Title: Pocketbook Color
Author: Alex Kirk
Published: August 14, 2020
Last modified: October 26, 2023

---

# Pocketbook Color

August 14, 2020

I read a lot of web articles on my e-reader (often using [Push to Kindle](https://www.fivefilters.org/push-to-kindle/)
which is fantastic). I left the Kindle ecosystem a while ago and Pocketbook (a TouchHD
3) has been a good home so far.

Since my content is often a mix of text and non-text, I was appealed by a color 
eInk screen. The [Pocketbook Color recently came out](https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/news/pocketbook-color-news-ch)
and I purchased one to test it.

![](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/08/17659-pocketbook_color-
687x1024.jpg)

Here are my conclusions after about two weeks of usage:

#### Pro

 * While limited in their range, colors work well for diagrams, illustrations and
   screenshots. Photos can look a bit awkward but it’s definitely better than greyscale.
 * Before this e-reader, I haven’t read comics on a device but with color it’s quite
   fun. The clipping tools in the UI are useful to get rid of white borders around
   the actual comics.

#### Con

 * It’s not very suitable for night time reading (which is my main use case), the
   minimum brightness is high, there is only white backlight.
 * With the strong white backlight it feels like an LCD screen which kind of diminishes
   the idea behind eInk.
 * The technology seems to use two layers: one “common” 300dpi greyscale, and one
   around 150dpi color layer. This results in a pattern overlaying the whole screen
   making the screen less crips when reading text.
 * Pocketbook readers are rather slow. I always wonder how they do scrolling and
   inertia so much better than Kindles but feel so. slow. navigating through the
   UI.

Overall, I think color eInk is technology well worth exploring, especially when 
no backlight is necessary and it doesn’t need any battery power (think photo walls)

 I am torn whether I’ll keep the Pocketbook Color as my main reading device because
using the reader in the dark is like turning on the light in the room.

[Misc](https://alex.kirk.at/category/misc/)

[E-Reader](https://alex.kirk.at/tag/e-reader/)

Read this next

[Matt Mullenweg on Distributed Work](https://alex.kirk.at/2019/02/15/matt-mullenweg-on-distributed-work/)

### Leave a Reply 󠀁[Cancel reply](https://alex.kirk.at/2020/08/14/pocketbook-color/?output_format=md#respond)󠁿

Only people in [my network](https://alex.kirk.at/friends/) can comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. [Learn how your comment data is processed.](https://akismet.com/privacy/)