ERA

PocketBook Era: e-book that talks

The new model from one of the most popular e-book makers, alongside Amazon, is not only strong in display but can also be used as an audio book.

The e-book reader is an interesting commodity: many people expected that tablets would kill you, or that people just didn't understand it, saying that those who like to read don't give up the charm of a traditional book. Well, almost 15 years have passed and e-book readers are still with us, in fact, they are being actively developed and new models are coming. The clear ruler of the category is Amazon, which has excelled in sales lists for many, many years with the Kindle series.

However, while Amazon moved to larger image diagonal and handwriting recognition with Scribe, another major manufacturer, PocketBook, has released a new, small model. Of course, this also includes the fact that the PocketBook already has a model with a large screen diagonal, two of them called InkPad Lite and InkPad X. Now, however, the field belongs to the PocketBook Era model, which is small, light and tries to overcome the Kindle Paperwhite with some serious extras.

He was born to read...The PocketBook Era is an especially small, thin and light e-book reader: just 7.8 mm thick and 228 g – as much as a medium-sized cell phone. Of course, its image diagonal is much larger, 7 inches, and it uses the E Ink Carta 1200 panel. This provides a resolution of 300 dpi with a pixel count of 1264×1680. Sure, it's a grayscale display, but the lighting isn't far behind: the SMARTlight front lighting (although e-book readers don't have backlighting, which is tiresome and eye-damaging) can be adjusted in several steps, but you can also choose automatic brightness control. This includes being able to adjust the color temperature, so you can also choose a nice, warm white that is more pleasing to the eye.

This can also be set to automatic, but in our experience the automatic control of brightness and color temperature needs a software update as it turned the lighting off almost completely in the dark and had to be fixed manually. The PocketBook Era has an IPX8 rating, which means it's dust and water resistant, which is now to be expected in the world of higher priced e-book readers. The manufacturer solved this with a special matte layer, which means that the screen hardly shines even in direct sunlight, and it even resists scratches well, but on the other hand, the image is a little opaque and veiled.

The Era got the usual PocketBooks menu, which is a little different than the usual Kindle menu, but it's practical and you can't get lost in it. Scrolling, menu, on/off are all available with the side buttons, but the screen is also touch-sensitive, so you can issue the most important commands here too. I didn't write "right-hand buttons" on purpose, because you can hold the Era in your left hand, and the device even recognizes you when you rotate it and automatically adjusts the display content accordingly. It's annoying when you're lying on your side, but luckily you can turn it off. The Era model is powered by a 1GHz dual-core SoC with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, what could you say is irrelevant data, since when did it matter whether a book is fast or slow?

However, in the case of e-books, pagination speed, menu calling speed, and navigation matter, and this is notably slow in the case of the PocketBook Era. Several times I pressed the menu button twice because I thought the device did not register the button pressed the first time. Scrolling isn't particularly fast either, and this can be confusing for many. You can charge it through the Type-C port, which is on the side of the device, while the speaker is on the bottom. You also need to use the Type-C port if you want wired audio output, for which you will find a Type-C to jack converter in the box.

Let your book speak loudly!...However, PocketBook Era is more than just an e-book reader. The metal-framed device also has a speaker, and in addition to Wi-Fi, a BT module has also been included, so you can connect your headphones and speakers to it and listen to audiobooks. There's a separate menu item for that, and of course you won't have any problems with Hungarian audiobooks either. The menu is also Hungarian, but the dictionary available for the texts does not support the Hungarian language. You can also order your gadget for text reading, where an English speech synthesizer is available by default, but you can also download other languages ​​from the menu. There were two Hungarian options here: Kinga and Attila.

During the test, both read surprisingly well from the selected book, the synthesis was continuous, except for minor stutters. They also tried to pay attention to the intonation, read the dates and some proper English names correctly, but if you intend to enjoy the books that way, put it aside, monotonous reading can't replace audio books by any means - it's lucky that these are also supported by Era.

Annotation is also taken care of, but don't look at it as a diary or an efficient note-taking tool - instead you can select pieces of text in books and writings, add comments to certain elements with your fingerprint - It was saved and listed- them neatly.

Is it worth buying?...The PocketBook Era has a lot to offer, especially in good quality. The screen resolution is good, the foreground lighting can be strong enough and SMARTlight is also useful, although the automatic control is still not perfect. By connecting to the Wi-Fi network, you can access many convenience functions such as bookshop, send from a PC (Send to PB) and Dropbox integration. There is note management, you can also listen to audiobooks, you can use BT module for that and you can also run some apps including browser, dictionary, RSS reader, calendar, calculator and some simple games (like chess)

Another plus of the Era is the IPX8 rating, improved scratch resistance (although we haven't tested this and admit that a case is definitely justified for any e-book reader), good uptime and the many, many functions already listed above. In the other pan is the more veiled image (the eye accustomed to an e-book reader will notice it more easily), the high price and the slowness – for so many functions, a more agile operation would be necessary.

If you don't want to start with the Amazon Kindle range, the PocketBook is definitely a good alternative, and the Era offers a lot in an ideal size – just don't get impatient.

mundophone