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PocketBook Era review

Is this a new era for pocketbook ereaders.

TechRadar Verdict

The PocketBook Era, particularly the Copper Sunset model, is one of the most good-looking ereaders we’ve tested and its built-in speaker is an interesting addition. Just don’t expect great sound from the mono speaker. Where it really counts, the ereader ushers in a new era for PocketBook with snappier performance compared to its other models and it has the best battery life of any ereader we’ve tested. However, despite the latest E Ink screen tech, it lacks contrast when compared to competitors using the same display in the same size.

Gorgeous design

Snappy performance

• Excellent battery life

Anti-scratch coating

No content store support outside Europe

Low on-screen contrast

Side buttons not ergonomic

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

• Two-minute review
• Price & availability
• Design & display
• User interface
• User experience
• Battery life
• Should I buy?

Also consider

• Report card

PocketBook Era: two-minute review

The first thing to strike us as soon as we unboxed the PocketBook Era was just how gorgeous it looked. We were sent the Copper Sunset model of the ereader and the rose-gold trim around the device – which, by the way, is not an exact rectangle – adds something extra to the design. It makes it look like a truly premium tablet.

There is a heft to it, though. Weighing 228g, it’s one of the heavier 7-inch ereaders on the market (the Kobo Libra 2 is 215g), but that weight is distributed evenly and it feels quite comfortable and well balanced, although the placement of the side buttons isn’t very ergonomical.

The latest E Ink Carta 1200 makes page turns far snappier than any other older PocketBook model we’ve tried previously, and its overall performance and responsiveness is better when compared to its older siblings. More than anything, what really impressed us was the battery life… it just goes on for what feels like forever!

Our biggest complaint is the lack of contrast on the screen. Despite the latest screen tech – which is also used on the 2021 edition of the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Libra 2 – the text on screen appears washed out and not black enough in comparison to its direct competitors. This could be because of the additional screen protection PocketBook has added for scratch resistance, but it’s not ideal on a device that you primarily use for reading.

Of course, you can use it for listening too. The onboard speaker doesn’t have the best sound and not quite loud enough to let you walk away from the device while it’s narrating your favorite titles, but it’s just enough as a personal listening device… if you don’t mind the sound being a little on the tinny side.

As with other PocketBook devices, there’s no way to display the book cover on the sleep screen, although there are plenty of other customizable options in the settings pane to help you set up the ereader to be the most user-friendly as you can possibly get from an UX that is still lacking in some areas. There are improvements to PocketBook’s user interface as compared to what we saw in the InkPad Color , but it still isn’t as streamlined as what you’d find in Kindle ’s latest overhaul or on a Kobo.

As with any other PocketBook device, there’s no access to an ebook store outside of the European market, but there’s wide non-DRM file format support and it’s well priced for a really nice-looking ereader that features plenty of storage.

PocketBook Era review: price and availability

• Available in two models
• Retail price: from $199 (about £159 / AU$275)
• Announced July 2022

The PocketBook Era was announced in July 2022 and is now available to buy directly from the manufacturer or from select retailers. As with most PocketBook devices, global availability is patchy, although you can import it via some retailers.

There are two models of the Era available, each with a specific amount of internal storage. The Stardust Silver option comes with 16GB of storage and will set you back $199 (about £159 / AU$275), while the Copper Sunset version comes with 64GB of storage and a price tag of $249 (around £199 / AU$345).

That’s quite competitively priced for a 7-inch ereader with 16GB of storage and page-turn buttons, especially when you consider the Era also comes with built-in speakers that no Kindle or Kobo model possesses. To bring that price into perspective, the Amazon Kindle Oasis with its 8GB of storage will set you back $249 / £229 / AU$399, while the Kobo Libra 2 costs $179 / £159 / AU$279 for 32GB of storage.

Value score: 4/5

PocketBook Era review: design and display

• Beautiful design
• E Ink Carta 1200 screen
• Built-in speaker

If you’ve already read what we’ve said earlier, then you know we’re massive fans of the PocketBook Era’s design aesthetic – the metallic trim around the side of the body gives it a very modern and premium look. In fact, we’d go so far as to say it can give the Kindle Oasis a run for its money in terms of looks, but the Amazon ereader is slightly slimmer, has a full-metal body and feels quite light in the hand in comparison.

Don’t get us wrong, the Era isn’t a heavy ereader – it weighs 228g and most of that is coming from a large capacity battery (more on that later). There’s a certain heft to it when compared to other ereaders, even bigger ones like the Kobo Sage , but the weight distribution is even.

PocketBook’s signature buttons – which have typically been on the bottom bezel on most of its ereaders – are now on the side, and this can cause some issues for users who read for long periods of time in a single sitting. Designed for single-hand use, the four buttons – for power, next page, previous page and home screen – blend quite seamlessly into the broader bezel with their placement right at the edge of the device. We found that this placed the thumb at an uncomfortable position that tends to get a little painful after about 40 minutes to an hour of holding the device in one hand.

The textured rear of the tablet, with its several lines, does provide a significant amount of grip, but the ergonomics aren't quite right here. The lines, however, are dust magnets and, if you aren't using a cover for the device, can start to look rather dirty quite quickly as it's hard to keep clean.

Speaking of the rear, there’s a slim panel that’s discernible if you look closely; it comes off to reveal charging points that, we’re assuming, would connect to a sleep cover with its own built-in battery. PocketBook hasn’t listed any such accessory at the time of writing, but perhaps that’s coming in the near future.

Unlike most other ereaders, the PocketBook Era features a built-in speaker, which you’ll see on the bottom of the device as perforations on the metallic trim… exactly like a smartphone. Along the side of the broader bezel is a USB-C charging port and a tiny light indicator that comes on when the Era is performing one function or another and also while charging.

The 7-inch screen, as mentioned above, is the latest E Ink Carta 1200 display, but also comes with additional scratch-resistance. We haven’t spent enough time with the Era to test if the anti-scratch layer really does what it says on the tin (and we weren’t brave enough to run something sharp over it either), but it may have affected how text is displayed on the screen.

The PocketBook Era just seems to be lacking contrast, which is very surprising as it’s the same display as used in all the most recent ereaders models. With a screen resolution of 300ppi and the same size, black text on the Libra 2 appears sharper and blacker. It’s the same case when compared to the 11th-generation Kindle Paperwhite. 

This could be because of the quality of plastic used on the top layer of the Era's screen or the additional anti-scratch protection, but whatever the reason is, it’s far from ideal. If the PocketBook Era is going to be your first ever ereader or you’re planning to upgrade from a pretty old model, you likely won’t notice the difference and it’s perfectly readable but, if you have used any of the newer devices with the Carta 1200 screen or compare them side by side, then the difference is stark.

Adjusting screen brightness doesn’t quite help with this issue, but we’re quite pleased to find that the default light temperature on our review unit of the Era is warm. There’s also a SMARTlight feature (yes, PocketBook styles it that way) that automatically adjusts both brightness and color temperature depending on the time of day. The difference in brightness or hue weren’t too noticeable during our testing, but the fact that the light color was more amber even during the day was really easy on the eyes.

Design score: 4/5

PocketBook Era review: user interface

• Clunky interface
• Occasionally sluggish
• No access to store outside Europe

This isn’t our first rodeo with PocketBook, we’ve also tested the InkPad Color and found the user interface lacking. While there have been some updates since, there’s just not enough here to make it as streamlined as it is on a Kobo (which happens to be our favorite UX on an ereader). 

The home screen on the Era is pretty much the same as other PocketBook devices, with three covers of the books you’ve read (or currently reading) displayed side by side on the top half, and recommendations listed below. Access to the settings and notifications are via the downward-pointing arrow on the top edge of the screen, which is flanked by the day/time on one corner, and the battery, brightness and connectivity icons on the other. The home screen is also where you’ll get access to your entire ebook library, audiobooks in a different tab, as well as access to any notes, extra apps (like a browser, music player and calculator) and the onboard store (which isn’t accessible outside the European Union).

While you can’t customize the home screen, there are plenty of options to personalize the functionality of the PocketBook Era. For example, you can remap the home and power buttons for a handful of alternate functions, including taking a screenshot, bringing up the music player and some other more mainstream ones like controlling the frontlight or powering off. You can even remap the zones on the screen that you would use for page turns or for bringing up the on-page menu. The default options are already mapped out in the Settings, and you can change them how you see fit under the Gestures In Reading Mode option.

We do have an issue with how screen rotation works on the Era. For the sake of comfort, we think it's important to be able to quickly switch between left or right-handed use with any ereader featuring page-turn buttons. Unlike the Kindle and Kobo alternatives, though, enabling the Era's orientation lock doesn't allow for any rotation at all as locking means it’s in a single static position. So, if you want to swap hands, the page won't rotate 180º to accommodate you – unless you can read upside down, you'll need to manually unlock and lock the orientation again. Automatic rotation is also quite sensitive, so if you're anything like this reviewer (who loves to read in bed and turns over often) then leaving automatic rotation on all the time gets very annoying, fast.

While the page turns are snappy enough, we found there are some aspects of the UX that can be a little sluggish. Displaying page numbers after the page orientation has been changed can take a while; if you try to flick through a few pages quickly, the ereader hangs for a brief time and displays an hourglass till it catches up. There are even times when a book opens to the wrong page after a reboot (which is what happens if you have the power-saving mode switched on).

These may come across as minor niggles to some users, but we found they quickly become cumulative, especially when we’ve had a taste of what other mainstream ereaders can do.

Software score: 3.5/5

PocketBook Era review: ebook and audiobook experience

• Snappy page turns
• Speaker feels superfluous
• Extensive file support

If we didn’t know better, we’d say that the low contrast on screen while reading was absolutely fine. Especially since page turns are quick and everything is perfectly readable.

However, we do know better and the text on the PocketBook Era appears a little washed out compared to the sharp and dark black text we’ve seen on other 7-inch devices using the E Ink Carta 1200 display.

Other than that, there really isn’t a lot to complain about from a reading experience. Sure, it would be nice to have the option to display a book cover on the sleep screen instead of the page you’re on overlaid with a drawing of a sleeping tablet, but we can live with that.

It’s also a shame that it’s impossible to purchase new content on a PocketBook outside the European market. This means you are going to have to purchase elsewhere and then side load (this does seemingly encourage piracy, but it’s possible to source DRM-free titles legally). If the ebooks you own are DRM-free, then you’ll be glad to know that the Era supports a wide range of file formats, including 19 for ebooks alone. You’ll also need to source your audiobooks from third parties, and the Era will handle five different audio files with ease, including zipped ones.

Speaking of audiobooks… the Era’s headline act is its in-built speaker. It’s a good addition if you aren’t a fan of wearing headphones a lot, or don’t have a Bluetooth speaker. However, it’s a mono speaker so don’t expect the volume to be room-filling and the sound quality to be great. Audiobooks, as well as the text-to-speech feature, sounds quite tinny, and it’s comparable to some budget phones. The best audiobook experience, in our opinion, is using the Bluetooth 5.1 connection and listening via headphones or a portable speaker. To us, the speaker felt superfluous. The good news is that there’s a 3.5mm jack adapter included in the box, so you can plug in wired headphones or plug into a small speaker. In theory, you can also load up some songs and play them on the device – there is a music player on board – but the soundscape isn’t quite enjoyable.

User experience score: 3.5/5

PocketBook Era review: battery life

• 1,700mAh battery
• USB-C charging port

Now, this is where the PocketBook Era really, really shines – battery life. That 1,700mAh battery feels like it just goes on and on. We used the Era for an average of three hours each day over a month and still had 40% juice left when we plugged it in for a top-up. To be fair though we did have some power-saving features turned on. 

Although we left the SMARTlight on all the time, so the screen wasn’t always too dim, and the refresh rate set to the maximum of every 10 pages, we left the default option of the device powering off after 20 minutes of inactivity even in sleep mode. From what we can tell, this doesn’t exactly switch the device off completely; there seems to be an in-between ‘sleep power down’ mode (the best that we can describe it) wherein the device does reboot – quite quickly we might add – when you long-press the power button, but takes you directly to the page where you stopped at. Most devices, when powered down fully, reboot to the home screen. If, however, this is the Era shutting down completely in power-saver mode, then it really is a very quick device.

Even with the power-saving feature turned off, the Era’s battery performance is great, barely making a dent after a full week of 3-hour reading and listening stints.

Charging via the USB-C port isn’t as quick as we saw with the Kobo Libra 2, taking an hour and 50 minutes to go from 40% to full. In comparison, the Libra 2 tops up its 1,500mAh battery in about an hour to hit about 92-95%, after which it trickle-charges to preserve battery health.

Battery life score: 4.5/5

Should I buy the PocketBook Era?

Buy it if...

You want a decently priced, good-looking ereader

It’s admittedly hard to recommend a PocketBook ereader to anyone outside of the European market where access to an ebook store is available, but if you have a collection of digital titles already, then the Era can be right for you. If design matters, this is one of the best-looking 7-inch ereaders we’ve tested, and we can’t fault its price point either.

You want an ereader for a long vacation

If you don’t mind using the Era’s power-saver mode, you’ll be able to take it on a nice long vacation and not worry about carrying a charging cable for it. That battery life is the best of any ereader we’ve had the pleasure of testing and a full charge could take you well beyond a month… depending on your use case.

You live in the European Union

PocketBook ereaders were designed for the European market, so the on-board store and cloud storage options only work in select countries. So if you’re someone who wants to take full advantage of everything the Era has to offer, you’ll really need to be in Europe. That said, the Era will work anywhere, you’ll just have to transfer files via a computer or by connecting your Dropbox account if you have one.

Don't buy it if...

You need to purchase content

If you don’t already have your own collection of ebooks and audiobook files, and happen to live outside of PocketBook’s European market, you’ll be better off choosing a different brand. Kindles and Kobos are the most common options that get you access to a store directly on the device, but brands like Onyx, which run on Android, get you access to the Google Play Store from where you can download the Kindle or Kobo app to source your content.

You’d prefer a streamlined user experience

There’s nothing majorly wrong with PocketBook’s user interface, but after having tried it out on a couple of different models, it still feels a little clunky. It’s easy to wrap your head around, but it could be a little more streamlined. There’s also no way to display a wallpaper or a book cover in sleep mode, which means whatever you’re reading is visible to everyone around you when you’re not using the Era.

You need a screen with better contrast

If the Era is going to be your first ever ereader, you won’t be able to tell, but there are screens with better contrast out there. Most ereaders that were announced in the last couple of years feature E Ink’s latest Carta 1200 tech, which improves contrast and makes text appear sharp, black and very clear. On the Era, however, it just feels a little washed out in comparison.

Kobo Libra 2

Comparing oranges to oranges, then the 7-inch Kobo Libra 2 is the best alternative to the Era. It offers great bang for your hard-earned buck by not only matching the screen tech and size of the Era, but getting you 32GB of storage as compared to 16GB for the base mode of the PocketBook. It’s fast and responsive, although it’s not quite as nice-looking as the Era.

Read our in-depth Kobo Libra 2 review

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (11th gen)

If you aren’t too fussed about the page-turn buttons on an ereader, the latest Kindle Paperwhite is a great buy. The screen is 6.8 inches, it’s lightweight and uses the same E Ink Carta 1200 display. However, storage options for the Paperwhite begin at 8GB and, if you need more, then the Signature Edition will cost a lot more for 32GB, but you also get wireless charging capabilities.

Read our in-depth Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2021) review

Amazon Kindle Oasis

When it comes to a premium build, experience and, well, price tag, it doesn’t get better than the Oasis. A full-metal chassis that’s light and comfortable to hold makes such a difference, and the page-turn buttons are smooth to press. It’s a 2019 model, though, so the screen tech isn’t going to match up to newer options, but if you’ve got the spare change, we still think it’s one heck of a luxurious reading experience.

Read our in-depth Amazon Kindle Oasis (2019) review

PocketBook Era: report card

[ First reviewed September 2022 ]

While she's happiest with a camera in her hand, Sharmishta's main priority is being TechRadar's APAC Managing Editor, looking after the day-to-day functioning of the Australian, New Zealand and Singapore editions of the site, steering everything from news and reviews to ecommerce content like deals and coupon codes. While she loves reviewing cameras and lenses when she can, she's also an avid reader and has become quite the expert on ereaders and E Ink writing tablets, having appeared on Singaporean radio to talk about these underrated devices. Other than her duties at TechRadar, she's also the Managing Editor of the Australian edition of Digital Camera World, and writes for Tom's Guide and T3.

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Good e-Reader

Pocketbook Verse e-Reader Review

20 October 2023 By Michael Kozlowski Leave a Comment

The Verse e-reader is a very affordable, dedicated ebook reader that is great for someone who needs an entry-level device. The major selling points are the physical page-turn buttons and Micro SD card, which come in two different colours. There is a small bookstore with mainly royalty-free titles, but there are lots of paid ones from authors you know. Pocketbook doesn’t lock you into their ecosystem like Amazon or Kobo; instead, you can purchase books from other bookstores and use Adobe Digital Editions to load them in. This is useful if you have a collection of ebooks from Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Books or the public library.

The Pocketbook Verse features an E INK Carta e-paper display with a resolution of 1024×768 with 212 PPI. This model will have lower font clarity than the Verse Pro, which has 300 PPI. It also has a front-lit display to read during the day or night. There are physical page turn buttons on the bottom of the screen, which makes it easy to turn pages in ebooks.

Underneath the hood is a Dual Core 1GHZ processor, 512MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. This model also has a MicroSD that supports 128GB of additional storage, USB-C, G-sensor, and WIFI and is powered by a 1500 mAh battery. The dimensions are 108 × 156 × 7.6 mm and weighs 182 g.

PocketBook Verse is a compact device that weighs only 182 g and easily fits in your bag or purse. With a perfect blend of mechanical control buttons and a touchscreen, the e-reader offers effortless navigation and an intuitive reading experience. Designed to impress, Verse showcases a sleek and stylish look that complements any style. Its minimalist design and eye-catching Bright Blue and Mist Grey colours add a touch of sophistication to your reading sessions.

The Pocketbook Verse supports 25 book and graphic formats, including ACSM, AZW, CBZ, DJVU, DOC, EPUB, FB2, PDF, TXT, JPEG, and PNG, so there is no need to convert your files anymore. With PocketBook, readers can forget about the problem of file conversion and will save their precious time. Thanks to its Adobe DRM support, it is compatible with online library services. Borrowing books online has never been more accessible!

Users can also enjoy the convenience of 11 preloaded dictionaries and explore an additional 42 language combinations, available for free download. Whether learning a new language or enhancing your language skills, PocketBook Verse is the perfect companion for language enthusiasts.

Pocketbook has always run Linux on all of its e-readers. This is the same OS that the Amazon Kindle and Kobo e-readers employ. This OS helps preserve battery life because no background processes are being run. It is also rock stable and seldom ever crashes. It is super stable, although this prevents users from installing any apps on the device.

The main home screen comprises a widget at the top, showcasing the books you are reading or have downloaded from the store and haven’t started yet. If there are a few books you are in the process of reading, there is a multi-page layout, which you can swipe on to see the following few books on the carousel. Underneath that are some recommended books from the Pocketbook Store; you will see around nine bestselling titles. The main navigation has icons with text underneath them. They provide shortcuts to your library, audiobook player, store, note taking and apps.

Your library is where all of your content is housed, and you can separate it by formats, author, date and sort by list view or cover art view. If some of your books still need to cover art images because you downloaded them online, a metadata system will look at the book’s title and author and fetch metadata for it. You will likely be on this screen because you buy and load hundreds of books. You can also hit switches on a particular book to flag it as finished, making it disappear from the home screen. Since this is a colour e-reader, all cover art will appear in vibrant, full colour.

The Store is something that Pocketbook has been working on for a long time. They have been ironing out deals with publishers to stock bestsellers and books you would like to read, not open-source royalty-free textbooks. When you buy a Pocketbook, some titles are only European, or your price might be in Euros. All you need to do is contact the company and give them your serial number; they can change the region where you are based. We always do this with our review units, so it only shows English books and Canadian dollars. There is a starred rating system, a sample download is available, and you can read the description and standard fare. However, Kindle and Kobo have more comprehensive content selections since they both have self-publishing platforms, such as KDP and KWL. They also stock millions of books, in different markets, all over the world. Pocketbook might have a few thousand, but at least they are working on expanding it. They also introduced an audiobook section, so you don’t have to sideload everything; you can download and listen to them on the audiobook player.

The Apps section mainly comprises all the different Pocketbook apps. Like, Send to Pocketbook, Pocketbook Cloud, Dropbox and a few games like Chess. Pocketbook does have a few apps that take advantage of the colour screen. The first is primarily aimed at kids; it is a colouring book. You have eight primary colours that you can choose from, and then tap on various images, and they fill into the object. There is a sketch app too. Draw, take notes or develop reading or to-do- lists.

There are a few settings and options that I want to draw attention to. System-wide dark mode, inverts the color of your display. The background can be black and all text is white. Want to know how much you are using the light? A new graph shows breaks down the entire day and shows whether you are using the front-lit display or color temperature system. All of the physical buttons such as home, settings and the page-turn buttons can be keympped to do different things.

I like the Pocketbook software. It is straightforward to configure WIFI and add your Adobe Digital Editions account information to sideload in paid files or ebooks you have purchased from other companies, such as Kobo. You can also load library books you downloaded to your PC from Overdrive or Hoopla. Sometimes it feels sluggish, but only if you expect it to work like an iPad or Kindle Fire rather than an e-reader. You must be patient and wait when you click on UI elements or ad the slider bars for brightness levels. E INK is just fundamentally different, but the little wait times, more make up for the benefits, which are easy on the eyes and long battery life.

This e-reader is designed for reading books, and users can access the Pocketbook Store to download thousands of books. However, the real power is sideloading in your content, it supports DRM EPUB and PDF files and books you download online. It has extensive support for ACSM, AZW, AZW3, CBR, CBZ, CHM, DJVU, DOC, DOCX, EPUB(DRM), EPUB, FB2, FB2.ZIP, HTM, HTML, MOBI, PDF (DRM), PDF, PRC, RTF, and TXT.

With DRM EPUB and PDF, users can purchase ebooks from other stores like Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Google. You can also download books from the public library, such as Overdrive. You must copy the book you bought to your computer or MAC and download Adobe Digital Editions. Create an account or log in to an existing one. Select the book you downloaded to the computer, plug in your Pocketbook Color 2 to your PC and transfer the book. You need to use this software because Adobe needs to verify you own the book.

Speaking of the library, Pocketbook has had support for thousands of European and North American public libraries in the apps section. You can enter your local branch or search by country and select the branch you do business with. Enter your library card number, and you can borrow books and read them on your e-reader without needing a PC or MAC. This is a very underrated feature that most reviewers ignore.

The physical page turn buttons are on the bottom of the screen, which is less intuitive than having them on the sides of the screen. With that out of the way, Pocketbook has the best page-turn buttons in the business; they are easy to press down and have good build quality. Accidental miss clicks are rare. If you hold down on the page forward or back, you can rapidly turn pages in any direction. This is similar to the system the Kobo Aura One Limited Edition and Kindle Manga Reader used.

The stock ebook reader is what you will use daily to read ebooks since there are no other options. You can tap or gesture to turn the pages of the book. One of the most excellent new software features is the ability to pinch and zoom to change how big you want the fonts to be instead of going to the ebook settings menu. This makes it more intuitive for new users of e-readers. You can also increase the size of the fonts with a slider bar, and there are around 50 different fonts that are pre-loaded, but you can also install your own. Of course, like any e-reader, you can adjust the margins and fonts.

One of my favourite settings on the Verse is the visual settings. You can change the contrast, saturation and brightness. This is useful if you read a scanned document or the text is too light and want to make it darker. A recent firmware update introduced dark mode. Using Dark mode on your PocketBook can provide more comfort in reading in low-light environments and at nighttime. This feature alters the display settings, presenting white text on a dark background, which does not contrast with the dark surroundings and does not interfere with the eyes. You can also switch the inversion of book illustrations while reading in Dark mode.

Many avid readers have discovered that utilizing Dark mode on their devices helps to ease fatigue in their eyes from looking at a bright screen. Moreover, Dark mode proves highly beneficial for nighttime reading, as it reduces the amount of blue light emitted by the screen, which can contribute to eyestrain and fatigue.

Pocketbook is a rare brand with native support for CBR and CBZ, two of the world’s best manga formats. Finding these online or buying from other stores and loading them on your PB is straightforward. You can treat these two formats as file containers that have a bunch of pictures inside of them. The most accessible reference is to think of a ZIP file full of pictures, but you don’t need to unzip the file to view them. It is straightforward to find these CBR/CBZ formats online.

The Verse is tricky because the verse Pro is priced so closely and much better. However, with that, let’s take a look at it. It has a Carta (not 1200) screen and does have an Smart Lighty and SD card support. There’s no system-wide A4 mode, although it does kick itself into a2 mode now and again to help you navigate around. The settings are honestly the most impressive thing, as the Key mapping customizations are endless, and no other manufacturer has gone as far as Pocketbook has in letting you craft your own experience on a non-android e-reader.

Pocketbook Verse

Font clarity, reading ebooks.

• Smart Light
• Page turn butons
• No Carta 1200 screen
• Not Waterproof
• No System Wide Speed Modes
• Same UI from the past ten years
• Verse Pro is the better buy

Michael Kozlowski

Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

PocketBook Era

Based on 15 review s

The Looria Grade (A - F) accounts for multiple factors, including sentiment, helpfulness, and more. Learn about our sources and ranking.

Overall, the PocketBook Era is highly praised for its 64 GB storage, ability to buy books from various ebook stores, and compatibility with audiobooks. It is also noted for its premium feel and design, although some users find it slightly heavier than other e-readers. The device is highly recommended for those who want to read non-DRM Amazon books and other file formats. However, it is not recommended for reading PDFs or using online/cloud features. The battery life is generally good and can last up to a month. While there are some concerns about the device being slightly older and lacking USB-C, it is still considered a great choice for those looking for a versatile and high-quality e-reader.

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WestJet introduces UltraBasic

Starting today, WestJet is introducing its newest fare offering, UltraBasic. Replacing the Basic fare offering, UltraBasic is WestJet’s lowest priced option and has been designed as a no-frills fare that gives guests the choice to add certain extras like reserving a seat in advance or adding a checked bag. 

“We are committed to air travel affordability, and UltraBasic is an innovative cost-effective solution that strengthens WestJet’s ability to offer guests budget-friendly airfares to more destinations,” said John Weatherill, WestJet Group Executive Vice-President and Chief Commercial Officer. “With UltraBasic, guests can tailor a travel experience that meets their needs, without paying for additional services they don’t value. We are delivering on our low-fare promise and believe UltraBasic will give more Canadians the opportunity to fly.”

For guests seeking the convenience of bundled offerings , WestJet’s other fare offerings, including Econo, EconoFlex, Premium, PremiumFlex, Business and BusinessFlex, will continue to be available.

UltraBasic Fast Facts:

The introduction of UltraBasic will result in price reductions across domestic and transborder routes, continuing WestJet’s mission to provide affordable travel options for all guests 

UltraBasic is a key part of WestJet’s larger strategy and has been thoughtfully designed to provide more choice and make air travel more accessible for guests from coast-to-coast

It is anticipated that the introduction of UltraBasic will expedite the boarding process, contributing to enhanced on time performance and a better guest experience

Weatherill recently outlined the airline’s affordability promise to Canadians , highlighting WestJet’s approach to providing air travel options that are customizable and competitive.

What to expect with UltraBasic

UltraBasic offers guests the following options at the lowest possible fare price including:

a personal item to be stored under the seat

a pre-assigned seat at the back of the aircraft

the option to add checked baggage and seat selection for additional fees

the option to purchase Extended Comfort for additional benefits

the same friendly service, onboard food and beverage offerings, and access to the WestJet Connect inflight entertainment and connectivity system as before

The UltraBasic fare differs from what existed with WestJet’s Basic fare offering:

guests are not permitted a carry-on bag*  (UltraBasic guests flying on transpacific and transatlantic routes only will be permitted to bring a carry-on bag in addition to a personal item)

guests will be last to board**  

When booking UltraBasic on WestJet.com, for transparency and to prevent misunderstandings, there is clear messaging about the fare and its limitations throughout the booking process. This messaging is intended to ensure that guests are informed and aware of the fare they are purchasing and the terms they agree to. Digital and printed boarding passes will also indicate no carry-on bags are permitted with UltraBasic fares.

The UltraBasic airport experience

To save in advance of travel, UltraBasic guests can add checked baggage to their reservation before arriving at the airport. They may also check their bags at the airport check-in counter before proceeding through security. 

Guests who purchased UltraBasic will board the aircraft in the final boarding zone. Guests checking a carry-on bag at the gate will be charged a checked bag fee and a service fee to check the bag under the aircraft.

Once UltraBasic comes into effect, Basic Fares will no longer exist. Guests who purchased a Basic fare prior to the June 4, 2024, launch of UltraBasic will still be permitted a carry-on bag on all WestJet flights.

More information about UltraBasic can be found on WestJet.com .

* Unless an Extended Comfort seat has been purchased for all flights in a single direction, including connections OR travelling on a transatlantic or transpacific flight

** Unless an Extended Comfort seat has been purchased OR they are a top-tier WestJet Rewards member

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