Icarus Pocket eBook Reader: a Review
A wide range of e-ink based reader devices has been offered by Icarus in the recent weeks. Of them, the Excel 9.7 inch reader has unarguably the best PDF expansion available in any ebook reader. The Icarus Pocket was introduced on the European market a few months ago and is now making its way to North America. But is it really worth its price in compared to other 6 inch readers?
Hardware features:
Icarus Pocket is designed especially for travelers, feature evident in its light weight. The screen resolution is 800×600 pixels with 167 DPI and the device is powered by a 622 MHz processor which works with good speed. The internal memory is 4 GB, expandable up to 32 GB via micro SD card.
Unlike the latest touch screen readers on the market, Icarus Pocket restricts itself to a non-touch screen as navigation and page turns are dependable on physical keys present on both left and right sides of the reader. There are four main buttons along with a central button to navigate to Home screen as well as perform other necessary functions.
Icarus Pocket offers a music player and a 3.5mm headphone jack for users to plug in during their reading time. The battery life is up to 10 hours of continuous use and is rechargeable via the mini USB connector which comes in the box. Sadly there is no internet access facility on this ebook reader and books are to be loaded through the USB cable from a computer.
The highly portable device has undoubtedly solid hardware features with a reasonable price tag of $129.99.
icarus pocket
Software:
The Icarus Pocket runs on Linux operating system and serves a very neat main screen. The top shows recently read ebooks and provides accurate stats on the reading progress. Below are the essential options including Library, Images, File manager, Music, Settings and Manual.
The device supports a good range of formats including JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG and TIFF. Pictures look very good on the screen in any of these formats. Audio formats like MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC, OGG and AAC are totally compatible to the audio player of the Icarus reader.
The device offers more than 15 languages including Polish, English, French, Romanian, Spanish and many others making it a truly international reader.
Reading Experience:
Icarus Pocket allows readers to customize their reading experience with 17 different font sizes, line spacing, margins and nine types of fonts but disappoints in its lack of important features like note taking, highlights and annotations. However, this shouldn’t be a problem for casual readers, as the rest of the reading experience is very smooth, simple and crisp. Also, the Icarus Pocket handles the PDF format in a much better way than other readers on the market with lots of zooming features.
Although Icarus is a new company to breach the international ebook reader market, it has added innovative features to the whole concept. The Icarus Pocket is a solid proof of this innovation built with simplicity and elegance without cluttering options to distract the readers. The company has impressed with its high quality build and simple reading experience which can be accessed at a handy price.
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