PocketBook Touch Lux 4 im Test

Estimated reading time: 15:42 min.

The PocketBook Touch Lux 4 succeeds the Lux 3 and continues to be positioned as an entry-level device in the illuminated mid-range segment. The model’s biggest change is undeniably its looks:

PocketBook follows the design of the InkPad 3 and brings it to the 6-inch segment. The result is an especially compact and lightweight body that still offers the advantages of physical buttons. Let’s take a look at how the new Lux 4 fares overall.

The PocketBook InkPad 3 (left) was the first e-reader with the new case design

Build quality and features

With only minimal changes and a few outliers, PocketBook had essentially stuck with the same housing shape in the 6-inch segment since 2012 with the “Touch”. The devices had a relatively wide, easy-to-grip bezel and the same button layout under the screen. Recognition and practical value were consistently very high.

Changing a tried-and-true formula always carries some risk, and PocketBook was clearly aware of that. They didn’t reinvent the wheel; instead, there’s now a visual reinterpretation of the familiar design: while the basic layout with buttons beneath the display remains the same, those buttons—and the bezel around the screen—are now noticeably slimmer.

The buttons below the display are shallower but still very easy to use

Featherlight handling

In its press release, PocketBook proudly notes that thanks to the reduced dimensions, the e-reader now fits easily into a “normal” back pocket. That’s indeed no problem. To be fair, the predecessors also fit in a pocket—just not quite as well.

Ultimately, though, that’s more of a marketing gimmick, because since most E Ink displays use glass as a substrate, they’re susceptible to screen breakage if handled improperly. If you accidentally sit on your e-reader while it’s still in your pocket, things can go south quickly.

Either way: the PocketBook Touch Lux 4’s handling doesn’t suffer from the smaller dimensions—in fact, quite the opposite. Thanks to its extremely low weight (measured 152 grams), it’s very comfortable to use. The slightly slimmer bezels aren’t a drawback. To put it in perspective: the Touch Lux 4 is lighter than many 6-inch smartphones.

Fits perfectly in one hand

Top-notch feel, solid build quality

Not only is handling excellent, the feel in the hand also leaves nothing to be desired. Despite the low weight, the e-reader makes a high-quality, sturdy impression.

The four buttons have a distinct, crisp actuation point, but they’re not too stiff. A minor downside: the buttons are clearly audible when pressed. If you’re in bed together, it’s probably better to use the touchscreen to turn pages so you don’t disturb your partner.

The clearly defined button feel is definitely preferable to the mushy action of the Touch HD 2.

The power button sits on the bottom edge and is LED-lit. It lights up to indicate when the e-reader is working. If you find that distracting, you can disable the LED signal in the device settings.

USB port, microSD card slot, and power button on the bottom edge

Build quality is also very good for the most part. Our test device shows a small blemish at the top of the back: between the frame and rear cover, the screen’s LED lighting peeks through ever so slightly if you look right at the edge. That’s really only a minor cosmetic issue that doesn’t affect reading in the slightest. No dust accumulated in the tiny gap during the entire test period.

Storage expansion still possible

In terms of features, there’s only one change: the Touch Lux 4 now has twice as much RAM as its predecessor—512 MB. In direct comparison, this mainly improves handling of PDF files. In day-to-day use with ePub files, the differences are minor.

The 8 GB of internal storage can thankfully still be expanded via microSD card. Wi‑Fi is available for wireless connectivity. You’ll have to forego built-in water protection and blue light reduction.

The PocketBook Touch Lux 3 (left) doesn’t look as modern with its wide bezel as the Touch Lux 4 (right)

Display and lighting

The PocketBook Touch Lux 4 has an E Ink Carta display with a resolution of 1024×758 pixels, for a pixel density of 212 ppi. You’ll have to forgo a so-called retina resolution of 300 ppi. That is essentially the only noteworthy criticism of the Touch Lux 4.

The screen is illuminated by five LEDs via a light guide when needed.

Contrast and resolution

Even though the Lux 4 doesn’t reach 300 ppi, it’s only in direct comparison with other models that the difference really stands out; on its own, it’s not a negative. Still, that fact will be in the back of your mind when comparing and (possibly) buying.

The display’s contrast remains very good and is on par with current E Ink Carta models. Text is therefore easy to read in daylight even without the light. The built-in LEDs further improve contrast when activated, so you can read comfortably at any time of day or night.

The E Ink Carta display offers the familiar excellent readability

I’ll skip the usual contrast measurement here, since the E Ink Carta panels used barely differ anymore. As with the Lux 3, contrast is around 7.5:1.

With current models, maximum contrast is determined by lighting brightness. Modern light guides usually yield very similar results at identical brightness settings. In other words: if you want the best readability in daylight, you should pay attention to maximum brightness. With other light settings, there are currently no significant differences between brands and models in terms of contrast ratio. It’s a different story for lighting quality, where there’s still wide variability among e-readers and manufacturers. 

Lighting quality and brightness

The PocketBook Touch Lux 4’s lighting quality proves to be good. A slight brightness gradient doesn’t disrupt reading, but compared to its predecessor it’s a bit more pronounced and noticeable if you look for it.

The most obvious difference versus the Lux 3 is the changed brightness range: the Touch Lux 4 can’t be set as bright as its predecessor. Maximum brightness is about 33 percent lower, putting it on the level of the Aqua 2.

Lighting at similar brightness in comparison, PocketBook Touch Lux 3 (left) and Lux 4 (right)

In return, the minimum light level can be set significantly lower than what you’re used to outside of Kindle. Anyone particularly sensitive to light will welcome this change.

Maximum screen brightness in cd/m² (higher is better)

Minimum screen brightness in cd/m² (lower is better)

  • Tolino Vision 2 2.2
  • Kobo Aura One 2.1
  • Tolino Shine 2 HD 2.0
  • Tolino Vision 3 HD 1.7
  • PocketBook Touch Lux 3 1.6
  • Kobo Glo HD 1.4
  • Kobo Aura H2O 1.2
  • PocketBook Aqua 2 1.2
  • PocketBook Touch HD 0.8
  • Kindle Oasis 1 0.4
  • PocketBook Touch Lux 4 0.4
  • Kindle Voyage 0.2
  • Kindle Paperwhite 3 0.2

Color temperature

There’s no blue light reduction. At 6700 Kelvin, the LED color temperature leans slightly blue, but remains within a good range. To the naked eye, the light looks fairly neutral. That puts the Lux 4 in the solid middle of the PocketBook lineup and roughly on par with its predecessor. To the naked eye, the differences between the Lux 3 and Lux 4 are hard to spot. Only the first Touch HD looks a touch more neutral in direct comparison.

It should be noted that color temperature measurements can only provide a guideline, because due to manufacturing tolerances, color can vary from device to device within a model series by up to 400 Kelvin.

Touchscreen, ghosting, and interim verdict

Operation is via the capacitive touchscreen, and there’s nothing to complain about in terms of responsiveness. Inputs are recognized reliably. While this doesn’t make a notable difference in everyday use compared to the predecessor, one small tactile change is noticeable: the surface of the PocketBook Touch Lux 4’s display is no longer as rough as on the Lux 3.

As with the predecessor, you’ll have to live with the occasional visible ghosting effect. You can avoid this by setting a full screen refresh on every page turn, instead of the default every fifth page (options: never, always, after 3 pages, after 5 pages, after 10 pages).

All told, the PocketBook Touch Lux 4’s display is essentially identical to the Aqua 2 and sits at the familiar good E Ink Carta level.

Reading and usability

PocketBook has tweaked the Touch Lux 4’s housing design, but the user interface remains familiar. The modern, airy look of the UI now feels like a better fit for the streamlined body design.

On first start, you select the language, accept the license agreements, set time and date, and land on the home screen. There’s no mandatory login, so you don’t have to worry about forced registration with the PocketBook Touch Lux 4. If you want, the e-reader can still be connected to various services. The notification bar points this out, highlighting sign-in options for PocketBook Cloud, Dropbox, and ReadRate.

Notification bar

If you don’t want the e-reader to phone home, you can completely disable anonymous error and usage data transfer under “Settings > Maintenance > Privacy > Diagnostics and usage”. A welcome option in an age when users are increasingly transparent.

The home screen presents the usual cover view. In the middle you see the most recently read titles; below are the most recently added e-books. By swiping or using the page-turn buttons, you can load more titles.

Program list

The three menu items Library, Shop, and Browser are still at the bottom edge; behind the expandable program list you’ll find the following items:

  • Library
  • Browser
  • Dropbox PocketBook
  • Settings
  • Gallery
  • Klondike
  • PocketBook Cloud
  • RSS news
  • Chess
  • Scribble
  • Sent-to-PocketBook
  • Sudoku
  • Calculator
  • Clock/Calendar
  • Dictionary
  • E-book shop

Library

PocketBook still offers the most comprehensive virtual library function in the e-reader market—and of course it’s used on the Touch Lux 4. It provides numerous filters, customizations, and settings—more than anywhere else. This lets you manage even large e-book collections directly on the device and stay on top of things.

E-books can be sorted by last opened, date added, title, and author. You can also filter by authors, genres, collections, favorites, folder, formats, series, and PocketBook Cloud—ascending or descending. Or you can simply display all e-books unfiltered. You can also choose between a more visually appealing cover view or a more sober list view.

The library offers numerous sorting and filtering options

A distinguishing feature of the PocketBook library is the scroll direction: instead of switching horizontally between multiple screens like the competition, PocketBook lets you scroll continuously with your finger—just like on smartphones and tablets. After a brief adjustment, this works fine on an E Ink screen too. If you don’t take to it, the buttons also allow you to step through the library. There’s also a search function.

The PocketBook Touch Lux 4 offers maximum flexibility with dual sorting via Calibre’s tag system (genres) and display of the directory structure. Whichever sorting you prefer, the Lux 4 lets you use both. No other manufacturer offers display options this flexible.

Reading

The e-reader is equally flexible when it comes to page turns: tap or swipe the display, or use the page-turn buttons. Depending on how you hold the device, one option or the other may be more comfortable.

What’s still missing here is an option to customize touch zones (as on Kobo). The PocketBook Touch Lux 4 makes up for that with the ability to remap the hardware keys. In the settings menu you can assign different functions to the four buttons so they fit your needs perfectly.

Press the menu key (unless you’ve changed its function) or tap the middle of the screen to open the options menu.

Typography settings

The text options are split across three tabs. The first contains font size adjustment (between 6 and 40 pt in 1-pt steps), as well as line spacing and margins (three steps each). You can also enable/disable hyphenation here. A pinch-to-zoom gesture for font size is also available and works precisely thanks to a live preview.

The second tab lets you change the typeface. You can choose from numerous preinstalled fonts, or install your own via USB transfer. Separate buttons let you switch style between regular, italic, and bold.

The third tab contains options to show or hide the status bar and page indicator. You can also choose whether to use the embedded page numbering or have the software determine reading position.

Highlights and notes

Unfortunately, our criticism of the notes function still applies to the PocketBook Touch Lux 4. As a holdover from earlier days, the software offers two different note modes, which is anything but intuitive. If you tap and hold a word for about two seconds, the “simple” note-taking mode opens to create highlights and notes.

Note-taking could be more intuitive

You open the “advanced” mode via the reading menu. This also provides highlighting and note-taking, as well as a screenshot mode. Notes you’ve created can only be read in the advanced mode. It takes four clicks to read a note. On Tolino it works with two clicks, on Kindle with just one. Besides the extra effort, this split approach is also confusing from a user perspective.

What PocketBook has over the competition in library management, it still needs to catch up on in note-taking.

All created notes, highlights, and bookmarks can be viewed in an overview list, but position details and filtering/sorting options are still missing.

Dictionaries

The second (smaller) weak point concerns the dictionary function. Looking up a word still takes two taps—which some competitors handle faster (Kindle: 1 tap; Tolino: 2 taps). If you read a lot of foreign-language books, the extra tap can get annoying.

Depending on where the word appears on the page, the definition pops up at the top or bottom of the screen. If a word isn’t found, you can search manually. Depending on the dictionary, it can happen that various grammatical forms aren’t recognized, so you have to enter the base form yourself.

Dictionary feature, here German -> English

The PocketBook Touch Lux 4 earns praise again for the number of included dictionaries, even though they’re primarily useful from and into English. The following are available:

  • Webster’s 1913 Dictionary
  • English-German (unnamed)
  • KD (Cs-En)
  • KD (Da-En)
  • KD (De-En)
  • KD (En-Cs)
  • KD (En-Da)
  • KD (En-De)
  • KD (En-Es)
  • KD (En-Fi)
  • KD (En-Fr)
  • KD (En-Hu)
  • KD (En-It)
  • KD (En-Lt)
  • KD (En-Lv)
  • KD (En-Nl)
  • KD (En-No)
  • KD (En-Pl)
  • KD (En-Ro)
  • KD (En-Sk)
  • KD (En-Sl)
  • KD (En-Sv)
  • KD (Es-En)
  • KD (Fr-En)
  • KD (It-En)
  • KD (No-En)

PDF viewing

One of the PocketBook software’s strengths is undoubtedly its extensive PDF handling. Unlike the competition, the PocketBook Touch Lux 4 offers clear, useful options for sensibly displaying large-format documents in A4 on a 6-inch screen.

The following modes are available:

  • Fit width
  • Fit page
  • Columns (2 & 3)
  • Reflow
  • Zoom (between 30 and 300 percent)
  • Margin crop (off, automatic, manual)

The only thing missing from the list is a contrast boost option, which can be helpful at times with small type due to anti-aliasing.

PDF functions

Thanks to the doubled RAM, handling large, image-heavy files works even better than on the already good predecessor. You shouldn’t expect the snappiness of a smartphone or tablet, but overall the PDF experience is among the best on the market.

Miscellaneous

Of course, you can buy e-books directly on the PocketBook Touch Lux 4. Either the Bookland store is used, or the store of the bookseller you bought the e-reader from. Usage is basically the same.

PocketBook has long worked toward being not just a hardware manufacturer but also offering partners and users various services to improve convenience. The PocketBook Cloud is the result of these efforts and has been around since 2015. As the third ecosystem beside Kindle and Tolino, it offers similar possibilities and comparable convenience from the user’s perspective: all e-books purchased in the partner store end up in online storage automatically and can then be synced. This requires logging into both the store and the cloud.

The web browser, which is more prominently placed on the start screen than on competing devices, is fast enough for quick web searches or to visit an alternative e-book store or library lending. Features include pinch-to-zoom, panning with the page-turn buttons, a landscape mode, and favorites. Images and JavaScript can be disabled if desired.

Good web browser

Even though the browser is generally quite brisk, it can’t quite match Tolino’s Android-based competition in responsiveness and speed.

Dropbox synchronization is a great and underrated feature. Once you’ve saved your login details on the device, you can sync the cloud folder with the e-reader. For Calibre users, Dropbox compatibility opens up great possibilities: news feeds can be pulled in RSS format, automatically converted to ePub, and saved in the Dropbox directory. The directory is synced with the PocketBook Touch Lux 4, so you can read the news directly on the e-reader.

Another synchronization option is Send-to-PocketBook: this lets you email files directly to the device.

Conclusion

The PocketBook Touch Lux 4 is a somewhat unconventional new release in a mid-range world of 300 ppi. Rather than getting into a display arms race with the Kindle Paperwhite and Tolino Shine 2 HD, PocketBook chooses to tweak a few other variables.

Thanks to its small dimensions and extremely low weight, the new Lux 4 offers especially comfortable handling. The weight difference compared to its predecessor isn’t just visible on paper—it’s noticeable in real life, too.

The PocketBook Touch Lux 4 is a well-executed e-reader

Together with the doubled RAM, the extensive software, and the numerous synchronization options, the PocketBook Touch Lux 4 emerges as a serious competitor to Amazon and Tolino. Only if you take lots of notes or use the dictionary function very frequently does the Lux 4 fall a bit short of the competition. If you mainly read without these extras, or you plan to keep a larger e-book library on the device, the new PocketBook e-reader is definitely worth a look.

All in all, the PocketBook Touch Lux 4 earns a solid grade of 1.7.

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Even before Kindle launched in Germany, Chalid imported his first eReader from the US in 2007, driven by his passion for the technology. As founder and editor-in-chief of ePaper.tech and YouTube Channel "Chalid Raqami" he has tested over 150 eReaders, eInk tablets and other ePaper tech from various manufacturers since 2010. Learn more Learn more
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