PocketBook's new 6-inch Kindle rivals have interchangeable back panels

• PocketBook has announced the Verta and Verta Color
• These six-inch ereaders have changeable back plates
• They're shipping in November at competitive prices

Just a few days ago Amazon launched a new wave of Kindles, and now PocketBook is launching some new competing ereaders of its own — and these have some colorful customization options that Amazon’s don’t.

The ereaders in question are the PocketBook Verta and the PocketBook Verta Color, and while they’re each only sold in one color — Obsidian Black for the Verta and Dark Brown for the Verta Color — you can also buy a selection of five interchangeable back panels in different shades. So you can change the color of your ereader whenever you want.

That aside, these both have 6-inch 1072 x 1448 touchscreens, a front light, a 1,500mAh battery (offering up to two months of life on a single charge), 16GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, and an IPX4 rating for splash resistance. They also both support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, text-to-speech, and numerous book file formats.

And while they run a proprietary operating system, you can use Libby to borrow ebooks, or purchase books through “the world’s most comprehensive English-language UK digital eBook library, with its user-friendly LCP DRM-protected content of 4.5 million eBooks and 90,000 audiobooks.”

They differ in one major way though — the PocketBook Verta Color has a color E Ink Kaleido 3 screen, while the PocketBook Verta has a grayscale E Ink Carta 1300 display.

Color or grayscale at a great price

Image 1 of 3

The PocketBook Verta (Image credit: PocketBook)

The PocketBook Verta Color (Image credit: PocketBook)

Replaceable covers for the PocketBook Verta (Image credit: PocketBook)

If you like the sound of these, you’ll be able to grab them from November, with the PocketBook Verta costing $185 / £159 (roughly AU$300), while the Verta Color is $195 / £169 (around AU$320).

That puts the Verta at a similar price to the standard Amazon Kindle 2026, and the Verta Color at a far lower price than the latest Kindle Colorsoft. So the Verta Color could be a bit of a bargain.

That said, color ereader screens tend to be darker than black and white ones, and while viewing color content they’re also lower resolution (with the Verta Color dropping to just 536 × 724 when displaying color).

So if you don’t overly care about a color screen, the standard Verta might still be the better choice.

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