Kobo Elipsa vs PocketBook InkPad

2024. Pocketbook is now a co-owner of Bigme



Over the past year, Pocketbook has been working on a significant deal and has now become a substantial shareholder and co-owner of Bigme, a Chinese brand known for its e-readers and e-notebooks with E INK screens. This marks Pocketbook's first major acquisition since they began releasing e-readers in 2012. The collaboration extends beyond ownership, involving active participation in mutual product development and cross-sharing of R&D teams. This partnership has already yielded the successful PocketBook InkPad EO, designed for the US and European markets, showcasing the integration of their strengths and expertise. The future potential of this collaboration is highly anticipated.


2023. Pocketbook unveiled its first e-note - Pocketbook InkPad X Pro



Pocketbook has introduced its first e-note, the Pocketbook InkPad X Pro, specifically crafted for digital note-taking. This innovative product is tailored for note-taking, freehand drawing and PDF file editing due to its incorporation of a WACOM screen. The package includes a novel jet-black stylus with an eraser, boasting an impressive 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity. Nevertheless, the device is also compatible with third-party styluses. The highlight of the device is its 10.3-inch E INK Mobius display, which contributes to its lightweight design. Boasting a resolution of 1404×1872 pixels at 227 PPI, the screen is also capacitive, enabling users to employ finger gestures like pinch-to-zoom, tapping and page-turning swipes. Convenient manual page-turn buttons, a home button and settings button are situated at the device's bottom. Notably, this marks the company's first foray into the Android product realm, as all their previous offerings have been based on Linux. Anticipated to be released in late September, the InkPad X Pro will be priced at $420.00.


2023. Dark Mode is now available on new Pocketbook e-readers



Dark mode is now an option on the Pocketbook Era, Pocketbook InkPad 4 and Pocketbook InkPad Color 2. This addition comes with the latest 6.8 firmware update that is accessible today. Along with dark mode, the update includes various other new features and improvements such as customizable control panel settings, additional filter options in the Notes app, a text suggestions feature and more. In the near future, these enhancements will be made available for other Pocketbook models as well. Utilizing dark mode on your PocketBook device can enhance your reading experience in low-light conditions and during nighttime. This mode adjusts the display settings, showing white text on a dark background, which reduces contrast with the surrounding darkness and minimizes eye strain. Additionally, when reading in dark mode, you have the option to invert book illustrations if desired.


2023. Kobo releases new update focused on note-taking



Kobo has recently released a firmware update primarily focused on the Kobo Elipsa, introducing several enhancements for note-taking. These updates include the addition of new templates for notes, such as musical sheets and calligraphy, along with the ability to search handwritten notes within a Notebook. In Basic Notebooks, users can now create precise shapes by drawing and holding the pen in place, allowing for the conversion of drawn circles into perfect circles, for instance. Furthermore, the update introduces the Lasso feature in Basic Notebooks, enabling users to move, delete, copy, resize and convert their handwritten notes into typed text. Users can now conveniently organize their notebooks using folders and safeguard them by enabling the Notebook Backup feature, which saves them on the Kobo Cloud for easy access on kobo.com/notebooks. Moreover, in Advanced Notebooks, it is now possible to adjust line spacing and highlight text using the stylus button. Lastly, the update includes the addition of a brightness icon within Notebooks for improved visibility.


2023. Kobo Elipsa 2e adds some useful PDF features



Kobo has released a firmware update for the latest generation of their Kobo Elipsa 2e e-reader. The update includes enhancements to the device's PDF experience, such as the ability to remember the most recent zoom level and position when reopening a PDF. Additionally, the Kobo store now loads faster and allows for quicker browsing by tapping the bottom of the screen. Kobo has placed a strong emphasis on improving the book discovery experience, with recent updates making it more efficient and robust. The update also expands support for more languages, automatically applying new fonts when opening an eBook in languages such as Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Canadian Aboriginal, Devanagari, Greek, Hebrew, Korean, or Tamil. Overall, these improvements demonstrate Kobo's commitment to providing a better user experience for their customers.


2023. Kobo unveiled 2-generation Elipsa 2E e-note and e-reader



Kobo has announced their second-generation Elipsa 2E 10.3-inch e-note and e-reader. Compared to the previous model, it is 45% faster. Illumination has improved the front-light display with the brand-new Confortlight Pro lighting system, which is brighter. The Kobo Pen has been redesigned; it now has an eraser at the top and a single button on the side to do highlights; the pen nib is better to write with since it is 25% lighter. Your notes can now be saved to the Kobo Cloud and viewed on the Kobo website, allowing users to view content and email it to themselves or a 3rd party. Finally, the retail packaging and case are almost 100% recycled and the device itself is 80% and uses ocean-bound plastic.


2023. Pocketbook Inkpad 4 gets 7.8-inch screen


Pocketbook announced the release of a new ereader called the Pocketbook Inkpad 4. It has a 7.8-inch E Ink Carta 1200 screen and a frontlight with temperature control. It has 32GB of storage space, built-in speakers for audiobooks and text-to-speech and it’s waterproof with an IPX8 rating. Other specs for the PocketBook InkPad 4 include a USB-C port, a rotation sensor, a dual-core processor, it has WiFi and Bluetooth and it has a 2000mAh battery. The overall design of the PocketBook InkPad 4 looks quite nice, though, with similar characteristics to the design of the PocketBook Era, which is actually really nice all except for the horribly washed-out screen. The newer E Ink Carta 1200 screens have better contrast, but it doesn’t matter when they add a cloudy flush front layer over the top of it.


2023. Pocketbook 6.7 firmware update adds audio pronunciation



Pocketbook has launched a new firmware update for the Inkpad 3, Inkpad Color and Touch HD 3. What are the significant new features? Users can now initiate audio pronunciation in the dictionary and translations can be saved to the device and exported. Additionally, there is enhanced functionality for improved page borders in CBR, CBZ and PDF files. Other updates include a larger pressure area for easier navigation of footnotes (links) in books, more precise page margins in scrollable PDF files and refined note list sorting algorithms.


2021. Kobo Elipsa adds Audiobooks support



Kobo has introduced a new software update for their entire range of e-readers, both recent and older models. The most significant change with this update is the inclusion of audiobook support for the 10.3-inch Kobo Elipsa, which was released in June. This means that three of Kobo’s current devices now support audiobooks, including the new Kobo Libra 2 and Kobo Sage. Kobo updates are typically rolled out in phases, so you can either wait for the new firmware to automatically download and install during a sync, or it might take several weeks to receive the update.


2021. New PocketBook InkPad Lite 970 has cheap 9.7-inch E Ink Screen



PocketBook has introduced a new e-reader featuring a 9.7-inch E Ink Carta display, named the PocketBook InkPad Lite. It’s essentially a budget-friendly e-reader with a large screen, slated for release in autumn 2021. The price is rumored to be $299, making it the most affordable large-screen e-reader on the market by about $50. The PocketBook InkPad Lite is somewhat unusual in 2021 because PocketBook chose to use a low-cost display with the same 1200 x 825 resolution that 9.7-inch E Ink screens had over a decade ago. This results in a resolution of only 150 ppi. Even the Likebook P10 offers a better screen with 200 ppi and is just about $50 more expensive, featuring an upgraded quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM and a more versatile Android OS.


2021. Kobo released Elipsa - 10.3 inch e-note and e-reader



Kobo is launching a new 10.3-inch e-reader and digital notepad device called the Kobo Elipsa. Priced at $399, it includes a sleepcover and a stylus. Kobo is promoting it more as a notepad than an e-reader, though it serves both functions. You can annotate eBooks and PDFs and it features a new note-taking app that supports importing and exporting to Dropbox. Notably, it seems to not use a Wacom touchscreen like many other digital notepads, which likely helps in keeping the cost lower. Kobo will be up against several established competitors in the e-note market, such as Sony, Onyx Boox, Boyue, Remarkable, Supernote and various Chinese brands like Hanvon and Bigme. The Kobo Elipsa’s competitive edge will be its Linux-based operating system, allowing it to operate with a quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and a smaller battery.


2020. Pocketbook Inkpad 3 gets a brand new UI



Pocketbook has released a major update for its popular model InkPad 3. The update features an improved UI design across all applications. Notifications, the control panel and the status bar have also been redesigned. Firmware 6.1 rethinks and streamlines the authorization system: users can now access PocketBook Cloud, PocketBook Store, Send-to-PocketBook and ReadRate services with a single account. Additionally, users can log into their account via smartphone using the PocketBook app by scanning a QR code. New book formats CBR and CBZ have been introduced to support comic reading. The updated Notes application enables users to view, edit, add comments to notes and transfer notes to other devices. Furthermore, all your records are now consolidated in one place, making them easier to locate.


2018. Pocketbook e-Readers get gesture controls



Pocketbook has released a new firmware update for the Aqua 2, InkPad 3 and Touch HD e-readers that introduces gesture controls for adjusting the brightness of the front-lit display and color temperature. While reading an eBook, you can swipe your finger up or down on the left side of the screen to increase or decrease the light intensity. This feature is available whether the e-reader is in portrait or landscape mode. Other enhancements include smoother page scaling with gestures in PDF or DjVu format books, more accurate word selection for note-taking and the option to toggle the position sensor on and off via the settings menu.


2016. Pocketbook Announces the InkPad 2



Pocketbook InkPad 2 is a new e-reader that was just unveiled today. This device boasts an 8-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 1,200 x 1,600 pixels. It includes a front-lit screen and physical page-turn buttons. The InkPad 2 is equipped with a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM. It has 4 GB of internal storage, which can be expanded up to 32 GB with a Micro SD card. The presence of a 3.5mm headphone jack is likely to attract users, as it allows for listening to audiobooks and music. This e-reader will be available soon for 199 Euros.


2014. Pocketbook InkPad with Text-to-Speech announced



Ukrainian company Pocketbook has been producing e-readers consistently since 2007 and the company has introduced a new e-reader—the InkPad—that aims to offer more screen real estate with its large eight-inch display. The screen utilizes E Ink Pearl technology and boasts the highest resolution available for such devices—1600×1200 pixels. This high resolution allows you to adjust the font size from very small to very large without losing clarity. A robust 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM ensure smooth page transitions and reliable performance across any application. With 4 GB of internal storage, expandable up to 32 GB, you can build an extensive library that’s always within reach. Additionally, it features a 3.5mm headphone jack for listening to audiobooks or music. Pocketbook has also incorporated Text to Speech functionality in this model, enabling books to be read aloud.