PocketBookPocketBook Era Color E-Reader | Eye-Friendly 7'' E-Ink Kaleido 3 Touch-Screen | Audio-Book & E-Book Reader | Waterproof | Text-to-Speech Function | Built-in Speaker | WiFi & Bluetooth | Stormy Sea

This review is from the perspective of these use-cases:- Reading both English (US) and Russian/Cyrillic- Heavy need for offline dictionary lookup, especially with Russian-Russian and Russian->English dictionaries- Using mainly Koreader side-loaded over USB connection from MacOS - A lot of this review is of the pairing of Koreader with the device, not just the device itself- Using Calibre to organize and send books- No comics or any real need for color e-ink screen- Using side-loaded and koreader dictionaries- Comfortable with tech and tweaking configs- No experience with the store, I sideload books (the only way IMO) - if you're a kindle store user - good luckThis thing is exactly what I was looking for.Move from Kindle:I had a Kindle Oasis, the latest version before they discontinued it. I loved the physical buttons but the battery was trash from the start, and the dictionary support was really weak.I needed1) better dictionaries (which the oasis didn't support most common dictionary formats)2) you couldn't select and define a word that is within the definition of a different word. No good when you have a weak vocabulary. The old kindle 3 could, but Amazon stopped caring about the nice finishing touches on the Kindle long ago.3) better battery lifeI chose the Pocketbook Era Color because it had:1) the ability to sideload koreader easily and good koreader integration (you can override the default reader to koreader directly without too much tinkering - nice. No jailbreak needed.2) I chose the color because it actually has better tech specs over the regular Era. I would gladly give up the color screen for sharper contrast and lower price - but I wanted that quad-core over the dual and 1GB of RAM instead of 512MB - anything to make these snappier - I chose to deal with potential contrast issues or darkness - worth it3) All the format support I could needExperience:- People here complained about "uneven lighting" - I don't see that - either they're picky or they fixed it. Looks even steven to me.- Nice build - doesn't have the metallic casing of the oasis, and its a little thicker - but I kind of like it more for some reason - its not bulky, feels much better to hold, personal pref I suppose- Took half a day of tinkering to get it just how I like it, some of that was due to koreader being so feature rich, and not a knock on this reader at all.- Side loading koreader was a snap. no jailbreak needed, awesome.- I briefly took a look at the pocketbook default reader, and the dictionary requires either two presses to get to the word, or to go into dictionary mode, which I'd rather just hit the word and quickly get the pop up. It matters when your vocab is bad and you do this a lot. Maybe there is a fix, but I just chose to go the koreader route. Will be more consistent between this and future devices. Looks nice otherwise.- Koreader lets you associate the file types to itself, so you open the book in pocketbook, and it opens in koreader. Nice.- Battery life is great. Maybe not "new mac/iphone" great, but absolutely what i would expect and probably better.- I got the flip case (not shell) - you unclip a narrow side panel in the back, the cover attaches there flush with tabs on one side and magnets on the other. Works great - no it probably won't protect the edges - get a shell if you need that. The cover is a good material that looks like it won't fray like the oasis covers did.- Warmth/frontlight/night mode all work great under both pocketbook and koreader.- If you enable automatic frontlight settings, koreader won't be able to modify the frontlight, so you'll need to exit and disable auto front light - there's probably an easier way but i haven't cared enough to look- Dictionary support in koreader - solid, best experience I've had with it for both Russian and English. I pulled down a bunch of dictionaries, and the ReaderDict and Koreader Wiktionary dictionaries are by far the best. You can select the word, select another word within the first definition, and edit the word being searched for, and quickly switch dictionary as well as prefer a dictionary.- Initially koreader looks bad, you have to set the font and margins how you like them, and the possibilities are basically endless - Bookerly/Amazon Ember are available from amazon, PT Serif for proper Cyrillic display, whatever you want. Line spacing, everything.- FB2 support solid- I don't really notice a resolution difference with the color screen - I know its there, but I'm impressed it's not that noticeable.- I like the longer buttons way better than the little oasis buttons- Touchscreen is more....predictable...than the oasis. Oasis has a mind of its own.Negative experiences:- Yeah the screen is a little darker than what a paperwhite or oasis would look like. But its not noticeable really. I haven't had the need to have the frontlight on maximum yet - maybe 80%. So that solves that problem real quick. Worth the better specs over the regular era.Kindle users:If you're a kindle store user, you're going to want to be careful what you buy here - here you're out of the amazon ecosystem and need to get involved in managing your books. It's a price to be paid for flexibility and options.Russian/Cyrillic readers:- FB2 instead of epub, koreader, ReaderDict and Wiktionary dictionaries, PT Serif with proper margins and line spacing, shortcut corner tap table of contents for those into classic literature with "complete series" ebooks. Get cozy with the koreader user manual. Perfect reading experience.Super happy with this.

If you're in the market for a color e-reader, this is a great choice. Colors are muted (as with all color e-ink), and the screen is darker than the monochrome version, which necessitates more backlight use, and thus battery power. This is inherent to all color e-ink displays, so understand that before buying. If color is not critical, buy the monochrome version.The build quality is top notch. I was a little concerned that with the buttons on the side would be prone to accidental clicking. They are not, and in fact the shape of the buttons actually improve single handed grip considerably. Holding the Era in one hand, and using the right arrow button to advance pages is comfortable. The device is fairly light (about the same as a the Kindle Paper White). It will just fit in a wide pant pocket. The back side's grooved surface looks OK, but did not improve grip the way I expected.PocketBook's software is a breath of fresh air. There are a plethora of customization options. Every physical button can be customized to do whatever the user wants. Screen tap, and gesture actions can also be fully customized. The store can be hidden; Something I appreciate as US customer. The library can be sorted many ways, including by genre and series, and it can also be searched. Books can be marked as favorites, and users can make their own collections. There is a task manager (which can be mapped to a physical key like most every other feature), which makes switching between apps effortless. There is a nice browser, allowing about as good a browsing experience as possible on e-ink. Voice integration is better than I expected. Multiple voices are available for download to suit most tastes. Playback is relatively smooth, and playback speed is adjustable. There is voice playback in the dictionary tab, which is very helpful with foreign word pronunciation.It's a modifiable device too. If you want to use KOReader, installing it is a snap, and file associations can be set so clicking on a book opens KOReader automatically. If you want to dig deeper, all kinds of other changes can be made. Like changing the application menu, changing app icons to whatever you want, Changing the app menu categories, sorting, and hiding apps altogether, and the developers even included helpful comments in the devices config files to make customization easier.What's not to like? It would be nice if bookmarks had a dropdown context menu like Kindle. The dictionary/translation feature opens as a tab; A window like on Kindle or KOReader would be better. If PocketBook entered the US market, quite a few things could be improved, but it's understandable why they have not.

The contrast of the display is very poor compared to, say, a Kindle Paperwhite. My eyes started watering after 30 minutes of reading. Cannot recommend. I would have loved to keep it as I like performance and features of the Era Color very much. But since the screen is the most imporant part of an eBook reader ...

Color e-ink just isn't there, still. It's OK, but not contrasty or clear enough, for me. Others might be OK with it. I also don't like having to convert every book I buy on Amazon to ePub or whatever. I found a free eBook - turned out to be a PDF - and tried to change the font, and there doesn't appear to be any way to do this. The manual also doesn't mention the ability to change fonts or even font size(!!). I have to assume it's possible, but... I didn't want to have to create an account, and buy an eBook from the Pocketbook Store to find out. But seems to me it would be in the manual.I also didn't like the buttons. They're flush with the device and there are 4 of them. Easy to press the wrong button. I also thought the overall speed of the device was a bit slow compared to my Kindles.On the plus side, the screen was nice and bright at 100%.Personally, I will be waiting for the new Kindle Color coming out in 2025 in 6" and 10" sizes. Supposed to be great color. Next Gen kind of thing. And fast. Hopefully, they just take the Oasis and make it color and faster, at least tfor the 6" version.