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E -Reader Reviews

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Good e-reader reviews e-readers, e-notes, tablets, smartphones and puts a priority on e-paper technology. You can find the latest reviews on the Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Onyx Boox and many more.

The Pocketbook Basic 4 is a respectable e-reader – Review

This is a simple, barebones e-reader with none of the frills and options as all of the other e-readers in Pocketbooks modern portfolio. There are a small minority of people who don’t like touch screens for whatever reason, or use their e-reader while wearing gloves or mittens, due to the cold weather. Clicking on big oversized page turn buttons can be used in this manner. The Basic 4 has a really good design, but doing any kind of typing is utterly terrible, I would recommend this as just a dedicated e-reader and that’s it.

Remarkable 1 vs Remarkable 2 – Which one should you buy?

Should you buy the Remarkable 1 or the Remarkable 2? The first generation is around $100 cheaper, has physical buttons and drawing on a plastic based screen is better than a glass based one. The Remarkable 2 is very hard to buy, the company is taking pre-orders, with ship takes month in advance, so it is hard to make an impulse decision. This device is thinner, has a better stock/premium stylus. It does have a subtle speed increase, due to the hardware, but is not night and day vs the first gen. I would honestly recommend you buy the Remarkable 1 at this point. It has the same battery and the same OS, so you will not miss out on any new enhancements. You can buy it for $299 new or $279 refurbished. Don’t get me wrong, the Remarkable 2 is capable, but it is an incremental upgrade.

What e-note is better? The Sony DPT-CP1 or Remarkable 2?

The Sony Digital Paper DPT-Rp1 has been available for the past three years and sets the gold standard for viewing and editing PDF files. The split screen view is robust and it is great for making notes. The Remarkable 2 has started to ship to people who placed pre-orders back in April and this device can not only view/edit PDF files, but also EPUB ebooks too. The drawing app is one of the best in the business, with their layering system and handwriting to text engine.

Remarkable 2 Marker Plus Pen Review

The Remarkable 2 comes with a free white stylus, but the company…

Remarkable 2 Hands on Review

The Remarkable 2 is one of the best e-notes on the market, it has the most advanced note taking features, handwriting recognition, can view and edit PDF files and ebooks. There are very few devices that can successfully compare against it. The main competitors against the Remarkable 2 is the Onyx Boox Note 2, which might not have all of the advanced note taking things, it does hold its own, it has a microphone, so you can even do audio to text, in addition to handwriting recognition. The Supernote A5 also competes against it, but is older, slow, and their handwriting software has been broken for years. I would really recommend the Remarkable 2 to someone who has an older e-note and wants to upgrade to the latest and greatest. The only barrier right now is the pre-order system, you can’t just buy it and have it delivered in a few weeks. If you order today, it will take 3-4 months for it to be sent out and this depends on stock availability. Hopefully in 2021 the stock situation stabilizes and can be purchased right away, ditto with standalone accessories, cases, stylus and nibs.

Quirklogic Papyr 13.3 inch e-note hands on review

The real power with this device is the collaborative drawing system. In our hands on review, we had a smartphone with the Quirklogic app and the Papyr, logged into the same cloud account. On the phone, I could make adjustments to the drawing or import in some images from local storage and it is instantly added to the Papyr. I really like this, and is a major selling point that no other e-note on the market could beat. Chances are you don’t have a deep library of images on your e-note, but you would on your smartphone.

Pocketbook Touch Lux 5 e-Reader Review

The Pocketbook Touch Lux 5 is brand new e-reader that has just…

These are all of the Color E INK e-Readers from 2020

This year E INK released Kaleido, a new form of color e-paper that was designed for e-readers, e-notes and smartphones. Most of these devices have 300 PPI to read black and white content, such as ebooks. These devices can display  4,096 different color combinations up to 100 PPI. The way the technology works, is that you can read both black and white text at 300 PPI and colors at 100 PPI, on the same page. This is useful if you are reading a biography ebook, where there are tons of pictures in the center, and also text, giving readers context. It also works using a web-browser,  or other ebooks. The B&W and Color filter have a hard time with PDF files, because they are basically big image files, although some PDF render engines can convert the PDF images to pictures AND text. CBR/CBZ, are popular formats for comics or manga, but they are basically containers for a series of jpg/png files.

Unboxing the iFlytek EBOOK C1 Color e-Reader

The front of the iFlytek ebook is white, with royal blue accents on the side, and the back platting is royal blue. There is a speaker on the back, for TTS, music or audiobooks. Bluetooth is available so you can connect up a pair of headphones or a wireless speaker too. No buttons of any kind are on the device, everything is software driven. On the bottom of the e-reader is a USB-C port, power button and microphone.

Unboxing the Pocketbook Basic 4 e-reader

Opening the box for the first time, you are greeted by the e-reader sitting in a tray, front and center. It is encased in a static proof bag. Underneath the reader is your warranty documentation, a full color promo document, encouraging people to buy a case and a quick start guide. There is also a Micro USB cable contained in a little cardboard flap. The color scheme of the e-reader is black. The pocketbook logo is green. The home button is different than the Pocketbook Color or the Touch Lux 5, it is rounded with a little boarder around it, so you won’t accidently misclick on it, while reading an ebook. The page turn buttons are next to the home button. I like the overall design, it is just a shame,  it does not have a front-lit display. 

Unboxing the new Pocketbook Touch Lux 5

The Pocketbook Touch Lux 5 is a brand new e-reader that is…

Amazon Fire HD 8 Unboxing Video

The Amazon Fire HD 8 came out a couple of months ago…

Hisense A5 PRO E INK Smartphone Hands on Review

The Hisense A5 Pro is basically the best black and white E…

Xiaomi Mi Reader Review

The Xiaomi Mi Reader features a 6 inch E INK capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels at 212 PPI. It has a front-lit display, which has a slider bar in the drop down menu, you can configure how bright you want the display. There is no color temperature system that is available on this model. 

Xiaomi Mijia Hygrometer Thermometer Pro Review

The Xiaomi Digital Thermometer Hygrometer measures both the temperature and humidity of the room and the parameters are displayed on a screen. The device features an 3.7 inch Ink display which ensures it conserves battery power, it will last up to a year on a single charge.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite vs Pocketbook Color

Pocketbook basically allows users to have more flexibility and control, users will have to sideload there own things to the device, or access Dropbox from the internet browser. A full color screen is a major selling point, Amazon will likely not do color for a few years.  Amazon is more user friendly, you can do everything right on the reader, without really needing to sideload, although you can sideload in your own ebooks, you can’t do it with audio files.

Kyocera KY-01L Card Keitai Review

The Docomo Kyocera KY-01L Card Keitai came out in late 2018 and…

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.

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.

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.

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.

Unboxing the Hisense Q5 RLCD Android Tablet

Hisense has released their first tablet with an transflective LCD display. It…

Kobo Nia e-reader Review

The Kobo Nia is the first e-reader that the company has released in 2020. It is considered an entry level e-reader that is ideal for people who have never had one before or had an older Kobo branded device that is more than five years old.  It is great to read ebooks, borrow ebooks from Overdrive or read blog articles from Pocket. It seriously lacks the hardware power to read PDF files effectively or use the experimental web browser.