Which e-book to choose: the best models

Barnes&Noble Nook Simple Touch

The e-book of the American manufacturer Barnes &Noble will be the optimal choice for those who are looking for a simple and convenient gadget for reading books.

The control is carried out using buttons and a sensor, there is no QWERTY keyboard at all - thanks to this, the book looks more compact than its 6-inch counterparts of other brands. It has a rubberized case with a soft-touch matte finish that is pleasant to the touch. On the back side there is a curved recess, due to which the device lies comfortably in your hand.

The Nook Simple Touch Reader has one interesting feature: the presence of an infrared sensor placed around the perimeter of the display. Due to this, the screen reacts to the touch of fingers, a stylus and even the cap of an ordinary pen. The model can please not only with high contrast and clarity of the display, but also with good page-turning speed.

According to user reviews, the sensor in this book is quite sensitive to dust, so it is recommended to regularly monitor the cleanliness of the display, especially at the junction of the screen and the case (otherwise it may work slower or not respond to touch at all).

Like all products from Barnes & Noble, the Nook Simple Touch Reader has an interface in English. She is not Russified, but she reads Cyrillic without difficulty. There are only two supported text formats – EPUB and PDF, which should be given special attention when choosing. Wi-Fi can be used to download books and magazines only from the official website of the Barnes & Noble store, there is no built-in browser. However, the situation with formats and the browser is quite fixable – you can find a lot of different firmware on the network that allows you to expand the functionality of the book.

PocketBook 614 Basic

The e–book of the Ukrainian brand PocketBook 614 Basic is an affordable book reader with basic capabilities that are more than enough for reading fiction and uncomplicated technical and educational literature. At the same time, the manufacturer has equipped the reader with an improved E Ink Pearl screen, which is actually rarely found in models of this price segment.

The case is made of matte plastic with a barely noticeable mother-of-pearl sheen. There is a special notch on the back panel, which is a convenient stop when held with one hand.

PocketBook 614 Basic supports 19 popular book formats (which allows you to open almost any file from your PC, including classic doc and docx). It has about 30 interface languages. Another advantage is the pre-installed licensed ABBYY Lingvo dictionaries, with which you can quickly determine the meaning of unknown words without closing the readable file. Initially, it has a pre-installed library with a large selection of east european and foreign classical literature, including software works for educational institutions.

In reading mode, a separate service line with progress parameters, battery charge, date and clock is displayed on the screen – which significantly helps to control the volume and reading time. Additionally, a number of entertainment applications such as Klondike, Sudoku and Chess are pre-installed. There is no audio output and no backlight: whether this is considered a clear drawback for the reader is up to you.

Amazon Kindle Gen 7 2014

Amazon Kindle 2014 is a new book reader from a well–known American manufacturer, which may well give odds to many expensive models of competitors. First of all, the design of the device catches the eye: the book looks very respectable, the case is made of high-quality non-slip matte plastic.

There are no buttons in this model, and the control is carried out entirely by the sensor. Whether it is convenient or not is a purely individual question for each user. If you read a book standing up and operate it with one hand, the reader may slip out. At the same time, to turn the page, you need to click on any point on the corresponding side of the screen, and not on one small button.

If you compare the Kindle 2014 with the rest of the models in this review, the first thing that catches your eye is its speed: an order of magnitude less annoying delays, waits and pauses. And this means that turning on, flipping, using a dictionary, surfing the web, navigating through the menu is performed will not cause user complaints. Also, the presence of an infrared sensor can be attributed to the obvious advantages.

As for the obvious drawbacks, they should include the lack of a slot for connecting an external memory card. However, the built-in 4 GB of memory for such a device is enough, as they say "with a head". But the list of supported formats is noticeably smaller than in the case of PocketBook products, for example. But at the same time, almost any file can be converted through a proprietary service, after which it will be automatically uploaded to the reader.

The interface and dictionary of the device are Russified – for Kindle readers, this is the exception rather than the rule. ABBYY Lingvo is used here as a Russian dictionary.

PocketBook 640 Aqua

PocketBook 640 Aqua is one of the first e–books in the world that is not afraid of water. Thanks to the unique rubberized case, which has dust and water resistance according to the IP57 standard, this reader can be safely taken with you to the beach or to the bathroom. The level of protection cannot be called outstanding, but it will completely protect the electronics of the device from splashes of water, light rain or wet hands of the user.

I am glad that with such technical characteristics, the model looks practically no different from conventional readers: it is neither heavier nor thicker than a classic 6-inch book reader with an E-Ink screen.

You can control the book with either four hardware buttons or a touchscreen. In addition to the built-in Wi-Fi module, the advantages of the model include a wide range of additional features: from ReadRate and DropBox to sending books by e-mail and handwritten notes.

Like all products from PocketBook, this reader is famous for the complete "omnivorous" formats of books and images.

The disadvantage of this model is the lack of a memory card slot: the user is provided with 4 GB of internal memory.

PocketBook Touch Lux 626

Touch Lux 626 is a multi–format reader, the flagship in the PocketBook family of the Touch series. In addition to the bright built–in backlight, the model also received an improved screen matrix - E-Ink Pearl HD with a resolution of 1024x758 px (the highest figure among our 5). The display also uses the "film touch" technology, a feature of which is the application of a plastic touch film (only 0.2 mm) on top of the main screen. This optimizes the optical properties of the display and lightens the weight of the entire device by 12%.

The front panel is made of matte plastic, the keys and the back panel are made of soft–touch coating (as practice shows - quite branded). Similar to the previous review model, this e-book combines the capabilities of push-button and touch control.

As already noted, one of the main advantages of the PocketBook Touch Lux 2 was a convenient and bright backlight. It is easily adjusted using a special slider both from the settings menu and directly during reading. The functions of each key can be reassigned, which is called "for yourself".

Touch Lux 2 is no exception among PocketBook books and reads almost two dozen book formats and four picture formats without any problems. In addition, it boasts a number of additional features: the ability to install user profiles, support for the ReadRate and Dropbox service, the ability to send books by e-mail and handwritten notes.