There has been an influx of 7.8 inch e-readers with adjustable front-lit displays that have hit the market in the past year. This screen size hits the sweet spot with most readers, because there is a lot of screen real estate for text and it is still pocket friendly.
The Mars is an Android e-reader that retails for $199. This device has a 7.8 inch E Ink Carta touchscreen display with a resolution of 1782×1448 and 300 PPI. The Mars has a front-lit display with 17 LED lights, the vast majority of them are white and the rest are orange to give a candlelight effect. Underneath the hood is a 8 core 1.5 GHZ processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. This is the first e-reader ever made with an octa-core processor. It also has support for Bluetooth, WIFi, 3.5mm headphone jack, but doesn’t have built in in speakers. It also has an SD card
The Boyue Likebook Muses has many things in common with the Likebook Mars, that was released last year. The big selling point is that this device has a WACOM active digitizer layer and comes with a stylus, so you can take notes, highlights and make annotations in ebooks. This e-reader is way better than the Mars because you can do so much more with it. This device retails for $249.
Pocketbook is one of those ereader brands that do not lock you into a specific ecosystem and allow you to load in your own ebook collection or load in titles purchased at other retailers. The Pocketbook InkPad Pro is a new flagship e-reader that does it all. It is waterproof and has Bluetooth, in addition to having a larger screen than the Kindle Oasis.
The Pocketbook InkPad Pro features a 7.8 inch E Ink Carta HD display with a resolution of 1404 x 1872 and 300 PPI. The screen is completely flush with the bezel and this was done for the IPX8 waterproof system that can allow the device to be completely submerged in freshwater for up to sixty minutes. Many e-readers that have a capacitive touchscreen display do not allow you to use swipes and gestures to turn the pages of an ebook, if there are water droplets on the screen. The Pocketbook is no different, but it does have physical page turn buttons on the bottom, so you can read in the bathtub or at the beach and not have to worry. You can read at night via the front-lit display, which has a series of 10 white LED lights on the bottom of the screen and has 9 amber ones, for their color temperature system. You can manually control the brightness of the screen or use the internal clock to automatically adjust it. There is no ambient light sensor to do this automatically. Underneath the hood is a dual core 1GHZ processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. You should get around three to four weeks of usage via the 1900 mAh battery. It retails for $279.99.
The SuperNote A6 is a very innovative writing slate that gives the Remarkable and Sony Digital Paper a run for their money. This device features a 7.8 inch display that has a WACOM layer, that has plastic film on the screen. They did this because their stylus actually looks like a ballpoint pen, which you can click on the top to retract the stylus. When interacting with the screen, there is a high degree of torque, which is the closest anyone has ever gotten to writing on real paper. The 7.8 screen is using E Ink Carta HD and Mobius. The overall resolution is 300 PPI and underneath the hood is a IM6 Solo Lite single core processor, 1GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. It retails for $399.
The Nova Pro features a 7.8 E-Ink Carta HD screen with a resolution of 1872×1404 and 300PPI. The screen is completely flush with the bezel. You can read in the dark via the front-lit display and it also has a color temperature system. You can have both lights on at the same time or chose one or the other. A color temperature system basically makes the screen emit less harsh white light when reading at night and can be optimized to display various levels of orange. The lighting system on the Nova Pro is fairly robust and the light can be shut off completely.
Underneath the hood is a 1.6GHZ quad core processor, which is the same one that the Onyx Boox Nova employs. There is 32GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, USB-C, 2800 mAh battery and Android 6.0. This device has Google Play available and this will allow you to install any apps you already have on your smartphone or tablet, right on the e-reader. It also is compatible with Google Play Books and other Google branded apps, since it has the Play Framework already installed, out of the box. It is on sale at Good e-Reader for $299.99
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.
