The kind folks at PocketBook were gracious enough to send me a PocketBook 360 for review purposes. Special thanks to Rita at Read an E-Book Week for coordinating the delivery and review, this review will also be available at her fine site which I highly recommend you visit.
OVERVIEW
The PocketBook 360 sells for $239.99 at their website. It's available for $20 more with a wall charger and micro SD card. The base model does have 512mb of internal memory, enough for hundreds of books to be stored at one time.
The device came in retail packaging and was well insulated against shipping damage. Curiously, they made the almost bold claim "Probably the fastest E-Reader in the world" - I guess they were proud of the speed, but not quite ready to declare victory.
The $239.99 version, which I reviewed, comes in black or ivory. I received the black version. Both colors are a nice break from the ubiquitous white that every eReader seems to come in these days.
SPECIFICATIONS:
- Samsung S3C2440 A L-40 400MHz Processor
- Linux 2.6 Kernel
- 5" E-Ink Vizplex 600x800 166dpi B&W Screen
- Lithium-Polymer battery rated at 1000 mAh, 7,000 page turns per charge
- 64mb for Operating System, 512mb for content
- Micro SD/SDHC Slot for additional storage
- Accelerometer built in
- Size without cover: 4.6" x 5.5" x 0.39", Weight: 5.3oz
- Size with cover: 4.6" x 5.5" x 0.47", Weight: 6.1oz
- Image formats supported: JPG, BMP, PNG, TIFF
- Book formats supported: FB2, FB2.zip, TXT, PDF, RTF, HTML, PRC, CHM, DJVU, DOC, EPUB, TCR
- DRM Supported: Adobe Digital Editions
UNBOXED:
I received a retail packaged PocketReader, it was well padded in shipping and the box was attractive enough. Not quite as slick packaging as the Kindle, but certainly no Doctorate degree was required to open it as with the Barnes and Noble nook.
COMPARED TO:
How does the PocketBook stack up to the competition? Compared to the two devices I had handy, the Barnes and Noble nook and the Amazon Kindle 2 it seemed positively diminutive - you can't help but feel the weight difference, it's tremendous. Upon first sight, my wife commented "I could throw that in my pocket book" which really brought the name of the device home. It's a solid $20 cheaper than a nook or Kindle, although in fairness those units come with an AC adapter for charging. The PocketBook 360 costs the same if you buy the optional kit with an AC adapter and Micro SD card, which also puts it on par with the amount of storage space. There's no 3G connectivity, meaning books are loaded exclusively via USB. That's a trade-off, for sure, but the PB 360 is half the weight and significantly shorter than either of those devices. Perhaps the best comparison is to the Sony Reader Pocket Edition, which at $199 costs a bit cheaper (but has more surface area and weighs almost 2.5oz more). It also omits a 3G modem and connects via Mini USB. One thing this device does offer is a two year limited manufacturer's warranty - double the norm for eReaders. Considering the cost of extended warranties, this makes the PocketBook 360 an excellent deal, although some extended warranties cover accidental breakage as compared to manufacturer's warranties which do not.
How small is the device? I'll compare the dimensions and weight to the Sony PRS-300 "Reader Pocket Edition" - Sony's smallest eReader as well as the B&N nook and Amazon Kindle for comparison.
| PB360 | Kindle | nook | Sony | |
| Width | 4.6" | 5.2" | 4.9" | 4.25" |
| Height | 5.5" | 8.0" | 7.7" | 6.25" |
| Depth | 0.39" | 0.36" | 0.50" | 0.41" |
| Weight | 5.3oz | 10.2oz | 12.1oz | 7.76oz |
| List Price | $239.99 | $259.00 | $259.00 | $199.99 |
By most measurements, this is a small device. The Sony is a tad less wide, the Kindle a tad less thick. The Sony weighs a bit more, no doubt due to it's metal shell. The PB360 is an all plastic case, but was very sturdy with no creaks or obvious flexing. The Sony is a bit less wide, but has an overall higher surface area and weighs almost 50% more - on the flip side, it has a price advantage. The Kindle and nook are there for comparison only - if you are looking for an ultra-small, ultra-light eReader, they probably aren't the unit for you thanks to extras like keyboards (Kindle) and LCD touch screens (nook) plus the 3G data connection.
SPEED:
The device boots very quickly, especially for a Linux based reader. It takes just over 10 seconds from pushing the power button until the menu becoming available. Unlike some devices, there's no screensaver, or sleep mode. This means you'll often have to wait the 10 seconds or so before you can read. On the flip side, I became rather bored trying to gauge the battery life. I can't say for sure the 7,000 page turn estimate is accurate, but I can promise you the battery life is terrific! Opening a book took between 4 and 5 seconds consistently. I have to admit I was beginning to question the claim to "probably" being the fastest eReader at this point - but to be honest, this was an acceptable load time and the device started to shine once a book was open. Flipping pages was absolutely fast, faster than a Kindle 2 and ran circles around a nook. I tried both unprotected and protected ePub files as well as Adobe PDF and in all cases, the page turning speed was quite impressive. As you'll see in the video below, it finished turning the page before the nook began to refresh it's screen, time and time again. The only thing my nook had in this area that the PocketBook 360 didn't was the ability to press the page turn button several times and queue a bunch of page turns. The PocketBook didn't have as much of a need for this ability, since unlike a pre 1.1.2 nook it didn't lose it's place in a book plus all bookmarks when it shut down. Additionally, the PocketBook has the ability to jump to a specific page number. To illustrate the difference in speed, I shot some video at 120 frames per second - this means that each second in real life takes four seconds to show in the video below:
So how fast can you turn pages? I captured some real time video as well, so you can see. The below video tracks the time it takes to navigate the menu to see Adobe Digital Editions content, open a book, and then page through several pages.
The PocketBook 360 really does work well as a reading device - page turning is about as fast as any e-Ink device I've come across. As I mentioned above, opening books can be a bit sluggish, but as you don't do that nearly as often it works fairly well in general use. Searching was lightning fast as well. Once you adjusted to the keyboard input and entered your search time, the PocketBook 360 got through your search in a barely measurable amount of time, highlighting found terms extremely quickly. Coupled with the fast page refresh, this was a handy feature, to be sure. One gripe: Every time you return to the book list, it starts at the end of the list. You'll see from the video that I had two pages of books (one I loaded plus the samples it came with). I would imagine this would become fairly tedious if you had hundreds of books loaded. Thanks to a strong search feature, this can be easily worked around. In addition, at the main menu, the last two books you read are visible, which can be a nice shortcut.
ON DRM
PocketBook nailed it here. The device is natively supported by Adobe Digital Editions, the free software supplied by Adobe for Macintosh and Windows users. In fact, if all you expect to do is purchase books and load them - this is the only software you'll need. Upon connecting my reader to my MacBook Air via USB, and opening ADE, it instantly recognized the device and asked if I wanted to authorize the device. Upon doing so, I was able to drag content directly onto the device's icon in ADE and the transfer process took seconds. This device clearly supports USB 2.0 connections, so make sure you aren't using an older USB 1.0 or 1.1 compliant cable - you'll get much faster transfer speeds! On my MacBook Air, at least, the device showed up twice. One drive seemed to hold the system files, and appeared to be used when firmware updates were required. The other held all of the games, eBooks and other assorted user manageable content. Upon dragging either icon to the trash to eject the unit, it immediately reappeared. I could only sever the connection by pulling the plug - not the recommended method for managing USB mass storage devices!
ON PAGE DISPLAY
The PocketBook 360 does a really fine job here. There are a number of fonts included - although I'm not sure the italic ones are of much use to most readers. In addition, you have full control over things like orientation (you can rotate it any of four ways), margin control and font size. In fact, the font sizes range from way to small to absurdly large - but with any value in between available, you have a lot of options.
Some content doesn't get the same fine tuned font size controls, such as PDFs, but there are always plenty of zoom levels available.
ON SCREEN CLARITY
As with all Vizplex screens, it's excellent. With the exception of a touch screen added on top of it, E-Ink screens are glare free, easy to see in direct sunlight, and generally work well with booklights and other lighting, and this screen is no exception!
ON DATA INPUT
With some devices bringing physical keyboards, and others bringing touch based input, how does the PocketBook 360 fare with just a pair of forward/back buttons, a directional pad and an okay button? While typing was certainly slower, making things like taking notes less than ideal, the keyboard input was fairly well designed. The QWERTY keyboard was split into sections (left, right and center). With one tap of the d-pad you can pick which section to go to. Once there, you are never more than two additional clicks away from the letter you seek. For searching for a word or two, this is just fine. I wouldn't want to take notes on it, but to be honest, I don't take notes or annotations on any eReader. Without WiFi or 3G, there's no store, so one additional use of a keyboard is avoided.
I can't think of a better way to handle text input without a physical or touchscreen keyboard. The goal of this device is clearly to be small and lightweight. Adding a physical keyboard would add to the size and weight. Adding a touch screen would do so as well, and make the screen subject to glare, something it admirably avoids currently. ON MENU INPUT
While every eReader should be measured largely on acquiring books, opening books and turning pages within books, a speedy menu system greatly aids in enjoyment of an eReader. PocketBook does a fairly good job here, a few minor quibbles aside.
While in the book, tapping the center button of the d-pad brings up a quick menu. Interestingly, when reading supplied books, the lower right hand icon brought up the settings menu where I could fine-tune the font size from almost any point size imaginable. When reading PDFs or protected Adobe Digital Editions content (what most people will spend their time doing) this was replaced with "Contents". Using the 'up arrow' still cycled through five levels of zoom, putting it solidly on par with the competition. 
The main menu is well laid out, with quick access to your two most recently read titles, plus icons to read eBooks, News (via their Windows-only RSS feed downloader), go to your designated Favorites, view photos, use the dictionary, view notes, run apps, view the calendar or enter settings. Provided applications include a clock (large display), a calculator, solitaire, chess, Sudoku, the aforementioned dictionary and a game called SeaBattle. While screen saver modes no doubt reduce the overall battery life - they also decrease the startup time. I'd love to see an option to have the clock function as a screensaver.
The 'content' menu (selecting eBooks, pictures, etc) were really the only gripe I had in what was otherwise a terrific menu system. Menus seem to be the bane of all e-Ink based eReaders, from the disconnect between the nook's LCD and e-Ink screen, the nook's initial lack of sorting of personal documents, the missing folder or tag support of the Kindle even after two years of existence... nobody seems to nail it. PocketBook's menu system came close. There is some support for folders, which is a godsend. Navigation speed is fairly quick, thanks to the speedy processor and fast page refreshes. The only complaint I have is that every time you enter a new module (eBooks, Pictures, etc) it starts at the last entry, when I frequently wished to be at the beginning. With just a page or four of content this is a minor annoyance. Load up 500 books and you'll have to revert to searching. This is easily addressed, and hopefully will be in a future software update. Aside from that, everything looks great. You can view content by icons or in a list view. There's a third view that provides a small thumbnail next to the title of the book, which I preferred:
PROS AND CONS:
PROS:
- Small footprint.
- Incredibly lightweight.
- Very fast page turns.
- Strong battery.
- Simple Adobe Digital Editions connectivity.
- Cover included - no case purchase required.
- Large oversized page turn buttons far superior to Sony's PRS-300.
CONS:
- Optional AC charger adds cost.
- No standby mode.
- Starts at bottom of lists not top in menus.
- Dictionary download required - US English dictionary not pre-installed.
- Design flourishes on included cover may not be desirable for all potential customers.
SUMMARY
While I'd love to see the price come in at $199 just to see Sony have one less advantage, I really enjoyed this eReader. The inclusion of the case and an actual printed manual were nice touches; having to download the English dictionary off their website was an extra step I would have liked to have been able to skip. The oversized previous/next page buttons are a great touch, and left-handed people can easily rotate the screen to place them in a more usable location. I like the current trend of putting those buttons on both sides (as employed by B&N and Amazon) - but that might get in the way of keeping the size ultra-small. Loading content from Kobo was as easy as could be (and fast) - while not a 3G device this was a seamless, easy process.
Posts
Does the Pocketbook-360 have a user replaceable battery?
ReplyDeleteAlso do you think it would be possible with firmware to add a sleep mode or is that something on the hardware side?
Thanks
Hi RWP - that battery does not appear to be user replaceable. There's no doubt in mind mind that sleep mode COULD be added via firmware update - whether or not they WILL do so is another question. It's definitely not a hardware limitation. The plus side is, it really does startup quickly and the battery is quite good...
ReplyDeleteScott, thanks a lot for such a wonderful review!!!
ReplyDeleteJerry Bondarenko
PocketBookReader.com
I'm seriously considering purchasing a 360, but I'm confused about why you say that left-handed people may not like the big page turning buttons? It's my understanding that the 360 rotates 360 degrees, so how would that be an issue?
ReplyDeleteSarah, it wasn't so much that you won't like the size, but the location. You are right about the rotation though, and I will have to revise that comment. If that was your only reservation, you should have no reservations. :)
ReplyDeleteThe battery is most definitely user replaceable. The back cover slides off and underneath the cover is a reset button and the battery.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mo! I hope that's not in the manual, as if it is I'm busted - don't read em! I'll update the review as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for clearing up the left-handed/360 rotation thing. It was definitely one of the selling points for me, not to mention that pretty swirly pattern on the ivory version.
ReplyDelete