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The PocketBook InkPad Color 2 is an eReader with a 7.8 inch E Ink Kaleido Plus color display and IPX8 rating for water resistance, a built-in speaker for audiobooks, podcasts, or text-to-speech, and 32GB of built-in storage.
It’s a fairly modest upgrade over the original InkPad Color, which launched in 2021. The display technology is pretty much the same, but the new model does bring a few upgrades and new features. First announced in April, the InkPad Color 2 is now available for $329 from Amazon.
Compared with the 2021 model, the new InkPad Color 2 has a faster processor. PocketBook doesn’t say which processors are powering its devices, but the original InkPad Color has a 1 GHz dual-core processor while the updated model has a 1.8 GHz quad-core chip.
Both models have just 1GB of RAM, but the original InkPad Color had just 16GB of built-in storage, while the new model has 32GB. That said, it seems like the company has omitted one feature when building the new model: there’s no longer a microSD card reader.
PocketBook says that while both eReaders have Kaleido Plus displays, the new model has been improved with a better color filter array that the company says brings “better hue and saturation performance.”
That might be a sacrifice made in the name of another new feature though: the ability to survive a dip in up to 2 meters of water for as long as 30 minutes.
One other improvement? Both the InkPad Color and InkPad Color 2 have front-lights to help you read in dim or dark environments. But only the new model has adjustable color temperature, allowing you to reduce the amount of blue light.
Here’s an overview of the specs for each model:
| InkPad Color 2 | InkPad Color | |
| Display | 7.8 inch E Ink Kaleido 1404 x 1872 (greyscale) 468 x 624 (color) 4096 colors (100 ppi) 16 shades of grey (300 ppi) Capacitive touch Front-light with adjustable color temperature | 7.8 inch E Ink Kaleido 1404 x 1872 468 x 624 (color) 4096 colors (100 ppi) 16 shades of grey (300 ppi) Capacitive touch Front-light |
| CPU | 1.8 GHz quad-core | 1 GHz dual-core |
| RAM | 1GB | |
| Storage | 32GB | 16GB microSD card reader (up to 32GB) |
| Ports | USB Type-C | |
| Audio output | Mono Speaker, USB, or Bluetooth | via USB or Bluetooth |
| Wireless | WiFi (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) Bluetooth 5.0 | WiFi 4 Bluetooth |
| Battery | 2900 mAh | |
| Software | Linux 4.9.56-based OS with support for ACSM, AZW, AZW3, CBR, CBZ, CHM, DJVU, DOC, DOCX, EPUB(DRM), EPUB, FB2, FB2.ZIP, HTM, HTML, MOBI, PDF (DRM), PDF, PRC, RTF, TXT, JPG, BMP, PNG, TIFF, MP3, M4A, and OGG file formats | Linux 3.10.65-based OS with support for EPUB, PDF, ACSM, MOBI, RTF, TXT, HTML, FB2, CBR, CBZ, JPG, BMP, PNG, TIF, MP3, M4A, and OGG file formats |
| Water resistance | IPX8 | N/A |
| Dimensions | 189.5 x 134 x 8mm | 195 x 136.5 x 8mm |
| Weight | 267 grams | 225 grams |
This article was first published April 26, 2023 and most recently updated July 21, 2023.
via The eBook Reader
None of the new features make up for dropping the microsd card slot. This means users can’t easily upgrade, and any sideloading opportunity will just be more painful. I am not sure why they didn’t just keep making the first one, as the second one doesn’t seem like an upgrade. Same screen, less real storage due to loss of microsd (even though you pay for more GBs), so the real advantage here is that you can pay more for the internal storage and an ultimately less versatile product.
When ACeP (Gallery 3) ?
Can one sideload any sort of apk or android apps on this Linux device or anything similar? What web browsers does it support? Brave hopefully? What about support for playback of video files, even at brutally slow framerate? What about a map, doesn’t have to be Google Maps, could be Open Street or Waze? Thanks for the article and it sounds like a neat device. If it doesn’t fit any of these bills, does anyone know of another color e-ink device like it that would?
Technically there is a possibility someone can hack together an Android to run on this, but given the hardware and the low amount of RAM it would be strictly for bragging rights and not anything usable. Linux itself does not let you run Android apps, or rather you can run an Android emulator, but you’d need a very powerful machine to pull that off. Which this is not. From what I can see the browser is likely a kin over an older version of Firefox. As a linux machine it’s likely possible someone can hack mplayer on to it and as such video playback should be possible by the hardware, but I don’t think the factory software supports it. Also, the screen updates painfully slow, you’d get about 1fps video playback out of this. No apps means no Google maps outside the browser, and given the hardware that ought to be painfully slow, also no GPS in the machine you you’d be limited to view the map, but wouldn’t be able to use it for navigation.
I wouldn’t say you’d need a “very powerful machine” to run anbox/waydroid. People can do it on a pinephone, and android applications were about as responsive as the native applications last time I tried it.
You do however need the device to be enough to be a general purpose computer, which this isn’t. Even the pinephone has more RAM. Not to mention, the OS has to be configured so you can actually install things.