The Pocketbook Inkpad Lite is a 9.7 inch dedicated e-reader with an E INK screen. This is one of the largest singular purpose products on the market and is great for reading comics, ebooks and manga. Pocketbook can be considered an agnostic reader, it doesn’t lock you into a specific ecosystem and plays nicely with a slew of different formats. It is currently available as pre-order for $289 and will come out on October 15th, 2021.
The Pocketbook InkPad Lite features a 9.7 E INK Carta HD with a resolution of 1200×825 with 150 PPI. Although the PPI isn’t that great, text really pops, because there is no glass layer, so you see the e-paper display and can even touch it. I always really like sunken screen and bezels, because it provides a crisper experience when reading. The vast majority of ebook readers on the market, from Kindle to Kobo to Nook, all have glass screens, which reflect light when your outside and there are more layers on-top of the e-paper display, so you never get super crisp fonts, even if the PPI is higher.
There is a front display on the PB Lite, with 24 white LED lights to read at night or in lowlight conditions. You will be able to interact with the capacitive touchscreen display with your fingers, to click on navigational elements or turn pages of an ebook or PDF files. One of the most exciting designs is the inclusion of manual page turn buttons that are on the right side of the screen, they are quite different from other Pocketbook e-readers, because these buttons don’t protrude very much, they perfectly blend and its hard to notice they are there.
Underneath the hood is a dual core 1.0 GHZ processor, 512MB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage. It has a MicroSD card, which should provide an additional 128GB of additional storage. It has a g-sensor, WIFI and a USB-C port for charging and transferring data. The dimensions are 236.2x173x7.9mm and weighs 369g.
This e-reader is running Linux, which is far more stable than Android. This heavily influences battery life, and you should get 4 weeks, thanks to the 2200 mAh battery. It comes with a number of programs, such as a Pocketbook Cloud. The e-reading app supports CSM, CBR, CBZ, CHM, DJVU, DOC, DOCX, EPUB, EPUB(DRM), FB2, FB2.ZIP, HTM, HTML, MOBI, PDF, PDF (DRM), PRC, RTF and TXT. There are a number of Abby Lingvo dictionaries that come pre-loaded and you can download 24 additional languages.
The retail packaging is very nice, it has a large picture of the e-reader, in full color. On the back, it lists a number of key features and tech specs in over 12 different languages. When you open the box, there is a quick start guide, warranty and a piece of cardboard stock that acts as a promotional vehicle, hyping up the case. On the front of the device, you will see page turn keys and on the right side, is the SD card. On the bottom is your status indictor light and USB-C port.
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.
