When we reviewed the PocketBook Color last year we loved the device and the fact that true e-readers could finally display color, but the six-inch screen made it difficult to read comic books and magazines that work much better on tablets. The new PocketBook InkPad Color tries to fix this with a larger 7.8-inch screen using E-Ink’s next-generation color electronic paper technology.
The larger screen of the InkPad, which makes it look more like an iPad Mini and less like an Amazon Kindle, is what will attract more people to color E-Ink devices, as it allows documents that do not change easily can be (resizes text and it can bounce to fit on a screen, but this is not an option with illustrations) to enjoy without constantly zooming in and out to make text readable. On a device powered by a 1 GHz process and just 1 GB of RAM, zooming in and panoramating large documents is not the easiest experience, so although the InkPad is not as sluggish as the original PocketBook Color, many be improved.
PocketBook is the first company to launch an e-reader using E Ink’s new Kaleido 2 screen technology, but it’s not a quantum leap for electronic color paper. In black-and-white mode, the InkPad screen offers a resolution of 1872 × 1404 pixels at 300 PPI. But in color mode, it can still only get a third of the resolution, only 624 × 468 pixels at 100 PP. Color rendering is also still limited to just 4,096 different shades, compared to the 16 million+ colors that an LCD can display. But according to those who away with the new InkPad, with Kaleido 2 E Ink improved the color accuracy and saturation of the screen, while also improving the performance of the black and white mode. The changes under the hood may be minor, but it seems to make a big difference to the eyes.
Other enhancements to the new PocketBook InkPad include an upgraded color filter range (the technology that enables electronic color paper) that is compatible with the device’s white LED side lights so that colors still appear while reading in the dark, and a USB -C port for charging and syncing, though documents can also be loaded with a microSD card, which can infinitely expand the tablet’s 16 GB of internal memory.
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At least in North America, PocketBook is not a brand as well known as Kindle or Kobo, but if you do not get your e-books through online stores like Amazon or Rakuten, or mostly use these types of devices to research work. or academic documents, it is a trademark that might be worth considering as it supports almost every conceivable digital document format: EPUB, MOBI, CBZ, CBR and PDFs included. The InkPad also includes Bluetooth for streaming audiobooks or any digital audio file to a pair of wireless headphones, as well as a text-to-speech feature that works in 16 different languages.
The original PocketBook Color was $ 230, but due to its larger size and screen, the new PocketBook InkPad is $ 329 slightly more expensive, which is now available in online stores such as NewEgg. We’ll be launching the tablet next week to see if the InkPad is the perfect e-reader for comic books and magazines, so keep an eye on our full review.