Review of the PocketBook Touch reader

A few days ago I got into my hands one of the latest models of readers from PocketBook - PocketBook Touch. On Habré, this model has already been described, but in this review I will tell about my personal experience of interaction with this reader, as well as about the tasks that this device helps to solve.

There are a lot of images under the cut, as well as a GIF slideshow. Those with limited traffic or very expensive to enter with caution.

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I did not describe the device readers before, so before starting my review I decided to get acquainted with the readers of different manufacturers. First of all, I was interested in the list of book formats that devices support, looked only at devices using E-Ink technology (no matter the old generation or the new E-Ink Pearl , the main thing is not TFT, in the case of color screens eye load is similar to the monitor , so if you take - it is already a full-fledged tablet).
Analyzed 12 readers from different manufacturers. Most devices support the EPUB formats - 9 devices out of 12, Fb2 - 8 out of 12 and MOBI - 7 out of 12 (this is in addition to the TXT format, which almost all readers support). The EPUB, Fb2 and MOBI formats are based on textual information, thanks to which in most readers working with these formats, you have the ability to adjust the font size, selecting a comfortable eye. Another reason why I will describe the capabilities of PocketBook Touch when working with these formats is the presence of art books of all three formats in such large online libraries as Flibusta and Librusek, and, in addition, having a favorite book in all three formats (EPUB , Fb2 and MOBI), you can read it on almost any reader (not only on omnivorous Pocketbook and Impression devices, but also on devices for reading books from other manufacturers).

If you have a book in a format that does not fit your reader, you can of course convert it using a program similar to Caliber , or put an additional program on your reader that can open the format you are interested in (for example, Cool Reader), but this review is not about that.
In PocketBook, the problem of format support is not worth it, the device out of the box supports most of the popular book formats and, in addition, it can also work with images (supported formats: JPEG, PNG, TIFF and BMP), play MP3 music, work with RSS feeds via WiFi, translate unfamiliar words from English-language books using the built-in translator from Lingvo. The list of features of PocketBook, which I cited above is far from complete, I will try to describe the most interesting ones below.

Appearance of the device

The PocketBook reader is quite compact, the device dimensions are 175 x 114.5 x 9.5 mm. Below I cite a few photos so that I can visually assess the size of the device.

PocketBook Touch next to the usual school notebook:



The thickness of the reading room (for comparison, next to a matchbox):



PocketBook Touch - rear view:



PocketBook Touch and Lbook V3 + (reader from Lbook, alas, is discontinued):



The case material of the device is plastic, the paging mechanism is made so thoughtfully that books can be read by holding the device with one hand or two. The symmetrical arrangement of the touch buttons for scrolling back and forth makes it possible to read comfortably, both left-handed and right-handed:



Holding the reader with two hands, you can flip the book forward and back with the thumbs of the left and right hands. Personally, flipping through the pages of a book opened in the PocketBook Touch reader with a two-handed grip reminded the old Soviet toy “Well, wait a minute” (I enjoyed playing this game as a child, and with the same pleasure turned the pages of a book I read during the test of this device).

When grabbing with one hand, it is inconvenient to turn over pages using the touch buttons, it is better to use the mechanical buttons Back and Forward . Also, PocketBook Touch provides a way to turn the pages using two special gestures (sliding a finger across the screen from left to right or right to left), but for me personally, flipping through pages with gestures is inconvenient.

Technical characteristics of the device

• Body Material: Plastic, Soft Touch Coating
• Display: 6 "E Ink Pearl, screen glass, capacitive multi-touch screen
• Processor / RAM / Flash-memory: 800 MHz, 128 MB, 2 GB
• Battery: Li-Ion, 3.7 V, 1100 mAh, 8000 pages (with Wi-Fi turned off)
• Computer connection / Additional memory: Micro USB, Micro SD up to 32 GB
• Book formats: EPUB DRM, EPUB, PDF DRM, PDF, FB2, FB2.ZIP, TXT, DJVU, HTM, HTML, DOC, DOCX, RTF, CHM, TCR, PRC (MOBI)
• Image Formats: JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF
• Sound: 3.5mm audio output, MP3 support
• Additional functions: Text-to-Speech, Dictionaries, Browser, RSS-reader, audio player, calendar, calculator, games, handwritten notes, library

With more detailed information about the technical characteristics of the device you can find in the past review of this device on Habré .

PocketBook Touch software interface

The PocketBook Touch device came to me with firmware version 3.2 on board. Initially, I experimented with reading books of different formats on this version: I practically finished reading one interesting book of the Fb2 format, experimented with books of the EPUB and MOBI format, tried to read PDF books (including large books, 70 MB and 100 MB) and DjVu, all on the level !

At the same time, I read what has already been written about this device (starting from Habr and continuing with links in comments to reviews of this and other models of readers). In search of useful information, I got to the device support page , from where I downloaded the latest firmware version 4.0, to which I successfully updated myself, according to the instructions posted there. Regarding the instructions for updating the firmware in the device, I note that everything is described in detail, clearly and clearly, I will only add one, in paragraph 9, instead of the inscription “Please connect power cable”, after which I need to connect the device to the computer, I had a picture in which shows a reader connected to the computer.

Below I will try to describe the most interesting things related to the capabilities of the PocketBook Touch reader, working with firmware version 4.0. I took pictures of the interface programmatically (in the reader itself, not the camera), so the screen tint will be slightly whiter than it actually is. But the interface elements will be in suitable places for them.

When you turn on the reader, you will see below - the toolbar , on top - a list of recent events . By clicking in the upper right corner of the events, you can customize the displayed events as you like.



From the list of recent events, it is convenient to open the latest books that you read in PocketBook Touch.
The developers have added as an interaction with the social chip book lovers - ReadRate . The idea is interesting there, but at this stage it is more convenient for me to interact with the Internet through the FireFox + RSS Briefer reader , the Internet capabilities in the E-Ink reader are clearly not enough (I mean the browser to access the Internet and the RSS feed reader PocketNews - applications PocketBook Touch). The possibilities of PocketBook Touch related to the Internet in this review will not be described, I can only say that the inclusion of WiFi is very weakly sits the battery (at times more tangible than the usual reading from the device).

The most important thing in the reader is, of course, the Library section. Developers have provided convenient ways to group and sort books. Everything is clear and understandable, experimenting, you can choose for yourself exactly the display mode that is right for you. Available sorting options see below:



A useful library feature is a search. You can by the word or phrase to find the right book, the exact location of which on a flash drive or in the internal memory you forgot.

In the fourth version of the firmware for PocketBook Touch, developers have added a graphical menu in addition to the reading text menu. The location of the tools in the case of the graphic menu personally seems more convenient to me; moreover, a search appeared in the graphic menu, making it possible to find the necessary information in books or articles in text format (TXT, Fb2, EPUB, MOBI). You can select the appropriate viewing mode as follows: Settings -) Appearance -) Reading menu. I give the difference of interfaces for clarity below:



I'll tell you a little about the features of the work of PocketBook Touch with different formats of electronic books.
I'll start with the text Fb2, MOBI and EPUB.

Fb2 and MOBI

In this PocketBook model, the Fb2 and MOBI formats open in the FBReader program. The available book display settings are the same and look like this:



In PocketBook Touch for books in the Fb2 and MOBI formats, you can select any of the available fonts, set the font size, set the line spacing, select the field size, and adjust some other display options.

By tapping the Font touch button, you can select the font options from the following options:



And the book page for different types of fonts will look like this (the font size is set to 22, Normal):

Epub

This PocketBook Touch format with the 4th firmware is opened by default by the Adobe Viewer application. Here, the settings are smaller than for Fb2 and MOBI formats, but the most important thing is still possible to customize for yourself:



I noticed that with the same Font / Font size settings selected for a book in Fb2 format (opens FBReader) and for a book in EPUB format (Opens Adobe Viewer) do not match (in my case, the 16th DejaVu Sans font size in Adobe Viewer is much larger in size, than the 22nd font size of DejaVu Sans in FBReader).

Work with PDF and DjVu, turn the book, scaling

Experimenting with books in PDF and DjVu formats (including small print), for me personally, a good option for solving the problem of fitting a book for the reader (so that the font is large and flipping is convenient) is the following:

• turn of the book (transition from the book to an album):
  
  
  
  
• adjust the scale of the image so that the width of the area with the text is exactly placed on the screen of the reading room, and the fields are behind the frame
  
  So:
  
  
  or so:
  
  
  
• if part of the text is left to the left or right of the screen, and there is a pass on the opposite side - shift to the center by dragging the area of ​​the book from left to right or right to left
  

Other Useful PocketBook Touch Chips

Adding a note on a custom page of the book (does not work for books in DjVu format):



Customize keys for yourself:
Settings -) Key Assignment

Turning off the light indication (for all operations, except for charging the device via USB, the light will not be lit):
Settings -) Appearance -) LED indication

This will complete my review of the PocketBook Touch device.
In summary, I note the strengths and weaknesses of the device.

Strengths of the PocketBook Touch reader:

• support a large number of formats of electronic books;
• thought-out navigation system (scrolling through the pages of a book is really very convenient);
• E-Ink Pearl;
• high speed;
• a good set of fonts for displaying books of text formats (Fb2, MOBI, EPUB);
• flexible library;
• integrated dictionaries from Lingvo.

Weaknesses of the PocketBook Touch reader:

• the charger is not included in the standard package;
• Text-to-speech voice modules need to be refined;
• There is no possibility to open images from an arbitrary folder of the built-in memory or a memory card (and I would like to).

On this, my small review of the PocketBook Touch reader is complete, I hope that the information provided here will be useful to someone. I really liked the device, convenient and practical, to save the resource of the eyes the most!
This is my first review on computer hardware, before described only software. Thank you all for your attention and patience. Good luck when choosing a useful device!

Offline version of the review PocketBook Touch in HTML5 format (4.11 MB)
MD5: 3C2F70AE0BA18C5CD87CD5DF6D93B6AF

The PocketBook Touch device for this test review was provided by Sokol.UA store