Back in 2021, Swiss e-reader manufacturer PocketBook was among the first to release a device built around E Ink's Kaleido Plus color technology. Now the company has updated the InkPad Color with a higher-resolution color E Ink screen.
As mentioned, the original InkPad Color e-reader featured the then brand new Kaleido Plus color E Ink technology, which also made it into the second-generation e-reader announced in April of this year. The latest version has been upgraded to Kaleido 3, which PocketBook notes translates to "an impressive 50% improvement in color e-page resolution and ppi."
Though the 4,096 colors available with Kaleido 3 are not going to challenge the richness available from traditional LCD or OLED screens, E Ink screens are much easier of the eyes when getting lost in a novel, comic or magazine for hours and hours. And the technology is much less of a drain on the battery.
Display resolution comes in at 702 x 936 pixels at 150 ppi for the 7.8-inch e-reader's color chops, while grayscale nudges that up to 1,404 x 1,872 at 300 ppi. The adaptive SmartLight offers the choice of a warm tone for the frontlight "for a cozy evening marathon with a book," while the cool tone is reported "perfect for morning reading." There's also a Dark Mode for late-night bookworms, which switches text and background colors for improved eye comfort.
The e-reader runs on Linux, is powered by quad-core processing brains assisted by 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage, and supports 25 book, comic and graphic formats, including CBR and CBZ. As before, much of the navigation through menus and content can be undertaken via the capacitive touchscreen display, though the are mechanical control buttons available too.
There's an integrated speaker for audiobooks, though Bluetooth 5.0 is also available for pairing with wireless earphones, and a Text-to-Speech feature allows users to sit back and have the device narrate the novel in a "natural-sounding voice" that can tap into 26 languages.
An interesting new addition to the specs sheet is IPX8 waterproofing, which means that it's no longer panic stations if the InkPad Color 3 is accidentally dropped in the bath or pool.
Elsewhere, there's dual-band Wi-Fi for purchasing books online or managing and backing up the library with PocketBook Cloud and/or Dropbox. A few games are included out of the box, such as chess and sudoku. And the 2,900-mAh battery is reckoned good for up to a month between charges.
PocketBook's latest color e-reader is due to go on sale from mid-November for US$329. The video below has more.
If you'd rather have a color e-reader in tablet size, Onyx Boox recently announced a pair of Kaleido 3-packing E Ink tablets that could fit the bill.
Product page: PocketBook InkPad Color 3