Michael Kozlowski

11785 posts
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Unknown Amazon Packages are making a comeback

Amazon sometimes suffers from data breaches or users are using the same logins and passwords on multiple sites and they become compromised. Financial information such as debit or credit cards are normally encrypted. Logins and passwords are normally sold on blackmarket websites, hundreds of thousands are sold for a few thousand. This has created a modern concept called brushing, where you receive packages from Amazon, normally from China, with no return address. Once you receive them, bad actors are using your confirmed purchase to write positive reviews of their products. This is why sometimes when you are browsing Amazon, there are nonsensical reviews,  and even reviews of completely different products.

iReader C6 vs the Pocketbook Color

There are only two e-readers currently available that have modern color E INK panels. They are the iReader C6, which is primarily available in China and the Pocketbook Color. These two devices offer vastly different experiences for users. Which one is better? The Pocketbook is the better device, it supports comic book formats and manga. It is more internationally friendly and is around $120 cheaper.

Amazon Kindle can now save preferred fonts & layout settings

The Amazon Kindle app for iOS can now save your preferred font and layout settings into custom themes. Located in Aa menu, themes allow you to toggle between favorite reading configurations with a single tap. This system is ideal for people who share the same login and password between multiple people in a household. The settings in the iOS app are automatically synced to the Kindle line of e-readers, since they have had this feature for awhile. 

ebooks sales in the US generated $1.94 billion in 2019

The Association of American Publishers has announced that in 2019 ebook sales declined 4.9% and generated $1.94 billion. Overall sales are down 30.8% for the five-year period of 2015-2019. Digital audiobooks remains the fastest growing digital revenue segment in the industry, generating $1.31 billion in revenue in 2019, a 15.9% increase over 2018. In the five-year period from 2015-2019, downloaded audio grew a total of 143.8%.

The Pocketbook Color e-reader is great for Manga and Comics

The Pocketbook Color displays over 4,000 different colors with a resolution of 300 PPI. You will get a great color experience, even though the PPI is dialed down to 100 when viewing color content. Normally you might think that degraded resolution would be poor with comics or colored manga, but this isn’t further for the truth. The color quality of the average comic book, manga or even webcomic is not using millions of colors, the artists are using a limited palette that is suitable for publication, the less colors that are used, the cheaper the printing costs will be. Manga is sometimes drawn and colored by a single artist and writer, larger productions have an entire team.

Sony might be closing down the Digital Paper division

The Sony Digital Paper division might be in trouble in Japan and the United States. The USA division was started by Daniel Albohn and Bob Nell, in 2015. Both of them quit or retired from Sony in 2018 and 2019.  Sony suspended their relationship with Laruepr in early 2020 and currently and does not have anyone doing internal marketing . Last week Sony discontinued the Sony Digital Paper DPT-RP1, which initially came out in 2017. It is completely unavailable for purchase on Amazon.com, B&H and other retailers in Japan. Things are looking grim.

Dasung Not an e-Reader hits mass production in August

The Dasung Not an e-Reader has been crowdfunded for a few years and shipped their first units in October 2019 and since then, not many units have been shipped out. They closed their Indiegogo campaign in December and have been taking orders on their American and Chinese websites, but they have been out of stock for most of 2020. Customers are revolting in the comment section, since most have never received their units. This might change sometime this year.  Dasung has confirmed with Good e-Reader that most of their orders will be fulfilled  in September or October of this year, because in August, the Not an e-Reader will hit mass production.

Amazon releases new Print Cover cases for the Kindle

Amazon has just unveiled a new series of cases for the entry level Kindle. They are called Printed Covers and feature three full color themes, bookscape, library and mystery. They magnetically close, protecting your Kindle and automatically put to sleep when the case is closed and wakes it up when the case is opened. They are retailing for $24 USD on the main Amazon website and are not available outside of the United States, except for Good e-Reader.

Pocketbook Color eReader Hands on Review

The Pocketbook Color is a six inch e-reader that has a solid entry price of $219.99. You are getting a very consumer friendly product, although I know many people wish Pocketbook would develop a series of color e-readers with larger screens. I had high hopes for this e-reader. I wanted it to be good. I want there to be a future for color e-readers and if Pocketbook had a dud, it would be bad news for the e-reader industry, as a whole. I was pleasantly surprised, this model is actually really solid. You can browse the web in color. You can read ebooks in color, view the cover art and any pictures that are inside. PDF files are in full color. Other digital content such as comics or manga are also in full color. Don’t be put off by the 100 PPI maximum resolution for color content, you don’t even notice it. This is Pocketbooks second attempt at color. They first device was the Pocketbook Color Lux that came out in 2013 and was using E INK Triton, the amount of colors it could display was around 1k to 2k, and colors looked really washed out.  The PB Color in 2020 blows this old color technology out of the water.

Pocketbook Touch Lux 5 is coming out next week

The Pocketbook Touch Lux series is one of their most popular and their 5th generation e-reader is coming out next week and will cost $159.99. This device is very affordable, has a dual core processor, good battery and supports a myriad of formats.

Unboxing the brand new Pocketbook Color e-Reader

The Pocketbook Color is the first English e-reader that is employing the new E Ink Kaleido, which can display 4,000 colors and also show B&W text at 300 PPI. This is one of the most eagerly anticipated devices of 2020 and should prove whether or not there is a future in color e-readers.

Kobo Should start making Android tablets again

Kobo released a series of tablets a number of years ago and their first product was the Kobo Vox that was released in 2011 and second generation model was issued in 2012, the Kobo Arc. In 2013 they came out with the Arc HD and Arc 10, they discontinued them all a few years later and never developed another tablet. Do you think it is time for Kobo to develop more e-reading tablets? Kobo has moderate success in the early years of the global tablet market because there were no clear industry leaders. From 2011 to 2013 it was basically the wild west with everyone and their mother was releasing a new device and it quickly saturated the market. Apple, Amazon and Samsung have all proven to be the biggest players in the industry. Almost everyone else exited the sector.

Should Amazon let you sideload audiobooks on the Kindle?

A couple of years ago Amazon incorporated Audible audiobooks on the Amazon Kindle. All of the current and previous generation models have an audiobook player and you can listen to them with a pair of wireless headphones. There is an Audible shop, next to the Kindle store, where a wide selection of audio content is available. Amazon does not let you sideload in your own audiobook collection, because the audiobook player only recognizes Audible books. Should Amazon let users sideload in their own audiobooks, like they let people do with ebooks in various Kindle friendly formats?

Ebook sales continue to rise in April and May

Year-over-year e-book sales in the United States declined by 5%, with 55 million units sold through April 2020. However, unit sales in April 2020—the first full month of COVID quarantine—rose by nearly one-third, 31% compared to March 2020. All major categories experienced ebook growth in April 2020, compared to previous month, with adult fiction posting the largest unit gain of 1.8 million units, according to The NPD Group.

Xiaomi MiReader might see a global release

The Xiaomi MiReader came out last year and it has only been available in China, but the stores that sell them, are few and far between. The company might be gearing up for an international launch, because they have just obtained certification in the Bluetooth SIG database. It has also been renamed for a possible launch, now called MI Ebook Reader.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite and Oasis are sold out

Many people are buying a new Kindle e-reader for the summer and in conjunction with COVID, many of their most popular models are sold out. The Kindle Paperwhite 32GB without ads is of stock for 6-8 weeks and ditto with the 8GB model, except the base is in stock, but many of the new colors, such as Plum and Sage also facing the same delays. The Amazon Kindle Oasis 32GB is out of stock until the end of July, the 32GB is facing intermittent shortages, yesterday it said it was sold out until the end of August, but it now shows as available.

Apple Pencil could select colors from the real world

Apple has just filed a new patent for the Apple Pencil that will allow you to select colors from the real world to use as various colors when drawing. According to the patent filed last week, entitled ‘Computer System With Color Sampling Stylus’, that describes a computer stylus with a colour sensor, which has the ability to ‘read’ a colour when pressed against an object. The software would then put the colour into a colour palette in a drawing app, where it could be assigned to a brush and used in the art or design process.

Supernote A5 vs Fujitsu Quaderno A5

If you are looking to purchase a 10.3 inch e-note, Supernote and Fujitsu are two brands that deserve a serious look. The hardware is similar, but the software experience is very different. Supernote has the ability to read ebooks in EPUB, so you can take a break from note taking. Fujitsu has some great note taking templates and their calendar system is second to none.

The Top 5 Best E-Readers for Summer 2020

The Top e-Readers of summer 2020, primarily focus on ones that are affordable and have different ways of doing things. Our top picks are the Kobo Nia, the brand new device from Kobo. You can buy ebooks or borrow them from the library. The Pocketbook Color is the first e-reader with a color screen, aimed at mass market appeal. The Onyx Boox Poke 2 has Google Play, so you can install of your favorite apps. The Kindle Paperwhite sets the gold standard for e-readers, it has multiple colors, optional LTE with no monthly costs and a huge ebook ecosystem.

Supernote A6 is discontinued

Supernote has discontinued the A6 Agile, which came out in 2019. It will be replaced by the SuperNote A6X, which will come out on August 10th. This new device is exiting because it has been upgraded from a single core processor to a quad core and the RAM has also been doubled. Instead of running Linux, it will now have Android.

The Hisense Q5 is discontinued

Hisense has told Good e-Reader that their new RLCD Android 10 tablet is discontinued. This device just came out a couple of weeks ago and there was just a limited production run. Hisense executives were disappointed with the final product and pulled the trigger to pull it from retail shelves. In October, a second generation model will be released, fixing a number of issues, but the company failed to disclose how it will be changed.

Hisense Q5 RLCD Hands on Review

Hisense has been slowly gaining a reputation for making high quality E INK smartphones. They have released six different models in the past two years and have just released their first tablet, the Hisense Q5. This product is using an RLCD display screen, which does not have a front-light or backlight and is totally dependant on an external lighting source. The benefits is that the monochrome display will last you over a month, thanks to the massive battery. There is also no no refresh issues when it comes to page turn animations in Android e-reading apps or dropped frames when watching YouTube videos. Should you buy a Q5? This might he hard, because a few weeks after the release, it’s already discontinued.

Some Amazon Fire Tablets are getting an Android upgrade

Most flagship smartphones and tablets are using Android 10 and Google is gearing up for Android 11, this fall. Amazon tablets employ Android too, but they bill it as Fire OS. At the end of July, Amazon is going to be updating Fire OS 6, which is based on Android 7.1 to OS 7, which is Android 9. The tablets receiving the upgrades are the Fire HD 8 tablet, which was released in 2018, the entry level Fire 7 tablet, also from 2018 and the Fire 7 tablet that came out last year.