This video compares five color e-readers: Boox Go Color 7, Kobo Libra Colour, Kobo Clara Colour, PocketBook InkPad Color 3, PocketBook Era Color, and Bigme B751C, all utilizing E-Ink Kaleido 3 technology.
Key findings include:
The PocketBook InkPad Color 3 is the best all-rounder for vibrant colors, features, and ease of use, with the longest battery life (29 hours).
The Boox Go Color 7 offers more features and a better frontlight but less vibrant colors and a steeper learning curve due to its Android OS.
Kobo Libra Colour is ideal for text annotations and note-taking with pen support, despite poor PDF/comic handling. Its frontlight is the brightest (120 nits), but colors are desaturated by default.
Bigme B751C excels in ghosting behavior and has pen support but features the dimmest frontlight (28 nits) and a less refined user interface.
Compact models like Kobo Clara Colour and PocketBook Era Color are recommended for budget or size preferences, but the larger InkPad Color 3 and Libra Colour are generally superior.
Comparison of six color e-readers displaying comics
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The presenter provides an upfront summary, concluding that there isn't one "best" color e-reader but rather a suitable one based on individual use cases.
PocketBook InkPad Color 3: Positioned as the best all-rounder.
- Combines vibrant color saturation, a strong feature set, excellent battery life, and ease of use.
- Ideal for users who do not require Android or handwritten annotations.
Boox Go Color 7: A close second.
- Offers more features, including Android, and a slightly superior frontlight.
- Requires more time to master its settings to optimize for ghosting behavior.
Bigme B751C: Has Android but is less refined.
- Features the dimmest frontlight.
- Excels in ghosting behavior, offering the best performance in this regard.
- Includes pen support.
Kobo Libra Colour: Best for annotations.
- Great for pen and non-pen annotations, with useful notebook features.
- Pen latency is not as low as dedicated note-taking tablets.
- User interface is clean and easy to navigate.
- Poor PDF and comics handling, making it less suitable for those applications.
Kobo Clara Colour & PocketBook Era Color: Recommended for budget-conscious or compact device seekers.
- These smaller models are generally less feature-rich or vibrant than their larger counterparts.
All e-readers use Kaleido 3 technology, offering 300 PPI for black and white and 150 PPI for color. Frontlight brightness levels were matched as closely as possible, except for the Bigme B751C due to its lower maximum brightness.
Vibrancy:
- PocketBook InkPad Color 3: Most vibrant colors among all devices.
- Smaller devices (Boox, Kobo, PocketBook Era Color, Bigme) can be tweaked to get closer but don't fully match the InkPad's saturation.
Color Fidelity:
- Boox Go Color 7: Comes out on top in color fidelity, preserving more details in images than the PocketBook devices.
Contrast Levels:
- Kobo Libra Colour & Clara Colour: Exhibit the best contrast levels out of the box.
Software's Impact on Color:
- Kobo devices initially show desaturated colors due to software settings.
- Users can enable developer settings and switch to "S modes" to boost color saturation, though this might compromise color accuracy.
The video highlights that all color e-readers using Kaleido 3 technology appear dark without the frontlight, making reading uncomfortable.
Brightness Levels (Cold White LEDs):
- Kobo devices: Brightest at ~120 nits.
- Boox Go Color 7: ~68 nits.
- PocketBook Era Color: ~63 nits.
- PocketBook InkPad Color 3: ~58 nits.
- Bigme B751C: Dimmest at ~28 nits, which the reviewer finds too low for comfortable use. Mixing warm white LEDs can increase brightness but affects color fidelity.
Color Temperature:
- All devices offer adjustable color temperature.
- Kobo & Bigme: Tend to be warmer.
- PocketBook & Boox: Have a cooler default color temperature, which the reviewer prefers as a starting point for mixing.
Evenness:
- For pure text ebooks, even frontlighting is crucial.
- Boox Go Color 7: Most even frontlight with minimal variances.
- PocketBook InkPad Color 3: Slightly visible halos at the bottom but otherwise very even.
- Bigme B751C: Also even, but its low brightness makes irregularities less noticeable.
- Kobo & PocketBook Era Color: Good enough for most users, but less even than Boox or InkPad.
Ghosting is a common issue with Kaleido 3 screens, especially with image content.
Boox & Bigme Solutions:
- Boox utilizes "Super Refresh Technology" in some models (not Go Color 7), enabling faster refreshes and less ghosting.
- On the Boox Go Color 7, ghosting can be reduced by tweaking settings.
PocketBook & Kobo: More noticeable ghosting compared to an optimized Boox Go Color 7.
Bigme B751C: Exhibits the best ghosting behavior due to various "Ink viewing options" that help minimize it more effectively than other devices.
The user experience varies significantly across brands due to different software approaches.
Kobo E-readers (Libra Colour & Clara Colour):
- Easiest to use interface: clean, well-organized, and quick to learn.
PocketBook Models (InkPad Color 3 & Era Color):
- Well-organized with useful customization options.
- Best library management with superior sorting and filtering, supporting folder structures or Calibre tags.
- Less responsive than other devices, but not "annoyingly slow."
- More open system, allowing easier side-loading and direct listening to audiobooks via a built-in speaker.
- Text-to-speech option available.
- Web browser performs better than Kobo's.
Boox Go Color 7:
- Optimized Android user interface for E-Ink screens.
- Offers more options than Kobo and PocketBook but is less intuitive and requires more time to learn.
- Limited pre-installed dictionaries, relying on online services.
- Built-in speaker with superior text-to-speech.
- Web browser is very capable, even suitable for podcasts (though app use is recommended).
- Integrated store only provides public domain books.
Bigme B751C:
- Least refined user interface; feels less polished.
- Offers many options but lacks optimization, indicating a "quantity over quality" approach.
- Android allows for overcoming some shortcomings with third-party apps.
The ability to view and interact with PDFs and comics varies greatly.
Boox Go Color 7:
- Easily wins for PDF and comics functions due to its diverse viewing options, which are superior to others.
- "Fit to width" option is highly comfortable for comics, allowing easy navigation between segments.
PocketBook E-readers (InkPad Color 3 & Era Color):
- Fewer viewing options than Boox but includes the most important ones.
- "Fit to width" works similarly to Boox, providing a good viewing experience.
Kobo & Bigme:
- Not ideal for comics and PDFs.
- Lack intuitive and easy-to-use viewing modes found on Boox and PocketBook.
- Bigme: Can compensate for these shortcomings using Android apps.
- Kobo: Currently lacks these features, and users must settle for the missing functionality.
Kobo E-readers (Libra Colour & Clara Colour):
- Best experience for reading and annotating pure text ebooks.
- Extensive text styling options.
- Color-coded annotations work exceptionally well with precise text selection.
- Kobo Libra Colour: Features pen support with seamless switching between ebook and notebook modes.
- Well-executed dictionary and library functions.
- Web browser is generally poor.
PocketBook E-readers (InkPad Color 3 & Era Color):
- Offers color-coded annotations and finger highlighting.
- Text selection for note-taking is less precise than Kobo models.
- No pen support.
- Fewer text styling options but more dictionaries.
- Best library in the e-ink space, with robust sorting/filtering and support for folder structures/Calibre tags.
- More open system than Kobo, allowing easier content sideloading, built-in speaker for music/audiobooks, and text-to-speech.
- Better web browser than Kobo.
Boox Go Color 7:
- More features than PocketBook, but often less refined.
- Only three pre-installed local dictionaries, relying on online services.
- Color-coded note-taking exists, but text selection is currently buggy (expected to be fixed).
- Built-in speaker with better text-to-speech than PocketBook.
- Features can be more complex to use.
- Superior web browser due to Android, even suitable for podcasts.
- Integrated store is limited to public domain books.
Bigme B751C:
- Offers many options, but often unoptimized.
- Has pen support for note-taking.
There is no single "best" color e-reader; the ideal choice depends on individual use cases.
Personal Top Picks:
- PocketBook InkPad Color 3: Recommended as an easy-to-use all-rounder with longer battery life and more vibrant colors.
- Boox Go Color 7: More advanced device with Android expandability but has a steeper learning curve.
Users should prioritize features like color vibrancy, frontlight quality, ghosting, UI, PDF/comic support, annotation capabilities, and battery life based on their primary reading habits.
