Pocketbook is adding a new 7″ ereader to their product line called the Pocketbook Era Lite. It’s getting released later this month (May 2026), and it comes with Pocketbook’s new Libby App pre-installed for borrowing ebooks from public libraries.
They claim the Era Lite has a premium design with an “affordable price”, although they haven’t said what that price will be just yet. The 1st gen Pocketbook Era that came out in 2022 is currently selling for $249 on Pocketbook’s Amazon Store, and the Era Color is selling for $269, so I’d expect the Era Lite to fall in the $220 range.
The Pocketbook Era Lite features a 7-inch E Ink Carta 1300 screen with 300 ppi. It appears to have an indented screen in the pictures, but it’s hard to tell for sure. I hope it does because I didn’t like how the flush layer made the screen look cloudy and faded on the 1st gen Era, but otherwise the design was really nice.
I’m not sure what’s supposed to be “Lite” about this new model. Most of the specs are the same as the first gen Era, except this new version lacks a speaker (audio is via Bluetooth or a USB audio adapter, which, apparently, is included) and it has a lower water resistance rating (IPX4 instead of IPX8). It is a bit lighter at 204.5 grams compared to 228 grams, but the dimensions listed are exactly the same at 134.3 × 155 × 7.8 mm.
Like the 1st gen Era, it has a dual-core CPU with 16GB of internal storage and 1GB of RAM. It has a rotation sensor and a cover sensor, with a USB-C port and a 1700 mAh battery. It also has a frontlight with adjustable color temperature.
The Pocketbook Era Lite runs Pocketbook’s Linux-based software, not Android like some models. It supports Adobe and LCP DRM, along with 25 common ebook and audio formats.
As noted above, it comes with Pocketbook’s new Libby App for borrowing ebooks directly on the device. It’ll be interesting to see how that compares to Kobo’s library implementation, which is rather clunky with having to borrow through their store and only being able to use one library card at a time. It’s also funny because the Era Lite is basically the fictional Kobo Libra BW that people have been waiting for Kobo to release for the past 2 years. I’m looking forward to trying it out.
I am a Kobo fan, but, not carrying a BW Libra makes no sense.
The Libby app is available on all PocketBook e-readers running firmware version 6.10.xxxx. The Verse Pro, for example, also has it.
The most interesting feature of the Era Lite is its Carta 1300 display (and its lower price; in Europe, it is available at the same price as the Verse Pro during its launch campaign).