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PocketBook Touch HD Updated with 300 PPI Screen

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PocketBook  is about to update its mid-range ebook reader with a better screen.

The new Touch HD will feature a 300 ppi Carta E-ink screen with a capacitive touchscreen and Wifi. It runs Pocketbook’s OS on a 1GHz CPU with 512MB RAM and comes with a micro SD card slot, 8GB internal storage, and a headphone jack.

We don’t know anything about the battery yet, but the new Touch HD weighs 180 grams and measures 175 x 113.5 x 9 mm.

It’s going to retail for 149 euros. That’s ten euros more than the Kindle Paperwhite, and that’s not a good comparison.

It’s not just that Amazon has a better reputation, but also that the Paperwhite comes with a frontlight and the Touch HD does not.

Without that frontlight, I think the Touch HD should cost at least 20 euros less, don’t you?

Edit: It turns out this ereader does have a frontlight. I missed that detail because Google translate is not cooperating with me today. Thanks, Chalid!

AlleseBook.de

 

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Comments


poiboy August 29, 2016 um 5:15 pm

agreed! the price point is flawed without light.

Nate Hoffelder August 29, 2016 um 5:32 pm

It does have a frontlight; I goofed.

poiboy August 29, 2016 um 8:41 pm

hahaha.. do you think the quality of light would be at quality of the KPW?


Hrafn August 30, 2016 um 5:20 am

Given Amazon’s rather heavily fortified 'walled garden' around its Kindle, I think the Paperwhite is a heavily imperfect substitute, and thus a poor comparison.

Then again, Onyx-Boox’s (300ppi) C67ML Carta2 is only 133 Euro from Banggood, so any way you look it isn’t particularly competitive on price.

Worse yet, it is a now-not-particularly-new screen in the same old chassis, so very much a 'meh' reader, unless for some idiosyncratic reason you’re a big fan of PB’s eReader OS. Better than no update at all I suppose, but not by much.

Nate Hoffelder August 30, 2016 um 7:39 am

One, you can load your own ebooks on a Kindle, and even have Amazon host them.

Two, that wall you speak of is built by DRM. Publishers choose to use DRM, so they build the wall rather than Amazon.

Three, it is easy to strip the DRM.

So no, I don’t see why this would be an issue.

Hrafn August 30, 2016 um 9:25 am

One, yes you can "load your own ebooks on a Kindle", as long as you convert any epubs first. (Given the small size of ebooks, the low price of microSD cards, and the wide availability of free Cloud services, who gives a medium-sized, long-tailed rodent’s posterior about Amazon hosting your books.)

Two, no the "wall" is NOT just DRM. It includes a heavily-fortified and vigorously defended custom OS designed primarily to sell ebooks from Amazon, and read those Amazon ebooks. It is designed (and repeatedly fortified) to resist attempts hack it to introduce unauthorised features. It also required (and AFAIK still requires) an Amazon a/c to use. This also grants Amazon unprecedented power over what you can or cannot do with it, extending even to the ability to remotely delete books off your Kindle. Is it really *your* eReader or Amazon’s portable storefront?

Three, stripping DRM is ILLEGAL, according to DMCA.

People tend to self-select into two crowds — those who are happy to let Amazon control and run everything for the convenience factor, and those who prefer to control things for themselves. Given Amazon’s massive economies of scale, and ability to treat the eReader as a 'loss leader', Amazon is unlikely to be undercut on price. This means that anybody sufficiently indifferent between the two worldviews to be particularly price-sensitive will also fall into Amazon’s lap. The market is for those who are willing to pay a premium for that control.

Frank August 30, 2016 um 11:44 am

While Amazon can remotely delete your ebooks, this is very rarely done and if you are worried about it leave the device in airplane mode.

You can easily email content to Amazon’s servers to send to your Kindle or Kindle app and Amazon has never censored the content.

Also, Kindle devices are not sold at a loss (now, in the past they may have been like that), in the worst case they are sold at cost.

poiboy August 30, 2016 um 1:14 pm

i have never heard of amazon having the ability (or if so not actually doing it) to remove any books you have sideloaded or emailed directly to your kindle as a document (even if in mobi format).
i think we all remember the backlash from these books being removed: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0

.. bringing up the debate of do you own your ebook or are you 'borrowing' them?

and Hrafn.. its also illegal to remove the tags from your pillow according to popular fact or fiction, lol. if i own something, i personally feel i have a right to alter it how i see (including striping the DRM so that i can read it on my kindle or my old kobo). has anyone see an arrest made by removing DRM from their own ebooks?

i agree with nate.. i don’t see an issue.

Hrafn August 31, 2016 um 12:20 am

I did not say that such deletions happened frequently, I merely cited it as the most extreme example of Amazon’s "unprecedented power over what you can or cannot do with" 'your' Kindle.

Hrafn August 31, 2016 um 12:29 am

poiboy: I’m sure that the US Congress would be somewhat disheartened by the fact that you consider the explicit contents of one of their laws to have no more substance than "according to popular fact or fiction".

A system that that simultaneously (i) requires technically-illegal acts to make full use of it & (ii) grants itself unprecedented power over how you use the system, tends to make me more than a little nervous.


Pocketbook Touch HD August 30, 2016 um 5:33 am

[…] poids de 180g est bien vu, mais le problème pourrait venir du prix. En effet, plusieurs sites annoncent un prix proche de 149 euros ce qui me paraît trop élevé pour une liseuse en […]


min September 2, 2016 um 7:57 pm

It has the physical turn button though. As a sony reader owner that liked the bottom physical page turn button location, this device seems a nice updgrade from prs-t1/t2.

800×600 -> 1448×1072
unlighted -> lighted
similar weight/size
similar button set
still have external storage


Anthony January 5, 2017 um 9:06 pm

always bashing pocketbook…why? I got one and it’s wonderful, better than kobo and kindle (audio output, speech synthetizer, much more formats supported, microsd slot). They are only trendier, fancier and more limited products for the conformists


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