Articles

Pocketbook InkPad Color Has a New Kaleido E-ink Screen, Costs $330 | The Digital Reader (the-digital-reader.com)

German Language / Deutsche Sprache

PocketBook InkPad Color: Großer eReader in Farbe – COMPUTER BILD

Inkpad Color: Neuer E-Reader mit Farbdisplay – PC-WELT

From the horse’s mouth

PocketBook

PocketBook InkPad Color: meet the first 7.8-inch e-reader with color E Ink new Kaleido™ screen (Press Release)

InkPad Color reader (Product Page)

Video – Click or tap to play in YouTube

My Comments

Previously, PocketBook who is a Switzerland-based eBook reader manufacturer, offered the first colour eBook reader which has a very useable colour e-ink display. This unit was with a 6” display.

But they have extended this to an eBook reader with a larger 7.8” display but achieving the same “dot-per-inch” resolution as the 6” model. The frontlight is even designed to work properly with E-Ink Kaleido and yield the best visual performance even if it is turned down to the lowest level.

Most of the features for this PocketBook InkPad Color are the same for both the PocketBook Color eBook readers with things like text-to-speech, Bluetooth connectivity, and support for audio files based on MP3, Ogg Vorbis and AAC codecs. But it also has Wi-Fi which would come in to its own for downloading eBooks and other “electronic hard copy” material from PocketBook’s own electronic bookstore, Dropbox and ReadRate. It also has a built-in RSS-based Webfeed reader for those of us who follow blogs and other online services using this standard technology.

The large colour display may come in to its own with graphic novels or other illustrated material. I would see this more so in France and Belgium where the “BD” visual novels  and comic albums are an artform unto themselves. Even business and education would value the large colour screen for illustrated materials delivered in electronic hard copy.

The PocketBook InkPad Color will weigh in at 225g even though it has the large screen. It will cost EUR€299 in Europe or US$330 in the USA.

It will be interesting to know how the E-Ink Kaleido technology will be taken further. In the near term, it could be about moving towards larger colour e-ink displays. But it could also lead towards work on photo-quality colour e-ink displays, making for electronic photo frames that use this technology or even towards colour digital signage.

What needs to happen is for more eBook readers to license and implement colour e-ink technology. Here, a colour display can be seen by an e-book reader manufacturer as a product differentiator just as size or network / Internet connectivity is used for that purpose. It can encourage authors and publishers to use colour as a drawcard for their eBook versions of their works.

Article

Pocketbook Color eReader Hands on Review | Good EReader

Pocketbook Color: eBook-Reader bekennt Farbe (Pocketbook Color: eBook reader shows its colours) | Computer Bild (German Language / Deutsche Sprache)

From the horse’s mouth

PocketBook

PocketBook Color – the Swiss brand will release a new e-reader with color screen (Press Release)

PocketBook Color (Product Page)

Video – Click or tap to play on YouTube

My Comments

An e-book reader available on the European market is existing as a commercially-available example of a colour e-ink display.

E-ink is a display technology that works in a similar manner to ink on paper and uses existing light. It only consumes power every time the display is refreshed thus making it more power-efficient. It also works well in bright sunlight due to it not being dependent on a light source that can be easily “washed out” by the sun. Its main application has been handheld e-book readers but it has been limited to black-and-white display.

There has been work taking place to have e-ink displays capable of displaying in colour. It has come through in the form of the E-Ink Kaleido colour display which uses the same e-ink technology.

This has manifested in the Pocketbook Color which is an e-reader that has a colour e-ink display.

This EUR€199 device uses a 6” e-ink touch screen capable of displaying 4096 colours, with a resolution of 1072×1448. There is also LED lighting so you can use this device in darker settings. For audio, it can handle AAC, Ogg Vorbis and MP3 files, which can be played through earphones or a Bluetooth-connected audio device.

It has 16Gb of internal storage and can use SDHC memory cards, not sure what size, with a maximum capacity of 32Gb. This handheld device weighs in at 160 grams, something that would be acceptable for that class of device.

For e-book readers, the colour display may be seen as legitimate for visual novels or books that have colour photos or illustrations. Businesses may see it appealing for distributing brochures and catalogues in an electronic format for offline reading. As well, where colour is used to differentiate or highlight text in a book the colour e-reader will come in to its own here. A classic example of this is are the “red-letter” Bibles where the words of Jesus Christ are written in red.

But I also see the idea of a colour e-ink display appealing to other applications like colour digital signage in use cases where battery power is preferred. Examples of these would include outdoors use or freestanding signs. Or it could be about working towards making e-ink as a viable display alternative for laptops, tablets and smartphones where power efficiency is desired.