Comparison Review: Pocketbook InkPad vs Bookeen Cybook Ocean
The Pocketbook InkPad and the Bookeen Cybook Ocean are the only two 8″ ereaders on the market at the moment, but in spite of having the same size screen they could not be more different.
My Ocean arrived on Friday, and I’ve had it for a few days now. At first I felt an initial distaste for the hardware design, but once I got past that I noticed that the Ocean was slightly faster and did a better job at displaying an Epub. But in spite of being weaker in the software dept, the InkPad is more pleasant to hold and read on.
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Hardware
As I explained in my review, the InkPad has a brown shell with rounded edges and a lopsided design which enables one-handed reading. It has a black rubber pad to the right of the screen and a corresponding pad on the back which makes it easier for me to grip the InkPad.
The Ocean, on the other hand, is all sharp edges with an angled rear shell and page turn buttons placed below the screen on either side of the menu button. And when I say sharp edges; I am not exaggerating; trying to hold the Ocean by the edges is unpleasant.
Both ereaders have a microSD card slot, and they both ship with 4GB of storage. But the InkPad also has a headphone jack which supports an mp3 player and TTS.
When it comes to the screens, the InkPad has a higher resolution screen than the Ocean. The InkPad has a Pearl E-ink display with screen resolution of 1,600 x 1,200, while the Ocean has a "knockoff" epaper display from E-ink’s Chinese competitor, Guangzhou OED Technologies. This screen has a resolution of 1,024 x 768, or about the same number of pixels as you would find on the Kindle Paperwhite.
Both devices have a frontlight and touchscreen. I haven’t found a reason to comment on the touchscreens yet (they’re fine), but I have observed that the frontlight on the InkPad has both a lower minimum setting and a brighter maximum setting (both frontlights can be turned off, of course).
When the frontlight is dialed up near the brightest setting, the screen on the Ocean looks decidedly grayer than the screen on the InkPad. The same is true for when the frontlights are turned off; the InkPad has the whiter screen.
Software
The InkPad and the Ocean each run a proprietary OS developed by their respective makers. The devices each have their quirks, and they offer very different software features.
The InkPad supports apps which add a number of functions, including a web browser, calculator, games, and Dropbox (more details here). The InkPad also supports a broader range of formats than the Ocean, including Mobi, DjvU, and DOC (more details here).
I would like to say some nice things about the Ocean, but in reality all it has going for it are the faster page turn and the formatting options for Epub files. The Ocean offers more formatting options, including ragged right and an option to bold all text, than can be found on the InkPad. On the other hand the InkPad does handle PDFs better. It’s not just the higher resolution screen; the InkPad offers more options, including margin cropping and more zoom options (more details here).
The InkPad also shipped with several text to speech voices and with more dictionaries (the Ocean doesn’t even have an English language dictionary). While both devices have a search function and annotation features, they’re a lot easier to use on the InkPad. Adding a note to an ebook on the InkPad is only one click away, not three. Also, the InkPad offers a separate TOC-like journal for keeping your annotations (highlights, notes, and bookmarks) organized.
Conclusion
As much as I would like to say that each device has its strengths, I can’t. The Ocean is in almost every way inferior to the InkPad. Just about the only point in the Ocean’s favor is the Epub formatting, and that you can buy an Ocean right now from Bookeen. The InkPad is back-ordered.
If I were looking to get one or the other, I would wait to get the Inkpad.
Cybook Ocean Specs
- CPU: 1GHz
- RAM: 128MB
- Display: 8″ epaper display
- Screen resolution: 1024 x 768 (160 ppi)
- Touchscreen, frontlight
- Storage: 4GB internal, microSD card slot
- Wifi
- Battery: 2.1Ah, one month runtime
- Dimensions: 150 X 196 X 7 mm
- Weight: 300 grams
- eBook Formats: ePub, PDF, HTML, Txt, FB2, DJVU
InkPad Specs
- CPU: 1GHz
- RAM: 512MB
- Screen: 8″earl E-ink display,
- Screen resolution: 1,600 x 1,200
- Frontlight, Touchscreen
- Storage: 4GB internal, microSD card slot
- Connectivity: Wifi
- Battery: 2.5Ah, one month runtime
- Audio: headphone jack (TTS, MP3 supported)
- eBook Format Support (more details here): Epub, PDF, FB2, DJVu, Mobi, PRC, CHM
- Office and Other File Format Support: Doc, Docx, RTF, txt, HTML
- Weight: 350 grams
- Dimensions: 195.5 x 162.8 x 7.3 mm
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