E-reader brands Pocketbook and Bigme have just signed a partnership agreement that makes Pocketbook co-owner of Asian company Bigme.
Pocketbook is a long-standing player in the digital reading market, offering a variety of innovative e-readers since its creation in 2007 in Ukraine.
The company has been able to evolve and renew itself, moving to Switzerland in 2012.
Twelve years on, Pocketbook is still going strong, regularly offering new e-readers at all price points.
Bigme announces that it was founded in 2008 to offer e-readers to the Asian market. However, it's only in recent years that the company has become more widely known, with e-readers such as the Bigme S6 Color+, which I reviewed on the site and in video.
The GoodEReader website reports that Pocketbook now owns a significant share of the Bigme company.
This merger will enable Pocketbook to take advantage of Bigme's Android e-reader expertise to offer high-end e-reader models in the US and Europe.
The first machine is the Pocketbook Inkpad Eo, whose fast release surprised me. It's a large-format color e-reader with a Bigme-designed Android 11 system, but with software modified by Pocketbook.
When I tested the last Bigme e-reader I received, I noticed problems with software translation. A slight disappointment, since the hardware is really good quality, with a superb color e-ink screen.
Pocketbook will correct this and market some Bigme e-readers under its own brand and with corrections in the months and years to come.
Of course, all this comes solely from the Goodereader website, and Pocketbook doesn't seem to have communicated much more about Bigme in recent days.
