Forget the Kindle: World’s first color e-reader with 7.8-inch display is here

PocketBook InkPad Color news
(Image credit: PocketBook)

Meet the InkPad Color, the latest e-reader from Pocketbook that aims to take on the Amazon Kindle with a color-rich display. 

The successor to last year’s PocketBooker Color, the InkPad Color is a 7.8-inch e-reader that uses the latest version of the Kaleido tech seen in previous PocketBook devices, reported The Verge.  

The Kaleido panel on the InkPad Color helps to enhance the onscreen contrast and saturation, as well as boosting the screen’s refresh rate for smoother page-turning. This promises to make the InkPad an excellent device for reading magazines, children’s books, and graphic novels, something that other e-readers don’t always excel at. 

The InkPad Color is far from the first color e-reader on the market, but its 7.8-inch screen is certainly a unique selling point. The display beats Amazon’s largest e-reader, the Kindle Oasis, by a reasonable margin in both size and contrast. 

Thanks to the upgraded Kaledio technology, the device is able to display around 4,100 colors, but it does have its drawbacks. The color output is limited to 100ppi, whereas its greyscale resolution is a significantly higher 300ppi. 

The rest of the specs make solid reading as well. The InkPad Color runs a custom version of Linux, is 8mm thick, and weighs 225g, making it slightly on the heavier side but overall still very portable. 

It offers 16GB of internal storage, which can be expanded thanks to an SD card slot, and a 2,900 mAh battery, plus it offers Bluetooth connectivity for pairing wireless headphones which allows you to listen to audiobooks. 

The InkPad Color is available to buy right now from Amazon and retails for $329 / £366.

Rory Mellon
Entertainment Editor (UK)

Rory is an Entertainment Editor at Tom’s Guide based in the UK. He covers a wide range of topics but with a particular focus on gaming and streaming. When he’s not reviewing the latest games, searching for hidden gems on Netflix, or writing hot takes on new gaming hardware, TV shows and movies, he can be found attending music festivals and getting far too emotionally invested in his favorite football team.