PocketBook, has gained popularity in Europe for its extensive line of e-readers. The PocketBook Era, among their newer models is slightly cheaper than the Kindle Oasis.
If you’ve been exploring e-readers beyond the realm of Kindles, the name “PocketBook” might have surfaced in your search. Although both devices facilitate reading, the user experience significantly varies between them. Here’s a brief upfront summary:
PocketBook Era: A fantastic option for those seeking an escape from the Kindle ecosystem.
Kindle Oasis: Offers a superior experience if you prefer staying within the Amazon world.
Pocketbook Era Specification
Table of Contents
Pros and Cons of Pocketbook Era
Pros
- Exceptional Build Quality with high-quality plastic construction comparable to Kindle Oasis.
- Comfortable asymmetrical design with an angled grip for a snug fit in the hand.
- Page Turn Buttons for easy navigation while reading.
- Comes with variants offering up to 64GB internal storage.
- Waterproof Design for reading in water-prone environments with IPX8 water-resistant rating.
- 7-inch E-Ink Carta 1200 screen with 300 PPI providing a satisfying reading experience.
- Does not track user data, ensuring a more private reading experience.
- Customizable UI & Touch Gestures.
- Offers various apps like games, calculators, music playback, and Dropbox integration.
- Easy transfer of files without the need for mandatory account creation.
Cons
- Slightly heavier compared to similar 7-inch readers like Kindle Oasis.
- Black saturation and lighting might fall slightly behind competitors.
- Side-lit LEDs affect overall light distribution, showing a subtle brightness gradient.
- Initial Bluetooth setup glitches and distorted inbuilt speaker at higher volumes.
- Lacks a dedicated sleep mode function, requiring a longer press of the power button.
- Difficulty in exporting notes, lacking user-friendly export options like Readwise service on Kindle.
Design & Features
The PocketBook Era stands out for its exceptional build quality and design. It boasts high-quality plastic construction, offering a premium feel similar to the Kindle Oasis.
Design and Ergonomics: The PocketBook Era boasts an asymmetrical design akin to Kindle Oasis, featuring narrow bezels except for the side used for holding the device. The ergonomic design, with its angled grip, provides exceptional comfort, ensuring a snug fit in the hand without causing discomfort. However, the device is primarily constructed with plastic, showcasing high-quality frame finishing on the sides and a slightly less premium feel on the backside.
Page Turn Button: The placement of page-turn buttons on the side enhances ease of use, unlike the Oasis’s bezel-embedded buttons. However, the grooved texture on the back might collect dust and debris.
Features: Packing a punch in the feature department, the PocketBook Era offers variants with 16GB or 64GB internal storage, Bluetooth connectivity, an inbuilt speaker, and an IPX8 water-resistant rating. Despite its feature-rich profile, the device weighs 228 grams, slightly on the heavier side for a 7-inch reader compared to Kindle Oasis’ 188 grams with a metal body.
Water Resistance: An added advantage of the PocketBook Era is its waterproof design, making it an ideal companion for reading in water-prone environments without concerns about damage.
Display
The PocketBook Era, boasting a 7-inch flush screen bezel, an E-Ink Carta 1200 screen, and 300 PPI matching the latest Kindles, providing a crisp and satisfying reading experience. Its warm light display ensures comfort in various lighting conditions, making it a pleasure to read on this device.
The Carta 1200 display, delivers impressive contrast and readability ensuring sharp and crisp content. However, the display’s black saturation might fall slightly behind competitors like Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Libra 2, especially when accompanied by the inbuilt lighting, which lacks the same richness.
Reading
The PocketBook Era excels in handling ebooks with customizable text styling options and efficient library organization using tags or file structures.
Reading Experience: Unlike Android-based e-readers, the PocketBook Era’s reading application is optimized and stable. With intuitive long presses for highlights, notes, and various navigation options, the e-book reading experience is seamless. Customizable font sizes, styles, and even a Text-to-Speech (TTS) feature enrich the reading experience
PDF Functions: For PDF viewing, the PocketBook Era offers several useful options, including scrolling and columns mode, enhancing readability, especially for scientific papers. However, the export function for notes made in PDFs requires refinement to enhance usability.
Book Store: PocketBook has significantly revamped its ebook store, offering improved aesthetics and functionality. However, the search function falls short, displaying desired books at lower positions, requiring refinement. Interestingly, the PocketBook Era respects user privacy by allowing device functionality without mandatory account creation, a commendable approach in today’s connected landscape.
Another significant advantage of the PocketBook Era lies in its seamless ability to side-load ePub files onto the device. Simply connect it to your computer, drag and drop the files onto the device, and they’re ready for use. Additionally, the PocketBook natively supports ePub files, making the process hassle-free.
Manga Viewing Experience: The PocketBook Era’s screen size, physical page turn buttons, and pinch-to-zoom feature make it an almost perfect fit for manga reading. While it doesn’t support manga apps directly, side-loading manga files is convenient, with storage options allowing for substantial manga collections.
Note Taking: Its note-taking functionality supports both virtual keyboard and handwriting, albeit more suited for capacitive touchscreen pens. However, the dictionary function’s limitations in recognizing only infinitive words may require manual editing, and the export function for handwritten notes could benefit from improvement
Though not primarily a note-taking device, the Scribble app impresses with its note-taking capabilities. Offering basic features like different pen thicknesses, eraser, and text insertion, it serves as a decent tool for jotting down notes.
Text-to-Speech: The PocketBook Era incorporates built-in speakers and text-to-speech functionality, a feature absent in Kindles. While not professional-grade, it offers a decent reading aloud experience akin to a free audiobook.
User Interface and Software
Software Experience: The device’s software experience holds its ground, presenting a polished and intuitive UI comparable to industry leaders like Kindle and Kobo. The library interface offers comprehensive filtering and sorting options, allowing efficient management even for large ebook collections.
The layout might initially feel different, scrolling vertically through the ebook list, but it swiftly becomes user-friendly after adaptation
A small yet appreciated setting allows users to disable recommendations on the home screen, focusing solely on personal book libraries, a feature lacking in current Kindle software.
Customize Touch Gestures: The PocketBook Era allows for customized touch areas while reading, providing users with flexibility and control over their reading experience.
Apps: The device goes beyond being solely an e-reader, offering various apps like games, calculators, music playback, and Dropbox integration. However, this abundance of additional features might distract from the primary reading purpose.
Privacy: One prominent benefit of owning a PocketBook over a Kindle is privacy. Unlike Amazon’s ecosystem that gathers and utilizes user data, the PocketBook offers an independent environment. It doesn’t track your reading habits or build profiles, ensuring a more private and sandboxed experience.
Audiobooks Support
Bluetooth and Audio Features: While Bluetooth for wireless headphones or speakers is a common offering, the PocketBook Era goes further with an onboard speaker and a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter, allowing wired headphone connections.
However, initial Bluetooth setup glitches and inconsistencies were evident, requiring a device restart to rectify audio output issues. Audio quality from the inbuilt speaker, while functional, becomes distorted at higher volumes, best suited for quieter environment
Audiobook App: Organizing audiobooks on the dedicated audio app is seamless, but integration within the general ebook library would enhance accessibility and organization.
The integrated store allows easy access to both ebooks and audiobooks, demonstrating the device’s commitment to audio features and an all-in-one reading experience.
Pricing
The PocketBook Era emerges as a well-designed e-reader with a rich feature set and a modern user interface. Its ergonomic design, impressive display, and extensive feature list make it a strong contender in the market. The price varies for 16 GB and 64 GB Variants.
Conclusion
While acknowledging the Kindle’s superior overall experience, the Verse Pro offers a compelling alternative for those seeking liberation from the Amazon Kindle ecosystem. It stands as a worthy contender, especially with the installation of the C-Reader app, enabling a level of flexibility and functionality that enhances the reading experience.
For those intrigued by the Verse Pro, delving into the PocketBook Era, considered the premium counterpart in the PocketBook lineup akin to the Kindle Oasis, might be worth exploring. This device might offer additional features and a more refined experience than the Verse Pro.
Before You Go……
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