The InkBook Classic 2 is very much akin to the Amazon Kindle Basic Touch. It is a no-frills touchscreen e-reader that is designed to read e-books and also has manual page turn buttons. This review will showcase an unboxing and review video, so you can get a sense on what the Classic 2 brings to the table.
The InkBook Classic 2 features a six inch Carta E-ink touchscreen with a resolution of 800 x 600. It does not have a front-light, so you will not be able to read in the dark. Underneath the hood is a dual-core CPU with 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage. It does have a microSD card slot, so you can enhance the storage up to 32 GB. You can download e-books from the internet via WIFI via the built in bookstore or you can load in your own.
The Classic 2 is running Android 4.2.2 and you can you install your own apps. There is a built in app store, but it only has a paltry selection of around 12 different e-reading apps. You might want to install the Good e-Reader App Store for E Ink which has thousands of apps and is optimized for e-readers.
The stock e-reading experience is fairly solid. It has a number of fonts available to increase the size and the font type. Since it is running Android you can easily install other fonts such Amazon Ember, Bookerly or the new Google Literata font, you can easily install it on your own. You can highlight words, make notes or lookup the meaning of the word, but there is no built in dictionary, you look up the meaning of the word via Google.
I think this is a great e-reader for the price. It is agnostic, so you are not locked into a specific ecosystem like you would be if you bought something from Amazon or Kobo. You can craft your own experience and the e-reader is fairly robust due to the dual core processor. This device is available at Amazon for $89.99.
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.
