Semi-announcement. PocketBook Viva and a new generation of electronic ink
PocketBook has introduced its new reader PocketBook Viva. The announcement seems to be official, but the characteristics of the new device are far from complete (the dimensions, battery capacity, etc. are unknown). So let's call it a semi-announcement.
Mega-monopoly corporation E Ink continues to develop electronic ink technologies. And PocketBook Viva is the first E-Ink Gallery 3 color ink reader. The differences from previous generations of ink are as follows:
- From now on, both black and white text and color images have the same resolution of 300 pixelsper inch Previous generations of inks used a different technology that produced the same 300 ppi for all black and white, but only 100 ppi for color.
- The number of color shades has increased from 4096 to "over 50 thousand". I wonder if they mean 64K or something else?
- As usual, the speed of redrawing has grown and so on. However, all this is clearly not enough to watch the video. But how the pages of sites will look now and how convenient it will be to scroll through them is a very interesting question.
The screen size is 8" (198 cm²).1440x1920 (300 ppi). There is a backlight with adjustable color temperature.
Whether it's a touchscreen isn't specified, but it's more likely than not. However, there are also mechanical buttons for turning pages.
The brand of the chipset and the amount of RAM are unknown. Something quad. By the standards of Android devices, of course, rather weak. But PocketBook, as far as I remember, still has something of its own, not Android.
There is a lot of permanent memory, 64 GB. Why so many? Don't know. Read color comics. Or children's picture books. However, for a PDF screen reader of this size,The measure is frankly not enough.
In the official press release, a lot of space is devoted to the musical and audio abilities of PocketBook Viva. There is a speaker, there is Bluetooth version as much as 5.2. There is a Type-C connector - you can probably plug something into it. Text-to-Speech, of course. However, to use an expensive ink device as not a reader, but a sound speaker is, in my opinion, a very strange decision.
Like some other devices from PocketBook, there is protection against water (but not against dust) according to the class IPX8. They promise that Viva will painlessly survive immersion in purewater for up to one hour. Yes, just clean. And only in fresh water, I suspect.
The PocketBook Viva will go on sale at the end of the first quarter of 2023. They promise not the most humane price - €599 (₽40000, $632).
Key Features of PocketBook Viva:
ScreenE-Ink, 8", 198 cm², 1440x1920, 300 ppi, touchscreen, capacitive, multi-touch, backlight, E-Ink Gallery 3, ComfortGaze Iron4 cores MemoryROM 64 GB BatteryLi-Pol SensorsAccelerometer USBType-C v2.0