Top 5 e

August 25, 2023 By Michael Kozlowski 2 Comments

Kids return to school in few weeks, and a new e-reader will keep a diligent young scholar expanding their literary horizons. Plenty of e-readers exist; dozens have come out in 2023, and some old favourites are still very relevant. What new e-reader should parents be aware of to give the gift of reading? This top list indicates the best of the bunch.

Barnes and Noble Glowlight 4 Plus

Barnes and Noble have a new premium e-reader that has a well-thought-out design. It has a large 7.8-inch e-paper display with a matte screen protector installed at the factory to reduce glare. It is waterproof and has audiobook functionality and page turn buttons to make ebook reading enjoyable.

Barnes & Noble has been flip-flopping for quite some time regarding device body construction, never quite landing on any design that made a release-at-home run. This one’s different. This one is new, fresh, and unique. All newly redesigned page turn buttons, a 300 PPI flush screen and bezel, and the nook logo button at the bottom for the first time, in place of a software-driven home button control. Friendly and lightweight, with rewarding button presses for the page turn keys that can be key-mapped to reverse directions.

Onyx Boox Page

The Onyx Boox Page features a 7-inch E INK Carta 1200 display panel with a resolution of 1680×1264 with 300 PPI. The screen is flush with the bezel and protected by an AG glass flat cover lens. The colour scheme is piano black, with two manual page turn buttons on the right side. The back platting is plastic but has a neat design featuring little perforated book covers everywhere—the front-lit display and colour temperature system for reading day or night. The light produces both cool and warm lighting or a mixture of both. Slider bars in the quick settings menu allow you to blend the two lights.

Underneath the hood is a Qualcomm 2.0Ghz Octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. A MicroSD card slot has support for 1TB of extra storage. There is a speaker to listen to audiobooks, music or podcasts; there is also Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless earbuds or headphones. You can connect to the internet or browse the web, thanks to the WiFi (802.11b/g/n/ac) 2.4G + 5G chip. USB-C allows you to transfer content to your device or for charging. A microphone is available for voice communication apps, and a g-sensor will rotate it from portrait to landscape. This is perfect for people who are left-handed and want the page-turn buttons. It is powered by a 2300 mAh battery, and its dimensions are 156 X 137 X 6.0mm, weighing 195g.

It is running Google Android 11 and has full access to the Google Play Store. This is not an e-note but an e-reader; it replaces the Onyx Boox Leaf 2 but has better hardware specs. The Neoreader book reading app is excellent for people who have an extensive book collection, and it supports PDF, djvu, azw, azw3, doc, docm, docx, epub, fb2, fbz, html, mobi, odt, PRC, rtf, sxw, trc, txt, chm, and ppt. If you don’t have a collection of books, you can download your favourite e-reading or manga app from Google Play and always keep them updated.

Pocketbook InkPad Color 2

Pocketbook has a new e-reader, the InkPad 2 Color. This device is not using the latest generation E INK Kaleido 3 e-paper panel. Instead, they are using the previous generation. This does not make a huge difference when it comes to viewing content. The big selling points of this new e-reader is viewing webtoons, comics, magazines and PDF files in full colour; the vast majority of e-readers on the market, such as the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Kobo, all have traditional black and white displays. Pocketbook also has physical page-turn buttons, making it easy to turn pages at a press of a button instead of always relying on the touchscreen display.

The Pocketbook InkPad Color 2 features a 7.8-inch E INK Kaleido Plus colour e-paper display with a black and white resolution of 1404×1872 with 300 PPI and a colour resolution of 468×624 with 100 PPI. It can display over 4096 different colour combinations. The screen is flush with the bezel and protected by a layer of glass. All buttons are on the bottom of the device, making the bezels slim and easy to hold. The colour scheme on the front is black and silver on the sides and back platting. There is warm and cool lighting, which can be blended, perfect for reading at night.

The colour scheme is black all over, and the back platting is perforated, but it is susceptible to the oil on your fingers. Small back platting can be removed to fit the InkPad 2 Color case with pogo pins. This cover is not out yet but acts as a sleep cover case, putting the e-reader to sleep. The page turn buttons are at the bottom, underneath the e-paper display. There is also a home button and a settings button. On the side are two small stereo speakers; the sound quality of the music is excellent, but with audiobooks or podcasts, it is quiet. It also supports Bluetooth 5.2, so you can use wireless headphones or earbuds. You can purchase audiobook content from the Pocketbook Store or sideload on your own; it supports M4A, M4B, OGG, OGG.ZIP, MP3, and MP3.ZIP.,

PocketBook InkPad Color 2 is reliably protected against water damage according to IPX8 standards. The device withstands immersion in fresh water to a depth of 2 meters for up to 60 minutes without any harmful consequences. This makes the e-reader perfect for reading in the bathtub, beach, or pool. If you are near the ocean or submerge it in salt water, just run it under the tap for a few minutes to eliminate salt content.

Meebook M6

Meebook has been making e-readers for a couple of years; the company’s founders are former executives and the product designers behind Boyue. The Meebook M6 is your typical six-inch e-reader with 300 PPI and full access to the Google Play Store. The industrial design of the M6 is well thought out, and the back is made of aluminum. The colour scheme is this lovely royal purple along the edges and back platting. However, they use black along the front bezel to contrast the e-paper display.

One of the significant advantages of the M6 is the reading experience. The stock reading app supports a wide array of formats, such as PDF, EPUB, TXT, HTML, RTF, FB2, FB2.zip, DOC, DOCX, PRC, MOBI, CHM, PDB, DOC, JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, PDF, DjVu, MP3, WAV, CBR, CBZ. The nice things about CBR and CBZ are these are the most popular formats for manga that is downloaded from the internet. They are containers full of images. However, most vendors sell their manga in EPUB since you have better control over the e-reading experience, such as setting different fonts and the sizes of the fonts.

Meebook has figured out a way to bypass the standard 16 grayscale levels and uses 256 system-wide. When reading ebooks or manga, the text is sharper than a Kindle or Kobo e-reader, there are no anti-aliasing issues, and the fonts are tremendous. Boyue and iReader are the only two right now that use grayscale like this. there is even a toggle that you can switch between 16 and 256 levels, but the company recommends always leaving it on.

Hanvon Clear

The design, as already stated, will remind you of the Oasis. The thicker right edge is an excellent placeholder for holding onto the device. The lightweight build ensures it is never a chore to have the device, even during extended reading sessions. The built-in gyroscope will also provide the display rotates automatically as you change hands. The thicker portion also hosts the page turn buttons, though the touch-enabled show can also be used for flipping over the pages. Tucked between the page turn button is the Home/Back button.

At the top of the bump lies the power button, which again is sunk a bit than the rest of the surface. Other bits you will find here include the USB-C port and the status indicator light. At the bottom lies the speaker. The rear of the enlarged bump also has a wavy pattern, which makes it look cool.

However, while the asymmetrical design looks nice and makes it easy to hold and operate the device, things can get tricky if you choose to read while keeping the device on a flat surface. Given the inherent design feature, the device tends to wobble a bit, so you might need one hand to keep the machine steady while using the other to use it. Rubber stoppers at the corners on the slim side would have made things better, but that isn’t a reality with the Clear.

Michael Kozlowski has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past twelve years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Filed Under: e-Reader News