PocketBook InkPad Color 3 E-Reader
design
E-readers tend to run quite simple in their design and truthfully when the focus is on the screen there’s only so much you can do to jazz things up. PocketBook has done a nice job with the shape of the InkPad Colour 3 however. While yes, it’s still largely a big flat rectangle there’s a couple of minor design choices that make a sizeable difference to the overall vibe.
The PocketBook InkPad Colour 3’s all-plastic shell is fine, though it does flex under light pressure in a few places and loses some of that premium vibe as a result. It’s not a huge deal and it doesn’t feel cheap but I noticed it a couple of times when picking the device up one-handed off a table. The rear of the Inkpad Colour 3 features a pleasant pinstripe design that offers a little added grip texture while looking rather smart at the same time.
It’s only a small detail but I was surprised how impactful the PocketBook InkPad 3’s trimmed off bottom corners are, it’s like someone has taken a pair of scissors and snipped a little off each side. The result is not only a unique profile but a more comfortable e-reader overall, I had a couple of people hold the InkPad Color 3 and each remarked that it felt like this little re-shaped corner nestled better in their hand than the standard rounded corners of a Kindle Paperwhite. The PocketBook is noticeably heavier though, somewhere in the region of 35% over a Kindle and while 70g isn’t a lot in the grand scheme it does add up when you’ve been holding it up for a few chapters.
The PocketBook InkPad Colour 3 features a 7.8” screen, an inch or so larger than a Kindle Paperwhite (depending on which generation you have) but unlike a Kindle the InkPad Color 3’s screen is recessed into the frame. It’s a minor thing I know but I much prefer Amazon’s smooth-faced and flat-fronted approach, the couple of millimetre lip added as a result of dropping the screen into the InkPad is a dust magnet and doesn’t feel as high-end.
performance
While there’s a never ending list of e-readers in the market these days, options with a full-colour e-ink screen are much less common. That’s the PocketBook InkPad Colour 3’s main draw and it’s an immediately eye catching one if you’re used to a black and white screen like I am. Expectations are important here of course because colours won’t pop in the same way they would from a traditional screen, but there’s still plenty of vibrancy to what’s offered by the PocketBook Inkpad 3. It’s actually quite impressive and certainly adds an extra dimension to the experience overall.
That said, the PocketBook InkPad Color 3’s main drawcard is a feature that likely won’t mean a huge amount to a lot of readers. Beyond their covers most of my ebooks are simple black and white affairs so I’ll admit to actually forgetting the InkPad Colour 3 was able to offer me colour a lot of the time. For graphic novel or comic readers however the InkPad Colour 3 could be a game changer, for this use case the coloured e-ink screen sees panels come to life with far more interest than a traditional e-reader can offer.
For standard reading the PocketBook InkPad Colour 3 is OK without really impressing. There’s a slight fuzzy, dot matrix texture across the entire screen that softens the text and while it’s not distracting to a fault – when placed side by side with my Kindle Paperwhite the clarity difference was night and day. The same is true of the screen lighting, the PocketBook’s backlight does the job it needs to for reading in the dark and will adapt both its strength and warmth depending on conditions, but I found it washes far more light out than the Kindle’s frontlight and it was less comfortable to use in very dark settings as a result.
The PocketBook InkPad Colour 3 offers you a few more ways to engage than simply reading a book but I wouldn’t recommend you use a lot of them. For the most part they all feel like gimmicky additions rather than features that make a genuine difference. The colouring in and doodle options for example don’t make much sense on a device without any kind of pen or stylus. I’m a man in my 30s and even I wasn’t able to stay between the lines with my finger.
While the ability to listen to actual audiobooks is a good and relatively unique one, the in-built speaker isn’t quite up to the task. Audio quality is akin to a traditional phone call or AM radio and it’s lacking in volume that means it’s only really usable up close to your face in a quiet setting. You are able to connect a set of headphones or a speaker via Bluetooth though and I’d definitely recommend this if you’re planning on having someone read to you.
What I wouldn’t recommend is the text-to-speech feature which has the reading comprehension of a schoolkid and the delivery of the shy student at the back of class. The voices are robotic and old school, like classic Microsoft Sam their delivery is lacking in any kind of soul and despite there being a few accent and gender choices available they all read lines with no understanding of anything more than attempting each word in isolation one after the other. It’s clunky and almost irritating to listen to though this could be a wonderful feature if PocketBook can roll out an update to bring a more AI powered solution that has a little more character to its presentation.
Device performance seems to fluctuate and while there are times the PocketBook InkPad Colour 3 feels snappy, it’s also prone to hanging up on even the simplest of actions like turning a page. I also found the Wi-Fi to be unstable, at times the connection would be rock solid and at others it would reject the network entirely or require inputting the (correct) password 3 or 4 times before connecting. When the network was up and running you’ll find a PocketBook store with a range of free and paid options, though at this stage these are largely in other languages with very few English titles available. PocketBook tells me this is improving all the time but for now you’ll likely need to BYO all your content from other sources.
Thankfully getting your own media onto the InkPad Color 3 is simple with a few ways to transfer it to the device. While you can just connect the device to a PC with a USB-C cable, I preferred using the wireless Dropbox sync option. This is an easier process than transferring your own books to a Kindle from my experience, simply sign in and authorise your existing Dropbox account and then drop your books or audiobooks into a specifically created folder. It’s a really neat system that was quick to sync to the PocketBook and I had no problems with it accepting a variety of ebook formats.
summed up
The PocketBook InkPad Colour 3 is a perfectly good e-reader that even goes above and beyond in a few areas. The colour e-ink screen delivers plenty of visual interest for comic and graphic novel readers but isn’t as strong as other options for more traditional bookworms. Audiobook support works well if you have professionally recorded media but fails to impress when trying to use the InkPad’s auto-generated option. Across the board it’s a case of peaks and troughs, hits and misses.
The price sits somewhere in the middle, at £329 the PocketBook InkPad Colour 3 certainly isn’t cheap but also isn’t much more than an Amazon Kindle Colorsoft, and you could chalk that difference up to the extra screen real estate anyway. If you expect to get value out of the colour e-ink screen and are fond of an audiobook, the PocketBook InkPad Colour 3 is more than up to the task. If you’re looking at it more as a traditional e-reader or need a busy marketplace to find, buy and download books you’re better off sticking with a Kindle.
