Ukrainian company PocketBook has delivered its second e-book reader to the market, the PocketBook 360. An efficient and functional device the PB 360 is both easy to use and easy to read. It is also a nifty little thing: managing to show off a five-inch screen whilst still weighing in at a positively anorexic 150g. Fully charged it can also keep going for about two weeks (based on 3 hours of use a day) making it ideal for commuters.
 
The PB360 comes in either black or ivory and with the lid on it looks very tidy indeed, but lid off, and machine on, it becomes something slightly chunkier. Navigation is done primarily though the use of a central button and although each page only takes a few seconds to upload, the lack of any on-screen “flipping motion” does make this seem a little slow- the books themselves take around 30 seconds to open. The PB360 has all the usual e-reader accoutrements: a calendar, a dictionary and a notes section, as well as a couple of really quite handy features: an easy to use Bookmarks section makes it an ideal piece of student note-making kit for example (trawling though 18th Century French texts for my own dissertation would have been a lot easier if I could have discarded my orange highlighter and picked up a PB instead). It is also easy to mange files and move them from internal to SD memory. E-books can also be placed into thumbnails, giving of a good “virtual book shelf” vibe.
 
There is nothing especially wrong with the PB360, it is functional and intuitive and does as any good e-reader should, but unfortunately for PocketBook something still isn’t right. To put it frankly, it has a slight "etch-a-sketch" quality to it, which I just can't imagine the modern digital customer being drawn to, especially since it comes with such a hefty price tag (£211). It lacks any real pizazz, and in a world of iPads, even the most basic of machines is going to need to pack some sort of chic-design punch… and the PB360, as simple and efficient as it is, offers more of a limp-handshake than a knock out blow.
 
Here's the tecchy stuff:
CPU: Samsung ® S3C2440 AL-40 400MHz
Display: 5” E Ink ® Vizplex
Resolution: 600×800
Battery: Li-Polymer (1000 mAh)
 Memory: RAM 64Mb / User-accessible 512 Mb
Connectivity: Mini USB
Card slot: microSD, microSDHC
Audio: no
Built-in G-sensor: yes
Supported formats: FB2, TXT, PDF, DJVU, RTF, HTML, PRC, CHM, EPUB, DOC, TCR, FB2.ZIP
Image formats: JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF
Size: 118×140×10 mm
Size with cover: 118×140×12 mm
Weight: 150 g
Colour: black, ivory