The PocketBook Color runs a custom-made Linux-based OS that consists of different apps. Theres a web browser, a notes app, and even some video games like chess and sudoku. Page-turn and menu performance is sensible, if not quite as quickly as my Kindle Oasis. Battery life has been great– I havent charged the PocketBook Color in weeks.
The crucial element of Kaleido screens is that E Ink has actually established a thinner, higher quality color filter array than it utilized in its older Triton technology, which needed a glass-based color filter layer on top of the monochrome panel. E Ink says Kaleido displays can reveal up to 4,096 colors and 16 levels of grayscale, which is the very same as it claimed for Triton, however the overall color reproduction is much enhanced.
Wallet is an e-reader producer headquartered in Switzerland and mostly offering to numerous European markets. The business has been around because 2007 and says its the worlds 3rd largest maker of premium E Ink-based e-readers, presumably putting it behind Amazon and Rakutens Kobo.
Screen aside, the PocketBook Color doesnt look much different to any other 6-inch e-reader. Its all plastic, however the design is fairly smooth with a matte silver finish on the back and a soft-touch texture on the front. Youll find a power button, a Micro USB port (boo), and a microSD slot (yay) on the bottom edge. Theres a bundled Micro USB-to-headphone jack adapter so you can listen to audiobooks, and the gadget also has Bluetooth support for wireless headphones.
Needless to say, that has not ended up being the case. Amazon and Kobo still dont sell color e-readers, and if anything the possibility seems even further off than it did a decade back, now that its possible to offer satisfactory LCD tablets for well under $100. They dont have the battery life or the outdoor readability of E Ink, however its clear that thats a specific niche concern.
There are home, menu, and page-turn buttons situated below the screen, and theyre all easily available; at 160g, the PocketBook Color is light enough to hold with your thumb resting at the bottom. I actually choose this to the side-mounted page-turn buttons on previous Kindles Ive owned, which never quite felt like they were at the ideal height– at least not for my thumbs.
Kaleido screen innovation is a huge action forward
Excellent battery life
Easy, strong design
The catch is that the color filter range severely minimizes the screens overall resolution, considering that it beings in front of the monochrome E Ink microcapsules. The PocketBook Colors 6-inch screen has a resolution of 1072 × 1448 when showing white and black material, that makes for a high pixel density of 300 ppi, however areas of the screen that reveal color see pixel density drop to 100. The filter is also visible when checking out monochrome content if you look closely, giving the screen a somewhat grainier look than contemporary traditional e-readers.
Ive been looking at color e-reader prototypes as long as Ive been a tech journalist. Back in the early days of The Verge, we d often cover display technology like Qualcomms Mirasol or various E Ink prototypes and come away thinking that while it wasnt quite prepared, it was simply a matter of time.
E Ink is still dealing with the concept, however, and this year the company shipped its finest shot yet at color screen tech thats proper for e-readers: Kaleido. Ive been evaluating among the first e-readers to utilize this type of display, the brand-new EUR199 ($ 234) PocketBook Color, and while its not a perfect gadget, its excellent enough to offer me hope in the future of color E Ink.
Too small for many color material
Screen doesnt look great with monochrome books
Store is lacking
Bad Stuff
Good Stuff
All of this is great enough, but the PocketBook Color would be a totally average gadget if not for the screen. Lets talk about the screen.
The screen looks its finest outdoors
Color E Ink isnt rather there. Even though the PocketBook Color is the finest gadget of its kind to date, its hard to advise over traditional e-readers unless you know what you want to check out on it, considering its practically two times the rate of a Kindle Paperwhite. Do you have a 6-inch e-reader currently and typically utilize it for things that you wish you could check out in color?
The one thing that does dependably look great on the PocketBook Color is book covers, and you know what they state about evaluating books on those. Though, that could be the thing that drives adoption of the technology. Its definitely great to take a look at your library and the book shop in color– even E Ink itself offers Kaleido as enabling “a more totally recognized ebook shopping experience.” If anythings going to get Amazon on board, you d believe it would be that.
Even in a world where the PocketBook store was stacked with bestsellers, or where you had legal, DRM-free copies of whatever you d ever desire to read, the PocketBook Color would not be the finest way to make the most of a Kaleido screen. Regular books with the occasional color illustration or graphic work quite well, but thats not a really common or amazing use case, and monochrome e-readers have better overall screen quality.
There are modes for zooming, scaling, and seeing specific panels, however I didnt discover them to be very practical or efficient. While the PocketBook Colors efficiency is typically fine, it isnt truly approximately the task of controling a large PDF. I would be really thinking about a version of this gadget with an 8- or 9-inch screen, because I believe it d be a far better fit for the type of material that works best on the Kaleido screen.
I like using the PocketBook Color in the very same situations where I d choose to use a Kindle over an iPad. The screen looks its best outdoors in the sun– I d compare the color recreation to a newspaper thats faded over a few days.
Screen aside, the PocketBook Color doesnt look much various to any other 6-inch e-reader. The catch is that the color filter array seriously minimizes the screens total resolution, considering that it sits in front of the monochrome E Ink microcapsules. The PocketBook Colors 6-inch screen has a resolution of 1072 × 1448 when showing black and white content, which makes for a high pixel density of 300 ppi, however areas of the screen that reveal color see pixel density drop to 100. Even in a world where the PocketBook store was stacked with bestsellers, or where you had legal, DRM-free copies of everything you d ever want to read, the PocketBook Color would not be the finest method to make the most of a Kaleido screen. Routine books with the occasional color illustration or graphic work pretty well, however thats not a very common or exciting usage case, and monochrome e-readers have better general screen quality.
I dont think Kaleido in its existing type is the innovation thats going to take color E Ink mainstream, however its getting there. Despite the fact that the color reproduction is never ever going to complete with LCD tablets, a larger screen with equal (or ideally greater) sharpness would be excellent for reading things like comics and publications outdoors, and the battery life advantage remains significant.
The screen is less remarkable inside your home, since you actually need to use the front light to see much of anything. Crank it up too high and you do not truly seem like youre taking a look at an e-reader anymore, but the colors are hard to make out at too low a brightness. I found setting it to around 30-percent brightness usually provided the finest balance of color and convenience. However with glare and power consumption less of an issue at home, I d be most likely to grab a regular tablet in the first place.
Kaleido color E Ink benefits the exact same reasons as monochrome E Ink. It still includes a great deal of trade-offs, however, and the PocketBook Color isnt the gadget that will flaunt its real capacity. But keep an eye on this innovation– for the very first time in a long while, it in fact feels like color e-readers might be practical quickly.
PocketBooks store has an incredibly limited choice of English-language content. Im not going to criticize the item too difficult for that, given that it isnt even offered in Anglophone markets, however you need to anticipate to have to pack it up with your own DRM-free material if you select to import. The PocketBook Color supports numerous book formats including EPUB, CBR, CBZ, MOBI, and PDF, and you can sync files to the gadget either over Dropbox or through PocketBooks own cloud service, which is simple and fast.
Overall, I think Kaleido is imperfect but a minimum of viable as an e-reader screen technology, and the PocketBook Color is by far the finest color e-reader Ive ever seen. Its most significant problem is that I simply didnt understand what to do with it.
