B6 Color review: Design & display- Compact and lightweight
- Color display
- Physical buttons… sort of
The Bigme B6 Color is sleek and compact at 108 x 149.3 × 6.98 mm (or 4.25 × 5.88 × 0.27 inches). It’s easy to slip into a pocket or bag.
The back and sides are a matte plastic material that feels pleasant in the hands, while the bezel around the screen is shinier and smoother. The black model that I’ve been testing is quite plain-looking aside from a silver Bigme logo on the rear and a red power button.
If you look closely at the top, you’ll see a small grille for the speaker and a microphone hole. Flipping it over to the bottom reveals the USB Type-C charging port, a small LED charging indicator, and a slot for the microSD card.
Given that Bigme is a smaller brand, I’m really impressed with the build quality overall.
It’s lightweight at under 200g / 7.1oz but reassuringly solid in the hands. The materials used feel equivalent to those by Amazon or Kobo-maker Rakuten — something really worth commending given just how much cheaper the Bigme B6 Color is than those brands’ equivalent models.
(Image credit: Future)The ereader's six-inch color e-ink display sits above a little row of grey buttons. These aren’t proper buttons in the traditional sense, and they don’t click like those of a Kindle Oasis. Rather, they’re little shortcuts printed on the screen that are tied to certain system apps.
The first opens your library, which shows any ebooks or PDFs you have saved on the device’s storage. The next is an AI button tied to BigmeGPT, an AI assistant of questionable value, but I’ll get on to that in more detail later.
The middle one opens the file manager, and the next takes you to the home screen. The fifth and final button is a settings shortcut.
I’m in two minds about these. On the one hand, some of them are useful to have, like the home screen button or library shortcut, but others, like the AI button, haven’t been pressed more than once or twice in my entire time testing the device.
I couldn’t find a way to rebind the buttons in the system settings, sadly, though even if you could, you would still be stuck with the printed icons.
- Design score: 3.5/5
- Freedom of Android
- Google Play Store access
- Stock apps are poor
Unlike a conventional ereader, the Bigme B6 Color runs on Android 14 and comes with the Google Play Store installed. This allows you to download a wide range of Android apps, all the way from chat services like Discord to social media apps such as Instagram and Facebook, or even some games.
Of course, the screen is a major limitation, and although you can technically watch the latest TechRadar YouTube video on your device, the low refresh rate makes for a pretty unpleasant experience.
That said, Android has some big advantages, namely allowing you to download a wide range of ereader apps. The Kindle app, for example, works fantastically and delivers a comparable experience to using an ereader made by Amazon. Favorites like Libby, which lets you access books from local libraries, are accessible too, and you can even use the ereader’s web browser to download files directly from sites like Internet Archive. Audiobook and podcast apps are also excellent.
The freedom is fantastic and will be a breath of fresh air if you’re used to locked-down ecosystems.
This isn’t a stock version of Android, though. Everything is wrapped in a custom skin created by Bigme, and it’s far from a smooth experience.
(Image credit: Future)There are lots of stock apps, and some are quite buggy. The built-in BigmeGPT AI, for example, crashes instantly if you lose your internet connection. It’s not particularly useful when it does work either, offering only basic text and image generation features.
There’s also the screen saver app that lets you change the image on your lock screen. I used BigmeGPT to generate a few wacky pictures to use as screensavers, only to discover that it doesn’t seem to work very well when you select an image from system files, often defaulting to the default option (a childish cartoon of some bears sleeping in a forest) instead.
Other stock apps include a basic calendar, music player, dictionary, voice recorder, and translator. They all seem to work alright, but are so basic I can’t imagine them being very useful.
The overall interface also has some issues. System notifications will randomly pop up in Chinese from time to time, and it can all freeze up while you’re in menus. I even had the settings app crash entirely on a few occasions.
- Software score: 3/5
- Reading is great
- But the battery life dampens the experience
- Not a tablet replacement
Despite the rough edges in the software, if your number one concern is the reading experience, the Bigme B6 Color does deliver. 300ppi resolution is more than sufficient for the small 6-inch screen and means that text looks very crisp. The backlight is effective too, offering sufficient brightness for reading in dimmer spaces or even a pitch-black room.
As I mentioned earlier, the colors could be better as they look more washed out than those of the Colorsoft, but they’re still decently accurate and help liven up illustrations. Browsing the web is also surprisingly smooth, though the refresh rate does hamper the experience. Even so, you can still browse news websites easily if you want to catch up with current events on the go.
(Image credit: Future)The biggest issue encountered while trying to use the Bigme B6 Color as my main ereader was its battery life. It really does run out quickly, and I struggled to adjust to plugging it in for a top-up every night, having become used to only charging my Kindle every few weeks.
Although it does run Android, I wouldn’t view the Bigme B6 Color as a replacement for a conventional tablet. You technically can use productivity apps (WPS Office even comes installed out of the box to tempt you), but the experience is poor, again, thanks to that slow refresh rate. To Bigme’s credit, the brand advertises the B6 Color as an ereader rather than anything else — so I’m not deducting any points for this.
- User experience score: 3.5/5
- Snappy performance
- Usable web browser
- You can even watch YouTube videos
The Bigme B6 Color performs fantastically with its 4GB of RAM and MediaTek Helio P35 chipset.
Don’t get me wrong, these would be awful specs for a phone — but on a relatively cheap ereader? Everything is butter smooth as far as an e-ink screen allows. Loading is fast, pages turn with no lag, and it doesn’t immediately lose your place if you send an ereader app to the background. It boots from sleep almost instantly as well.
(Image credit: Future)I have had no issue accessing my favorite news websites (including TechRadar, of course) using the built-in browser. I even managed to get YouTube videos playing on it, which is pretty impressive for this kind of device. After using the Bigme B6 Color, my usual Kindle feels unbearably sluggish.
Storage is generous out of the box to boot, and, having downloaded a load of books and a handful of apps, I still have more than 40GB of free space left.
Not shabby at all for this price!
- Performance score: 4.5/5
Bigme B6 Color
Amazon Kindle Colorsoft
Kobo Clara Color
Display type:
Kaleido 3 Color E-Ink
Kaleido 3 Color E-Ink
Kaleido 3 Color E-Ink
Screen size:
6-inch
7-inch
6-inch
Resolution:
300ppi in B&W; 150ppi in color
300ppi in B&W; 150ppi in color
300ppi in B&W; 150ppi in color
CPU:
MediaTek Helio P35
Unspecified dual-core MediaTek
MediaTek MT8113T
Frontlight:
Warm and cold
Warm and cold
Warm and cold
Storage:
64GB (expandable)
32GB
16GB
Battery:
2,100 mAh
2,310 mAh
1,500 mAh
Speaker:
Mono
None
None
Water protection:
None
IPX8 water-resistance
IPX8 water-resistance
Software:
Android 14
Proprietary
Proprietary
Connectivity:
WIFI, Bluetooth
WIFI, Bluetooth
WIFI, Bluetooth
File support:
EPUB, PDF, etc.
EPUB, PDF, AZW3
EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, CBR
Dimensions:
108 x 149.3 x 6.98mm (4.25 × 5.88 × 0.27 inches)
127.6 x 176.7 x 7.8 mm (5.02 x 6.96 x 0.31 inches)
112 x 160 x 9.2 mm (6.3 x 4.4 x 0.36 inches)
Weight:
~176g (~6.2oz)
219g (7.73oz)
174g (6.1oz)
Buy it if...You want an affordable color Android ereader
The Bigme B6 Color is surprisingly cheap for a color ereader running on Android. It's a good buy if you don't want to be locked down to one specific ecosystem.
You don't mind some jank
The software here takes some getting used to and can be buggy at times, but that shouldn't be much of an issue if you're used to fiddling with Android systems.
Don't buy it if...You need long battery life
The Bigme B6 Color's biggest flaw is its battery life. Avoid picking one up if you need an ereader you can toss in a bag in sleep mode for a few weeks or one you don't have to charge every day or two.
Bigme B6 Color review: AlternativesKindle Colorsoft
Far superior battery life makes the Kindle Colorsoft a great alternative to the Bigme B6 Color. You lose the freedom of Android, but gain a much sleeker and smoother experience in return. Bear in mind it is much more expensive, though.
Read our in-depth Kindle Colorsoft review
Kobo Clara Color
The Kindle Clara Color isn't much more expensive than the Bigme B6 Color. Its processor is much slower, however, and it has far more limited storage.
Read our in-depth Kobo Clara Color review
How I tested the Bigme B6 Color- Used as main e-reader for a month
- Popular e-reader apps tested
- Compared to similar models by brands like Amazon
To review the Bigme B6 Color I used it as my primary e-reader for just over a month. This meant using it for about forty minutes each way on my commutes to and from our office in London, during which I enjoyed a variety of novels, comic books, and manga.
Throughout my time with the e-reader I compared my experience to my hands-on usage of similar devices, including the Amazon Kindle, Amazon Kindle Colorsoft, and Kobo Clara Color.
Read more about how we test.
First published September 2026
Most desktop chargers are purely functional, but the robot-shaped Ugreen Uno manages to make something as mundane as powering your devices surprisingly fun.
Right now, the Ugreen Uno 100W GaN fast-charging block is now $60 (was $80) at Amazon. It's one of our favorite quirky gadgets for the office, scoring the full 5 stars in our review.
The Uno has a small TFT display that shows different facial expressions depending on its charging status, and its removable magnetic feet complete the little desktop robot design. In the UK, Ugreen's 100W charging block is now £40 (was £56) at Amazon.
Uno 100W 4-Port USB C Wall Charger: was $79.99 now $59.99
The quirky Uno combines 100W GaN charging with three USB-C ports, one USB-A port, a TFT expression display, removable magnetic feet, four-device simultaneous charging and multiple built-in safety protections.
In the UK: now £40 (was £56)View Deal
Why we recommend itIn his rave five-star review of the Uno, our expert Harry said: "With an impressive power output, quad-port design and quirky robot form, the UGreen Uno Charger 100W establishes itself as one of the best wall chargers on the market. It’s modestly priced against competitors, delivers super-fast charging and displays entertaining emojis, making it the ideal charging companion."
The Uno is a desk accessory that can add some personality to a home office without loosing practicality. Its display cycles through expressions including smiling, blushing and even an eating animation while charging, with a suitably cool expression appearing when charging completes.
More importantly, there's a capable 100W GaN charger inside that lets you power four devices simultaneously, The top two USB-C ports can each deliver up to 100W when used individually, making it suitable for more demanding devices such as laptops.
The port placement on top also makes sense when it's sitting on a desk, while its compact 2.05 x 1.93 x 3.23-inch dimensions are impressive considering the number of ports and power available.
Price context & historical valueAmazon has reduced the price of Ugreen's Uno 100W charger from $79.99 to $59.99, knocking $20 off the usual price. You're inevitably paying something for the unusual design, but you're getting four charging ports and enough output to handle many USB-C laptops.
This isn't the cheapest I've seen it though. It was on sale for $45 towards the end of last year. Even so, I think this is still a great deal and one I'd recommend snapping up.
Should you buy it?✅ Buy the Ugreen Uno 100W charger if...
You want to replace several chargers with one device that also adds some personality to your home office. With three USB-C ports, USB-A and up to 100W of power, it can handle your laptop, phone, tablet and headphones simultaneously while taking up little desk space.
❌ Skip the Ugreen Uno 100W charger if...
You only need a charger for your phone or another low-powered device. The Uno is overkill for that job, and you can find considerably cheaper single-port chargers if you don't need its 100W output, four ports or quirky display.
The Catch: What to know before you buyThe 100W figure is the maximum available output rather than 100W from every port simultaneously. Power is shared when you're charging multiple devices, although the top two USB-C ports can each provide up to 100W when used individually.
It doesn't come with any charging cables, either, so you'll need to provide those yourself. The display also isn't particularly bright, which can make its expressions harder to see from some angles.
Ask a CISO why they bought their newest cybersecurity tool, and they’ll have a clear answer lined up.
It stops a specific technique, closes a particular gap, or satisfies a compliance requirement.
However, it's often less clear how the tool fits in with the rest of the stack.
Does it make the overall system stronger, or simply add another layer of complexity to manage?
Research indicates most security professionals already believe they’re juggling too many tools, with over half saying they don’t properly integrate together.
This is a pattern I call ‘additive by default,’ and it results in stacks that grow without a plan, becoming broader but not necessarily deeper or able to match today’s threats.
Start with the outcome, not the technologyI find this additive approach is often due to focusing on specific emerging threats or identified weak points, so decisions are made with a tactical eye rather than a broader strategic view.
Part of the problem is that most organizations have never precisely defined the security outcome they are trying to achieve. Without a shared, specific language for the problem, every new purchase becomes additive, because there is nothing solid to measure it against.
Take asset labelling, which is a core capability most organizations know they need, so they invest in a tool, populate a configuration management database (CMDB), and assign criticality scores. Job done, right? But labelling an asset only answers the question of what it is, and says nothing about how that asset connects to everything around it, or what happens when a policy needs to be enforced against it.
Labelling, visibility and enforcement are three distinct jobs, not one. Solve the first and the second and third remain wide open, so another tool gets bought to cover visibility, then another for enforcement. Each purchase solves its own narrow question perfectly well.
However, none of them were ever asked to work as a single, continuous capability, because nobody defined that as the actual requirement in the first place.
What if asset management labels fed into visibility views and the same reflected how policy is drafted and then enforced? Now you have a strategic problem solved with interoperable capabilities.
How much of your stack is really putting in the work?Gartner’s most recent Leadership Perspective Survey saw CISOs noting this as a common issue, with just 20-30% of tool capability actually being used in some cases. The instinctive response to this is to cut the stack down, however, that instinct solves the wrong problem.
A good exercise for working out the value of the stack is to evaluate every tool, new or already deployed, against three plain questions.
Does it offer continuous validation against a given threat - and what, specifically, does it validate? Is it still operationally relevant? And is it effective, right now, in the environment you have today? A tool can pass one or two of these and still be failing you.
Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) are a good example of this. Twenty or thirty years ago, when networks were typically static and everything likely sat inside a single data center, VLAN-based segmentation was genuinely effective. It matched the environment it was built for.
That environment has since changed almost beyond recognition. Workloads move between on-premises systems, cloud and containers, and nothing stays fixed for long. VLANs are still deployed across many stacks today, still technically doing the segmentation job they were built for. Yet their effectiveness has dropped sharply because they offer none of the continuous validation a hybrid, constantly shifting estate actually requires.
Effectiveness has an expiry date that has nothing to do with whether the tool still runs. Success should be measured by whether the system as a whole still holds up, not by how many tools remain switched on.
Consolidated security, not consolidated toolingGartner identified that most organizations are pursuing a vendor consolidation strategy. While this approach certainly reduces unnecessary spending and keeps budgets under control, it’s not necessarily solving the biggest problem.
Consolidated tooling and consolidated security are not the same thing, and it’s an assumption that leads to disappointment. Reducing the number of tools alone achieves little if the underlying processes remain fragmented or teams continue to operate against different objectives.
No data center I have walked through was built entirely by one manufacturer. Racks, switches, storage and cabling come from a dozen suppliers, yet they operate as one coherent system because they were designed to fit together. Security should work the same way.
The goal is not necessarily fewer vendors, but every control, whoever built it, feeding into the same continuous picture of identification, visibility and enforcement.
What to ask insteadBefore completing the next security purchase, consider how well a new tool fits into the stack you already have, not just what it claims to do on its own.
A tool that deploys cleanly, validates continuously rather than only at go-live, and feeds its findings back into the tools already in place is doing real work. One that arrives as a fresh, isolated source of alerts is just adding to the noise, however good its individual detection rate looks in a demo. That means comparing what the tool was bought to solve against what it is actually delivering today, checking it against newer capabilities, and being willing to redeploy or renegotiate rather than automatically renew or even retire.
Ultimately, the strongest security programs are not defined by the number of tools they deploy, nor by the number they eliminate. They're defined by how effectively every control works together when it matters most.
We've rounded up the best endpoint protection software suites.
This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.
The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit
Having reviewed multiple iterations, the Geekom A5 has remained one of our favorite mini PCs for work and study for a long time now. If you're looking for a well-built compact desktop, there's a lot we like about this little machine.
And right now, the Geekom A5 is down to $419 (was $719) at Best Buy. That's cheaper than it is at Amazon, where it's priced at $479. But you'll need to act fast, because the clock is ticking on this deal, which ends in a few hours.
The mini PC is powered by the AMD Ryzen 5 7430U, with 16GB upgradeable RAM and 1TB SSD. In our own tests, we found it has enough performance for everyday office work and multitasking, and remains impressively quiet even under sustained use.
A5 Mini PC: was $719 now $419
AMD Ryzen 5 7430U | 16GB RAM | 1TB SSD
The Geekom A5 combines a six-core Ryzen 5 7430U processor, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, Radeon Vega 7 graphics, Wi-Fi 6, 2.5GbE Ethernet and Windows 11 Pro.View Deal
Why we recommend itThe Ryzen 5 7430U has six cores and 12 threads, with boost speeds up to 4.3GHz. Combined with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, that's a solid specification for office work, browsing and everyday multitasking.
In our four-star review, Windows 11 ran smoothly and the A5 performed better than mini PCs based on lower-end Intel N100, N150 and N300 processors.
There's an impressive selection of connections for such a small PC, too. You get two HDMI 2.0 ports, two USB-C 3.2 ports, four USB-A connections and 2.5GbE Ethernet, alongside Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.
It's also easy to get inside the A5 if you want to upgrade it at a later date. The two DDR4 SODIMM slots support up to 64GB of RAM, giving you plenty of scope to add more memory if your needs grow.
Price context & historical valueBest Buy has reduced the Geekom A5 from $719 to $419, saving you a substantial $300. That's almost 42% off the regular price and means you can pick up a 16GB/1TB Windows 11 Pro mini PC for comfortably below the $500 mark.
You'll need to move quickly if you want it at this price, however, as the offer will end very soon.
Should you buy it?✅ Buy the Geekom A5 if...
You want a small Windows PC for working from home, studying or general everyday computing without having to cope with entry-level processor. We found the Ryzen 5 7430U to be more than capable of handling most everyday tasks, and the 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD provide plenty of headroom.
❌ Skip the Geekom A5 if...
You need a mini PC for demanding creative applications or serious gaming. Performance is comfortably above many entry-level mini PCs, but the older Ryzen 5 7430U and integrated Radeon Vega graphics are well behind newer AMD platforms with DDR5 memory and more powerful integrated GPUs.
The Catch: What to know before you buyDespite its Ryzen 7000-series name, the Ryzen 5 7430U is based on AMD's older Zen 3 architecture and uses Radeon Vega graphics rather than the newer integrated GPUs found in some other Ryzen mini PCs.
It has enough performance for everyday office work and multitasking though, while remaining impressively quiet even under sustained use.