Meebook isn’t as big as it once was. The company though is doing its bit to stem the slide and the recent launch of the Meebook 8C is ample proof of that. Also, with the M8C, the company seems to have ticked all the right boxes. That includes a K3 color e-paper display, a Wacom pen, Android 14 out of the box, an octa-core processor, 4 gigs of memory, 64 GB of storage, and so much more. But is that enough? Let’s find that out in this review.
Style and Build
The M8 C does not break any new ground with its design. Its looks and build are par for the course without being extraordinary in any aspect. The rear lacks any texture, which means it can be a fingerprint magnet if not properly handled. There is the company marking at the top center while towards the bottom, there is the usual tech stuff inscribed.
On the top right lies the Power button while at the bottom lies the USB C port, dual speakers, and the status indicator light. On the right side lies the SD card slot while on the right side lies the dual microphones.
UI
If the UI seems familiar, that’s because it looks quite similar to what you have with the Onyx Boox or Bigme devices. Swipe down from the top left and there is going to be the familiar set of controls and shortcuts shown in the Control Bar.
Most of the elements of the Control Bar are self-descriptive. There is the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth buttons on the top followed by the Home, Auto Rotate, Screenshot, and Background Management buttons.
Other buttons present include Airplane Mode, Do Not Disturb, Screen Cast, Screen Mirroring, Refresh, Color Adjustment, and Refresh Setting.
Thereafter, there are the display controls where there are a few pre-set display modes though you also have the customize option available as well which will let you individually set the brightness and contrast.
At the bottom lies the volume slider bar.
While all of this is okay, the usual Meebook character is grossly missing so far as the UI is concerned, and that isn’t a good thing, it must be said.
Mention must be made of the Color Adjustment feature which allows for more finer control of the display. All of the controls are arranged under three tabs – Refresh, Color, and Display.
Under Color, you have different pre-set modes for viewing different content types. Those include Default, Photo, and Cartoon. You can also create and save your own customized display modes as well by setting the Contrast, Vividness, Brightness, and other controls.
Under Refresh, you have Regal, Default, Fast, High Speed, and Top Speed options.
Lastly, there is the Display tab that reveals two settings – Black and white display mode and image 256 grayscale mode. There are toggle switches available for each control though the image 256 grayscale mode is always on by default. This is irrespective of whether you specifically turn it on or off. In other words, you have no control over it in reality and it does not make much sense either as to why the company provided the same in the first place.
The Black and white display mode, on the other hand, can be invoked simply by turning the switch on or off. It is as simple as that. In fact, the M8 C happens to be one of the very few devices that actually offer the option to toggle between monochrome and color display just by the flick of a switch. Only the Onyx Boox Poke 2 Color offers such a feature. Otherwise, a dedicated button to turn on or off black-and-white mode is a rarity and isn’t available on any other Kaledio 3 device. It is always nice to have such a feature and you can easily turn it on or off depending on the content you are viewing.
Otherwise, the touch input is simply not up to the mark. Many times it fails to register a touch input or does not lead to the desired result. In some cases, you might even be transferred back to the home page as well where you will have the restart the whole thing again. This makes the UI very shoddy and unreliable in performance.
Stylus
The Wacom Stylus is the same that iFlytek offers, except that it is now in white. Nothing wrong with that as Meebook might have sourced the pen from the same OEM. There is the eraser at the back though, owing to its plastic build, it offers none of that natural rubber-like feel when erasing. It comes with a graphite composition nib. There is also a side-mounted button as well. In short, there is nothing special about the pen. That said, it being very common, getting replacement units just in case something goes wrong is always going to be easy.
Note Taking Experience
Those who prefer that natural pen-on-paper-writing feel are going to be grossly disappointed here. Instead, it is like writing on a slippery surface with no feedback whatsoever. Otherwise, the pen is quite responsive with next to zero lag times. You can choose from 16 input colors or set the line thickness. There are 5 different pen types available. You can also set the most used pens in the shortcut section on the left.
The left panel also has an eraser just in case you aren’t eager to use the one on the top of the pen. As already stated, the pen-mounted easer too lacks the natural rubbery feel and has a slippery feel to it. Other tools available here include undo, restore, lasso tools, zoom, and graph, which however is very basic with only a few shapes provided. There is also the text input feature available as well along with the option to expand your canvas further, something that seems to have been taken straight out of an Onyx Boox device.
Reading Experience
Manga
Meebook can well be considered the unofficial ambassador for promoting manga content. The M8 C is also an excellent device for reading manga. The 7.8-inch display is just perfect for the manga layout. As Peter demoed in the video below, you can turn the refresh setting to Regal which makes the display incredibly clear and sharp. You will be able to pick up even the minutest details easily. That said, if you think the Regal setting is slowing things down, you can always opt for a high page refresh speed setting for your viewing pleasure.
Book
The M8 C can also serve as an excellent e-book reader device as well. The display is as good, or as bad as on any other e-reader that comes with the Kaleido 3 display. One of the biggest issues here, if it can be so said, is that the background isn’t as white as on a device with a monochrome e-paper display. The best thing to do is to keep the front light turned on which serves to illuminate the screen for things to look brighter.
Otherwise, the reading experience is going to depend on the app you are using. Also, almost all apps have a standard set of features. You can set the font or the font size, bookmark a page, or write notes. Long pressing on a word should reveal additional details about it including its meaning in simple terms and so on. The advantage here is that you can download the app you want from the Play Store and continue with your reading.
Conclusion
Meebook has tried valiantly at trying to get back the market share it lost during covid, but it just doesn’t seem that it’ll ever get back to the status they were held. The M8 C is currently a disaster. And I say ‘currently’, because a lot of this can be solved with some software updates. But hear me out. Taking the device for face value, it’s pretty poor. The English is unnatural, misspelled, and ill-spaced. Which results in a huge learning curve and a ton of misunderstanding
It does have Wacom, which is a huge plus, but it’s so slippery and slimy feeling, that it almost is as if you are writing on a glass tabletop with pancake syrup spilled all over it. No thought or care was applied to the note-taking feel, realism, or even features as they almost forgot to add very simple integral features to the functionality of note-taking. As is the issue with all Kaleido 3, it’s very dark, making it fairly poor for reading books
Meebook has been heavily marketing itself to Southeast Asia like the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam, as a manga reader solution. And it does do it well. It has lots of speed modes, and contrast levels to augment the page into the way you want it to look, so we’ll give them that. Dual speakers allow multimedia to play back fine I suppose, and the speed modes allow for video to play smoothly
The thing that really shines on this device is the fact that they are the first unit in 4 years to have a direct user-accessible way to actually TURN OFF THE COLOR which is unseen and unheard of by any Kaleido-utilizing manufacturer. But that’s really where it begins and ends with this unit. It’s slow, sluggish, unresponsive, requires a huge learning curve, and has some of the worst touch recognition I have ever experienced in my career.
Everything you interact with, everything you toggle, everything you touch, just gets miss inputted, it misses, it resets, it fails, and sends you back to the home screen, it’s not a practical execution of a user interface by any degree which they also skimmed and copied from the likes of both Bigme and Onyx, seemingly at the same time
The M8 C can honestly be fixed with a lot of software updates, but it is just simply impossible to recommend this unit in its current status as it is a true mess.
Meebook M8C
$349.99
Pros
- Android 14 and Google Play
- Sd Card
- Good Battery Life
- Color E-paper
- Speed Modes
Cons
- Stylus is abysmal
- Writing experience is poor
- Color looks washed out
- Reliant on apps from Google Play
- Not easy to buy
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I’ll likely make a film sometime in the future.
