There are many awesome e-ink reader manufacturers in the world, like the household name--Kindle and Kobo, etc. However, you might not be familiar with the world’s 3rd largest manufacturer of premium electronic readers -- PocketBook. To date, PocketBook has introduced over 50 models of electronic E Ink readers and media tablets, pioneering a number of innovations in the field of e-reading, which have also received many prestigious international awards. So let’s take a look at what the PocketBook eReader is capable of.
What should You Know about PocketBook?
Founded in 2007, headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland, PocketBook products are available in more than 40 countries worldwide, with millions of devices sold.
PocketBook has 11 years of experience in the development of hardware and software reading solutions, pursuing excellence in every aspect, and anticipating all possible needs of the modern reader. It is not only determined to create high-quality hardware, unique software and ergonomic product design, but it also guarantees a perfect reading experience.
PocketBook Company has introduced over 50 models of electronic E Ink readers and media tablets on the world market and holds 20 prestigious international awards, including a highly sought-after international Red Dot Design Award.
How’s the Hardware of PocketBook Reader like?
Take Pocketbook Touch Lux 4 as an example, it features a six-inch E Ink Carta display with a resolution of 1024×758 and uses a capacitive touchscreen. It has a new front-lit display, packing in higher quality LED lights. The increased RAM of 512 MB and a powerful 1 GHz processor guarantee prompt response of services and applications. The e-reader has 8 GB of internal memory and a slot for microSD cards (up to 32 GB), which means a user may store up to 3000 e-books in its digital library.
Thanks to the new refined design the e-reader is also intended for those who are demanding to style. With a weight of only 155 grams and dimensions of 161.3 × 108 × 8 mm, the bezel on the sides, top and button are noticeably smaller, which makes the e-reader suits standard jeans pocket and the tiniest lady’s purse perfectly. And you can turn the pages of an ebook with the manual paging buttons.
The new PocketBook Touch Lux 4 is available in obsidian black, matte silver and emerald colours. It has a 1500 mAh battery, so it should last two to three weeks of constant use.
How’s the Software of PocketBook Reader like?
The main home screen of Pocketbook Touch Lux 4 displays the three most recent e-books you have accessed and shows their cover art. You can hold your finger down on any title to delete it, which is a nice way to delete some of the pre-loaded content. If you drag your finger downwards from the top of the screen you can access quick shortcuts such as WIFI, settings menu, and a list of things you have done lately.
The built-in Wifi together with the PocketBook Cloud, Dropbox PocketBook, and Send-to-PocketBook services allow easy delivery of e-content onto the e-reader without connecting it to a PC. One cool thing is that the preinstalled Abbyy Lingvo dictionaries offer 24 language combinations for reading books in foreign languages. What's more, PocketBook Touch Lux 4 supports 17 book formats and 4 graphic formats, such as JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF.
Pocketbook e-readers are running the Linux OS and there are lots of little apps bundled with the Touch Lux 4 which allow you to read RSS News Feeds, play basic little games like chess and access the internet via the web browser. The internet browser has the option to remove all images from a website, so everything loads a bit quicker. And there is a Pocketbook Store that you can access, but the vast majority of titles are free and open source.
There is a small note-taking app that allows you to freehand draw and write notes with the built-in keyboard. You can select a few different types of pencil types, but not many options to control the line thickness.
How’s the E-reading Experience of PocketBook Reader?
The reading experience on this device is perfectly fine. There are over 30 different fonts to choose from and you have the ability to adjust the size of the font. Like most e-readers, you can also adjust the line-spacing, and margins and manually make the text larger.
Page turn speed is very fast. You can tap the side of the screen, swipe or press one of the manual page turn buttons. By default, you will see a full page refresh every six pages, but you can adjust this to ten in the settings menu.
There are a ton of pre installed dictionaries and translations available. This is due to Pocketbook being based in Europe, so they support all of the major countries and markets there.
Luckily this device supports a wide array of ebook formats: PDF, PDF(DRM), EPUB, EPUB(DRM), DJVU, FB2, FB2.ZIP, DOC, DOCX, RTF, PRC, TXT, CHM, HTM, HTML, MOBI. PocketBook does not have a dedicated digital bookstore, so you will have to sideload your own content or borrow them from the public library.
The one drawback with the Touch Lux 4 is PDF support. If you have a complex PDF with lots of images and CSS elements, it takes a really long time for it to render and load. Turning pages into complex PDF documents is fairly awful. But it does a respectable job with the type of documents that do not require pinching and zooming, such as manga.
Bonus tip: if you are interested in reading DRM-protected Kindle Books on PocketBook Reader, here's a tutorial guide on how to transfer Kindle books to PocketBook for reading.
Conclusion
Now you should have a clear idea of what PocketBook Reader is capable of. If you are contemplating which Reader to get, maybe you should give the PocketBook series E Ink Reader a go.
Amy Lopez crafts informative articles on eBooks and eReaders, uncovering optimal methods to enhance your eBook reading experience, and eagerly shares her findings with you.
Thank you!! I have hunted many times to find a smaller reader that would be pocket friendly.
And end up using my iPhone which is fine but uses up the battery. And my mom is nice I like e ink but the page turns require patience
I look forward to trying a pocket reader !
Ran