eBook Reader 4Ink (Trekstor Pyrus)

The Pyrus gained many fans thanks to its easy-to-read display and affordable entry price.

At a Glance

The eBook Reader 4Ink is essentially a TrekStor Pyrus rebranded under a new name. The device was primarily distributed by DBH (Weltbild and Hugendubel) as well as Thalia, and was designed to offer an especially affordable gateway into digital reading. It was available at a time when the Tolino Alliance had not yet been officially formed.

The technology behind the eBook Reader 4Ink is therefore identical to its TrekStor counterpart, including the form factor. It features an OED-Tech E-paper display that delivers excellent contrast on par with E-Ink Pearl screens. The resolution is 800×600 pixels. The ghosting effect is relatively pronounced, which seems to be a common issue among all devices using this Chinese display technology. Fortunately, you can resolve this by enabling a full page refresh with every page turn.

The software functionality is rather limited, so while you do get a handful of essential basic features, you’ll have to do without some functions that have since become standard. There are no dictionaries, note-taking capabilities, or even a touchscreen.

At launch, the eBook Reader 4Ink was an especially affordable option for purchasing an eBook reader. However, once the basic Kindle dropped in price (from €79 to €49), Amazon’s competitor almost always became the better choice. After the launch of the Tolino Shine, the eBook Reader 4Ink was slowly phased out of the range offered by Thalia & Co. and did not receive a successor model there. While TrekStor did introduce the Pyrus 2 LED as a successor with integrated lighting, the company withdrew from the eReader market shortly thereafter—most likely due to a lack of strong retail partners and the new competition from Tolino.

eBook Reader 4Ink (Trekstor Pyrus): Full Review

With the eBook Reader 4Ink, Weltbild is taking another shot at conquering the eBook reader market. The last LCD device—the eBook Reader 3.0—failed to convince us in our review due to poor battery life and inadequate viewing angles. Those issues are naturally absent with an eInk reader, so the signs are promising. Thalia is also hitting reset with the 4Ink, having added the model to its lineup as an entry-level device just a few days ago.

The eBook Reader 4Ink isn’t an entirely new device; it has been available for quite some time as the TrekStor Pyrus. Priced at an affordable entry-level 59.99 euros (in Germany), the reading device is especially popular among its owners. How good the device really is, what features it offers, and who it’s worth buying for—you’ll find out in the review below.

Unboxing

Note: I bought our review unit at Weltbild. The contents of the box may differ slightly with the Thalia version.

Alongside the reader, the fairly elaborately designed packaging includes a quick-start guide, instructions on how to buy eBooks from Weltbild and load them onto the reader, a 22-page printed manual, and a micro-USB cable. All in all, the bundle is a bit more generous than with other eBook readers, which often no longer include printed manuals.

How does the eBook Reader 4Ink stack up against its direct competition?

Build quality

One of our criticisms of the TrekStor (Weltbild) eBook Reader 3.0 was its mediocre build quality. That’s not an issue with the new eBook Reader 4Ink: the device is excellently built and feels very robust. The reader comes in a dark shade of black, and the material is a slightly rubberized plastic that feels good in the hand and provides a secure grip.

In addition to the 5-way directional pad, there are eight other buttons on the front. Four of them are page-turn buttons positioned to the right and left of the display. Their tactile feedback is very good. They sit right at the edge of the casing but don’t wrap around to the back (as on the Amazon Kindle), which makes for smooth operation. The D-pad is also easy to use with crisp feedback, though I’d personally prefer it a touch larger.

The reader is well built and the material feels pleasant to the touch

It’s a different story with the other four buttons beside the D-pad. They’re along the lower edge of the front and are noticeably harder to press because your finger bumps into the edge of the device.

On the bottom you’ll find the microSD card slot, the micro-USB port, and the power button. There are no other buttons or ports on the back or on the top, right, or left edges.

Display & features

Unlike the regular TrekStor Pyrus (4 GB), the eBook Reader 4Ink has only 2 GB of internal storage (1.51 GB available). As mentioned, you can expand it with a microSD card. As for the rest of the specs, things are predictably sparse: this 60-euro reader has neither wireless connectivity nor audio support or any other special features. The 4Ink is made for reading—nothing else.

The 6-inch display uses “Digital Ink cutting-edge technology,” as the 4Ink’s packaging puts it. In reality it’s likely a licensed technology from eInk or SiPix, since the display works just like other eInk devices.

On to the key question: how does the display compare with eInk Pearl? The 4Ink’s background appears a bit lighter than on the Sony PRS-T2. However, when checked via photos and image editing, this difference in brightness turns out to be a difference in hue. Most eInk Pearl displays have a slight bluish cast, while the 4Ink’s Digital Ink display has a very, very faint reddish tone—yet it’s much closer to a neutral gray than Pearl panels on other devices.

Close-up of the eBook Reader 4Ink (left) and Sony PRS-T2 (right)

In direct, photo-based comparison, the 4Ink’s contrast ratio is a hair worse than the Sony PRS-T2’s. In person, though, you can hardly see a difference, so the 4Ink’s black level and contrast can be considered competitively good. I even have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by how good the screen is.

The 4Ink also lets you adjust the refresh rate to every page, every third page, or every fifth page. I wouldn’t recommend using it, though, because ghosting is very pronounced. The last time I saw ghosting this strong was on the Oyo (which supports the assumption that it’s SiPix tech). Thankfully, with a full refresh on every page, there’s no ghosting.

If the page isn’t fully refreshed with every turn, ghosting is very pronounced

All in all, the display is convincing—ghosting aside. Compared directly with eInk Pearl displays, the only difference you’ll notice is the hue of the background, which I personally even find a bit more pleasant. In terms of contrast, it ends up being just as good as eInk Pearl devices.

Reading & usability

Getting the eBook Reader 4Ink up and running couldn’t be easier. You switch it on via the power button on the bottom and you’re ready to go—no setup required. That alone makes it clear the 4Ink does without any frills and focuses on one thing: reading.

You land on the home screen, which shows the last book you were reading—title, author, cover, and a short excerpt from the last page read—across the top third. In the middle are the three most recently read books, and directly below that, in a cover view, the two most recently added files. At the bottom there’s a shortcut to the library. Pressing the menu button opens a 3×3 grid. It contains:

• Bookmarks
• Library
• More eBooks?
• Search eBooks
• Explorer
• Pictures
• Settings
• Manual
• Close

3×3 grid menu

So you can tell the 4Ink isn’t hiding its primary purpose—there isn’t much else to do. The “More eBooks?” item, for example, is placed rather half-heartedly in my view and contains the following text note: “The best way to get new eBooks is via the online shop of the retailer from whom you purchased this eBook reader.” Not particularly helpful.

The purchase note is unhelpful and a bit slapdash

Selecting “Bookmarks” takes you to an overview listing all book titles that contain bookmarks. Choosing a title shows all bookmarks in that book, although only a short text snippet is displayed—not the page on which the bookmark was set.

With “Search eBooks,” as the name suggests, you can search for a specific book. A virtual keyboard opens which isn’t the fastest, but is otherwise quite usable. Input is via the D-pad. The key layout is a bit impractical, as it’s not the usual QWERTZ layout but a simple ABC arrangement.

Explorer opens the reader’s file structure. So if you don’t want to go through the library, you can use Explorer to find the right book. Here you can also access the memory card directly and delete files. The library, by contrast, offers a few more options. You can switch from the default list view to a 3×3 cover view, but then loading takes a few seconds—every time you open the library. Some covers only appear after you’ve opened the book. That’s probably why the less visually appealing list view is used by default. In cover view, titles are also truncated because only a few characters are shown. You can sort eBooks via the options menu by title, author, recently read, and newly added. When a book is open, you can add it to favorites, which you can also access from the library via the options menu.

You can turn pages in an open book using the well-designed page-turn buttons or the D-pad. In the menu you’ll find the following options:

• Add bookmark
• Bookmarks
• Table of contents
• Go to page
• Search
• Font size
• Margins
• Rotate screen
• Auto page turn
• Refresh display
• Add/remove favorite
• Book info
• Exit

Search opens the virtual keyboard again and a search field. Enter a word to search the book and you can jump from one match to the next using the D-pad. There’s no overview, nor any indication of how many matches were found. You can also open search with a simple press of the keyboard button.

Font size can be set in 6 steps

Font size can be adjusted in 6 steps, margins in 3. There’s a small translation error in the software for margins: the three options are labeled: Small, Large, Large. There are one or two similar minor mistakes elsewhere as well. Fortunately they don’t impair usability. The margin adjustments could be a bit larger, though, since each step only moves the text a few millimeters, so even at the maximum setting the text shifts just about 1 centimeter from the edge.

You can rotate the screen a full 360 degrees in 90-degree increments. Auto page turn can be set in one-minute intervals up to 5 minutes. Some may find the top status bar bothersome, as it can’t be hidden. It shows the book title, page number, time, and battery level. The top right also indicates whether a bookmark is set; the top left shows whether the book is in your favorites.

Unfortunately, the top status bar cannot be hidden

The 4Ink also supports PDF reflow, which isn’t a given in this price class. You have to enable the function via the menu; after that you can enlarge the text as usual via its own menu item. It even has an edge over many other readers: margins can also be adjusted in reflow mode. Page turns are just as quick as with ePub files. If you don’t want to use reflow, you can simply zoom via the “Font size” menu item, but zoom levels are also limited to six steps, which is too little for many documents.

Maximum zoom is a bit too low. In a pinch you can still read, though.

That’s about it for the device’s feature set. There are no notes, no highlights, no dictionary, and no other extras. So the eBook Reader 4Ink really is a pure reading device. As for operation, it’s generally quite snappy, though it occasionally pauses briefly while the 4Ink loads something. That doesn’t happen often and is a far cry from the sluggish Oyo, but it is slower than Kindle & Co.

Compatibility, software & synchronization

The eBook Reader 4Ink accepts HTML, RTF, TXT, ePub, PDF, FB2, and PDB files. It can also display BMP, JPEG, GIF, and PNG images. Books can be transferred over USB via the file explorer or using Adobe Digital Editions. Alternatively, you can load eBooks via the memory card.

Battery life

Battery life turns out to be just as good as with other eBook readers. In several weeks of testing I didn’t have to charge the device even once. The limited feature set likely helps here, too—when all you can do is read, there’s little power wasted on anything else. There’s nothing to complain about when it comes to battery life.

Battery life is excellent thanks to the ePaper display. Once an image is rendered, the screen no longer draws power

Conclusion

With the eBook Reader 4Ink, Weltbild is taking a huge step forward. The predecessor barely convinced in our review about a year ago, mainly due to its poor LCD screen and very short battery life. The eBook Reader 4Ink comes from the same manufacturer, but is a clearly better reading device by comparison. Thalia can also pat itself on the back for finally replacing the Oyo with a device that’s actually pleasant to use.

The biggest unknown when buying the eBook Reader 4Ink is the screen, as TrekStor only refers to the new eReader’s display technology as “Digital Ink” without specifying exactly what it is. That doesn’t really matter, because the screen’s contrast and black levels are very good overall and don’t need to shy away from pricier competitors. However, ghosting is far too strong to make partial refresh appealing.

On top of that, the low price means you have to make do with a very limited feature set. But the 4Ink doesn’t pretend to be anything else—it’s meant for reading only, and at around 60 euros that should be clear to prospective buyers from the outset. It also means you always have to go through a PC to buy eBooks. So while operation is fairly simple overall, buying eBooks remains comparatively complicated—especially considering the device is aimed at people who don’t care much for technical frills.

In conclusion, at 60 euros the eBook Reader 4Ink is a good entry-level device for small budgets. That said, for the reasons mentioned, it can’t compete with the slightly pricier readers from Amazon or Kobo. In Austria you’re better off with the Kindle anyway, since here the eBook Reader 4Ink costs 80 euros—same price as the clearly better Amazon reader. Alternatively, the PocketBook 613 Basic is worth considering; thanks to great software and a low price, it’s also an attractive entry-level option. With a test score of 2.6, the eBook Reader 4Ink just misses out on an overall “good” rating. That sounds worse than it is, because as a pure reading device at a particularly low 60-euro entry price, you’ll be hard pressed to find anything better in Germany right now. I even have to admit I was pleasantly surprised at first power-on, so the eBook Reader 4Ink can definitely be recommended (as a gift) for small budgets.

Photos

eBook Reader 4Ink (Trekstor Pyrus): Technical Specifications

All information provided without guarantee.