Quick Summary
Swiss e-reader manufacturer PocketBook has entered the UK market with a bang.
As in the US and Central Europe, Brits can now buy its range of full-colour eBook devices at very affordable prices.
You might not have heard of Swiss e-reader company PocketBook before, especially in the UK, but if you're in the market for a full-colour eBook device it's a brand that should make you sit up and take notice.
Amazon has recently kickstarted interest in full-colour E Ink with its Kindle Colorsoft launching in October. However, it was far from the first to market with a colour device and there are a couple of alternatives that have just arrived in the UK that offer intriguing alternatives. Not least because one of them is over £100 cheaper.
The PocketBook Verse Pro Color is a waterproof (IPX8) 6-inch e-reader which is compatible with 25 different file formats, so you can read any eBook, comic, pdf or document you fancy. It also supports six audiobook formats, including M4A and MP3.zip.
It runs on a quad-core processor with 16GB of built-in storage, while dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4 / 5 GHz) ensures stable wireless connectivity. Bluetooth 5.4 is also available for hook up to headphones.
There's even text-to-speech functionality to read out conventional eBooks and files.
The E Ink Kaleido 3 colour display has a 1072 x 1448 resolution for black and white reading, 536 x 724 for full-colour. It comes with a front light (SMARTlight) for night reading. And battery life is claimed to last up to a month on a single charge (through USB-C).
There is a book store app preinstalled to purchase titles, but you can also add your own via PocketBook Cloud or Dropbox.
The PocketBook Verse Pro Color is priced at £149.99 in the UK – £120 less than the Kindle Colorsoft. You can also get it from Amazon in the US for $169.
If you fancy stepping up a notch, the PocketBook InkPad Color 3 sports many of the same features and capabilities, but ups the screen size and resolution.
It offers a 7.8-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 full-colour display with a 1404 x 1872 pixel resolution in black and white, 702 x 938 in colour.
SMARTlight front lighting continues, while IPX8 waterproofing will keep it safe, even when reading next to the pool. You get a bump in storage too, up to 32GB.
The PocketBook InkPad Color 3 is available for £279.99 in the UK from Laptops Direct. The same model can be bought for $329 in the States.
