New ebook readers are hard to come by in the United States that aren’t named Kindle, but in Europe there’s still a steady stream of new products being introduced each year.
PocketBook is one of the larger ereader makers, and they’ve just announced a new ebook reader to their lineup, the PocketBook Basic 2.
As the name implies, it is a second gen model of PocketBook’s trimmed-down ereader. This new model comes with a boost in memory and processing power, but being a basic model it sill lacks a touchscreen, frontlight, and audio support.
What the PocketBook Basic 2 does have is a 6-inch E Ink Pearl screen with 800 x 600 resolution, Wi-Fi for downloading ebooks, a 1GHz processor with 256 MB of RAM, 4GB internal memory, and it sports a microSD card slot for cards up to 32GB.
The reader comes in two color choices, white or black. It is expected to go on sale starting in February for €69.
PocketBook Basic 2 Specs
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Display
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6” E Ink® Pearl, 800 x 600 pixels, 166 dpi
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Screen material
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glass
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Touchscreen
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none
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Shades of gray
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16
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Processor
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1 GHz
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Operative memory
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256 MB
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Flash memory
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4 GB (The actual available internal storage size may vary depending on the software configuration of your device)
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Accumulator
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Li-Ion, 3,7V, 1300 mAh, up to month without charging (Battery life and values mentioned above might vary depending on usage mode, connectivity and settings)
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USB-interface
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Micro USB
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External memory slot
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MicroSD do 32GB
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Formats of e-books
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PDF, PDF (DRM), EPUB, EPUB(DRM), DJVU, FB2, FB2.ZIP, DOC, DOCX, RTF, PRC, TCR, TXT, CHM, HTM, HTML, MOBI, ACSM
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Formats of images
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JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF
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Additional features
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Calculator, Dictionary, Calendar&Clock, Chess, Klondike, Photo album, Sudoku, Scrible
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Casing material
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Plastic
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Color
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white, grey
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Dimensions
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174,4 х 114,6 х 8,3 mm
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Weight
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188 g
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Isn’t this effectively the same as a 1st generation Nook SimpleTouch that costs more? Sure, it has more memory, but I’ve never run out of memory on a Nook e-reader.
Not really much to compare. Other than having E Ink screens and expandable memory they are very different devices inside and out.