The Pocketbook Era is the best dedicated e-reader the company has ever made. The hardware has tremendous build quality and this is the first time Pocketbook has totally redesigned one of their devices in a very long time. Gone are the buttons on the bottom of the screen, in addition to the page turn buttons. Instead, all of the buttons are now on the side of the screen, which wrap around the edges. It makes turning pages much more natural and organic, since this is the same button layout as the Kindle Oasis, Kobo Libra and Barnes and Noble Nook employ. You can buy the Era from the Good e-Reader Store, starting at $199.

The Pocketbook Era features a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen display with E INK Carta 1200. This new e-paper technology is only in a few models right now, such as the 11th generation Kindle Paperwhite and the Kobo Sage. It provides a 25% increase in performance and 35% for page turns. The resolution is 1264×1680 with 300 PPI. The screen is protected by a layer of glass and is flush with the bezel. The screen features enhanced anti-scratch protection, which gives more confidence in the device’s safety, even in the most active use. Moreover, waterproof Pocketbook Era is ideal gadget for reading in the bathroom or outdoors. The e-reader is protected from water according to the international standard IPX8, which means the device can be immersed into the fresh water to a depth of 2 meters, for up to 60 minutes without any harmful effects.

In terms of the industrial design, it is very sleek. The color scheme is all black and the back of the reader is perforated with over one hundred lines that provide excellent grip without leaving lots of fingerprints. The sides of the bezel has a nice silver gunmetal accent, but if you buy the Copper model, they have a copper tone along the sides of the bezel. Although this model has a capacitive multitouch display, you really don’t have to interact with it very much if you are reading a book. This is due to the physical page turn buttons that are slightly raised, without being obstructive. Above the page turn button is a small home button.

There is a front-lit display and color temperature system to read in the dark. This e-reader has an all-new design and does not have the traditional buttons on the bottom of the screen like previous Pocketbook readers. However, it does have manual page turn buttons on the side of the screen, which is useful if you don’t want to exclusively rely on touchscreen interactions.

Underneath the hoods is a dual-core 1GHZ processor and 1GB of RAM. There are two different colors to choose from and each one has different storage. Sunset Copper with 64 GB of memory, and Stardust Silver with 16 GB of memory. You can charge device and transfer data, thanks to the USB-C port. You can listen to music via the single speaker on the bottom of the reader or pair wireless headphones or earbuds and take advantage of Bluetooth 5.1. Another helpful feature for those who prefer listening to books is Text-to-Speech which turns any text into a natural-sounding voice audio track. Just two clicks and the device will read aloud any text file in one of the 26 available languages. It is powered by a 1700 mAh battery and the dimensions are 134.3×155.7.8mm and weighs 228G.

The post Unboxing the brand new Pocketbook Era e-reader first appeared on Good e-Reader.