New PocketBook 7.8" Color E-Ink Reader

[kyôdai]

It seems PocketBook is about to release another ebook-reader with a color E-Ink display.

The Pocketbook InkPad Color, is a 7.8" device very similar to the Inkpad 3 but with an E-Ink Kaleido 2 display, like their 6" model from last year.

Reportedly it goes on sale in Russia and various eastern european countries for ₽21.999 (about $295) coming March.

-> https://www.aroged.com/2021/02/05/a-...h-8599-aroged/

-> https://pocketbook.ru/shop/ustroystv...r-serebristyy/

[rcentros]

Interesting. I kind of got the impression that the 6" color wasn't doing that well. I guess I was wrong. The bigger screen should be better for those who read comics on an eReader.

Thanks for the post. PocketBook has definitely been the most active in releasing new models over the last couple years.

[kyôdai]

Yeah, I also doubt that the 6" model was a success. But that has not stopped PocketBook before. (They also had two color readers with e-inks previous triton displays.)

While 7,8" is an improvement, it still does not feel like enough. For comics you want at least 10", especially with e-ink since scrooling and zooming would be a pain.

Also the resolution seems to stay the same (300ppi for books, 100ppi for comics).

I still don't see people getting this as a dedicated comic-reader, unfortunately.

[b0rsuk]

I just bought an InkPad 3, and I was interested in color ereaders. It's not just for comics - textbooks for math and programming make good use of color. I decided to get a B&W one when I learned about low DPI of kaleido displays. The current color tech is not good enough as far as I'm concerned.

The interesting news here is that it not only has USB-C and Bluetooth, but also an SD card slot. Kobo and Amazon have been phasing out SD card support, and even Pocketbook doesn't have it in most newest models. InkPad 3 Pro and InkPad X don't have it. Good news that SD slots are coming back!

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by kyôdai

While 7,8" is an improvement, it still does not feel like enough. For comics you want at least 10", especially with e-ink since scrooling and zooming would be a pain.

It would be the perfect size for manga or smaller pocketbook style comics like Stories from Duckburg etc.

[JSWolf]

When you use color, then resolution plummets significantly. With color you get 100DPI at 468 × 624.

[Pajamaman]

Color on a 7.8" is beginning to look interesting. Acceptable size for comics and pdf with big color photographs.

[kyôdai]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

It would be the perfect size for manga or smaller pocketbook style comics like Stories from Duckburg etc.

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

Color on a 7.8" is beginning to look interesting. Acceptable size for comics and pdf with big color photographs.

Yeah, I kinda do not see that.

Mangas are like 99% black and white.
As with textbooks it does not make much sense to sacrifice the much better display quality of a reagular e-reader for 1 coloured cover page...

And most coloured comics are a lot bigger then a 7.8" screen. European comics are almost twice as big.

15,8 x 11,8 cm - 7,8" Display
25,7 x 16,8 cm - Marvel / DC Comics
29,5 x 22,0 cm - European Comics (Asterix, Luck Luke, etc.)

On top of that you get faint colors, a meager 100ppi and you have to crank up the light to get at least some contrast.

Don't get me wrong. I would like to have an e-Ink device for comics. But this is not it, yet.

[Pajamaman]

Large comic pages can be split into panes. Dull colors may outweigh the suffering for some of reading on LCD. It's subjective.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

Large comic pages can be split into panes. Dull colors may outweigh the suffering for some of reading on LCD. It's subjective.

And low resolution as well.

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by kyôdai

Yeah, I kinda do not see that.

Mangas are like 99% black and white.
As with textbooks it does not make much sense to sacrifice the much better display quality of a reagular e-reader for 1 coloured cover page...

And most coloured comics are a lot bigger then a 7.8" screen. European comics are almost twice as big.

15,8 x 11,8 cm - 7,8" Display
25,7 x 16,8 cm - Marvel / DC Comics
29,5 x 22,0 cm - European Comics (Asterix, Luck Luke, etc.)

On top of that you get faint colors, a meager 100ppi and you have to crank up the light to get at least some contrast.

Don't get me wrong. I would like to have an e-Ink device for comics. But this is not it, yet.

Very good points! And not to forget the ghosting. It seems brutal on colour e-ink from what I've seen so far in video reviews.

I would love to buy a 13" colour e-ink reader for comics, but that's probably several years off. If it's ever going to happen. Even now bigger screens have low PPI for just black and white; it's hard to imagine them managing to make colour e-ink good enough and affordable in the near future.

Luckily, many disagree with me about the state of colour e-ink and buy these devices (the Hisense colour phones seem very popular for instance), which is great, as it incentivises these companies to develop the technology further.

[Quoth]

I think this isn't good enough for colour comics and Graphic novels: Too low res, too small, too washed out, too low contrast.

Ones that are OK in B&W, or 14 shades grey with black and white can use the 7.8" Bouye Likebook Mars which is better for B&W ebooks and a lot cheaper. Though it's not clear to me if the Mars is 300 dpi or 320 dpi. I must check.
I tried the free Mutant Hero Turtle comics on Google Playstore Playbooks. Only just viable on the 7.8" Mars due to SIZE, not lack of colour, fine on the 10" LCD Lenovo tablet.
A colour comic or graphic novel takes me a fraction of the time to read as novel, so I don't mind using the 10" Lenovo LCD tablet and the current model is 1/2 price of a Mars, which is much cheaper than than this. The Mars is about €80 cheaper than the Kobo Forma here and has BT (audio & keyboard) 3.5mm audio jack, Android apps, decent PDF margin crop, decent built in RAM & Flash and micro SD Card slot.

I still find the Kobo Libra best for annotation proof reading, but the Mars is OK for PDF scans of old books, Manga, koreader, Borrowbox etc.

Kaleido is a very niche solution looking for a problem and really needs 12"+ to compete with tablets. The 7.8" Kaleido and certainly 6" can't compete with a 10" LCD for colour and a 7" Libra for novels. You can buy both and and have change out of the price for this.

[Nate the great]

Pocketbook just announced that the new device is called the InkPad Color. it has a new-gen Kaleido screen.

https://the-digital-reader.com/2021/...een-costs-330/

[patrik]

Pocketbooks own short video-blurb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrsHBsUPhX4

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Pocketbook just announced that the new device is called the InkPad Color. it has a new-gen Kaleido screen.

https://the-digital-reader.com/2021/...een-costs-330/

They didn't just announce it, you can already buy it (in Europe).