While you get the same 7-inch 300 PPI display with the Ocean3, the quality has improved. For instance, the company claims that display clarity is better by 25.57 percent while screen compression has improved by 86 percent. The display otherwise has a screen-to-body ratio of 72 percent besides supporting 256 levels of grayscale along with the 28-level warm and cold front light feature. The Ocean3 can now be ordered via the Good e-Reader Store, priced at $291.99.
The overall colour scheme is piano black, and the screen is flush with the bezel, protected by a layer of glass. There are manual page turn buttons on the right side, which is excellent for people who like the tectonic feel of buttons instead of exclusively relying on the touchscreen display. The back is rubber and tends not to be a fingerprint magnet. There is a USB-C port, power button and microphone. Underneath the hood is a 2Ghz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM and 32/64 GB of internal storage. iReader Ocean3 is a better performer than its predecessor and offers 17 percent faster page response times along with 10 percent faster boot speed. Power consumption has been optimized so that the new Ocean3 draws 30 percent less of the battery juice. Specifically, you have an 1800 mAh battery with the e-reader which the company claims offers a standby time of 30 days or 75 hours of reading time. Connectivity options the Ocean3 supports include Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi 2.4G and 5G.
The iReader Ocean3 continues with the same basic design as the Amazon Kindle Oasis. It has an asymmetrical back platting, with a slight hump, where the battery and most components are. It measures just 4mm in thickness, barring the left spine, which is a tad bit thicker and can help hold and operate the device. It weighs an equally convenient 175 grams as well. The thicker left spine is also where the physical buttons are located and can be used for turning pages.
The Ocean3 also supports almost all known e-books and audiobook formats. It also offers intelligent features such as PDF image rearrangement, two-finger image zoom-in, pagination and side trimming, image enhancement, etc. The integrated speaker will let you listen to audiobooks with ease. Then there are multiple voice modes that the Ocean3 supports along with Bluetooth headset. This e-reader is appealing to people who speak English and Chinese. The entire UI changes based on the language you speak.
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.