I bought a Pocketbook Verse Pro last year and it's okay, but has some issues.
There is no PB Cloud support but it uses Dropbox, however that means no syncing progress like with kindle.
It takes a few seconds to start since it's Android and fully turns off.
And highlighting is very clunky.
The software situation with that company is pretty sketchy. From their website both mine and yours are listed as the same OS but seem totally different.
Dropbox syncing is seperate from PocketBook Cloud even though the device calls it Dropbox PocketBook. Your device seems to have gotten all the same recent FW updates as mine on a similar timeframe, so as far as I can tell from release notes and the User Manuals they are running the same firmware and support the same features. Not sure why you have the impression it is running Android, but hopefully you don't have some knockoff?
You do have to setup and login to a PocketBook account to use the cloud synchronization. I have not tried the Dropbox integration, but it only supports a synchronized file folder.
In the user manual for the Verse Pro[1], the setup for PB Cloud starts on page 79 and isn't grouped with the Dropbox sync or email endpoint earlier on in the manual.
The only controversy related to PB Software that I am aware of is that it used to be even more open with a published SDK. It was many years ago that they stopped actively maintaining tne SDK. That doesn't seem to have stopped people from continuing to develop for PB devices, and as far as I'm aware PB have not done anything to prevent this or lock down their devices beyond not continuing public development of the SDK. Certainly theur current lineup of devices allow you to run 3rd party applications and are simple to get root shell access on.
I got that manual from the US support page. What region are you in and have you tried installing the US firmware? Search for"Verse Pro" on the US support page[1] after the device list populates.
I also would have been disappointed with my Era if it didn't have PocketBook Cloud syncronization as advertised since it is functionality I care about. That being said, if it is something locked out of your region you could always install Koreader and setup sync through that.
I'm not trying to solve the issue, just warning people pocketbook is not that good.
The manual on my device also mentions the cloud, but it is just wrong. I think they have regional partners with ebook stores that customize it.
Though I think you are right it isn't Android and I misremembered. I thought thats why it has a dual core cpu and make wonder why it's so slow after boot until it's ready to turn pages.
I can't speak to how their distribution is resulting in selling devices that don't have advertised features enabled. It is weird they would allow this while keeping their branding and same device name (maybe they are working around some trade restrictions?) So that is not good, but I don't know how widespread that issue is. And as I pointed out in my response before the edit, this seems straightforward to resolve if you buy from somewhere that has this issue.
Not to belabor the point, but in my original post I mentioned how PocketBook devices are specifically not Android as an advantage in terms of battery life.
I suspect that what you are experiencing with regards to it being "slow" to resume an in progress book and allow navigation may be due to your settings. The PocketBook has a sleep mode that allows quick resume for reading. How long after it goes to sleep before it powers all the way down is fully configurable from disabling it to waiting your choice of many options between 10 minutes and 48 hours. IMO the cold boot time is acceptable and I did not notice a difference from my 1st Gen Oasis. The power loss if you fully disable its auto power off is still great, although I haven't used it that way much beyond when I first got mine so I don't have a comparison to my Oasis.
That being said, I don't have the same model as you so maybe there is a significant difference between them in performance, but it would be easy enough to check independent reviews if I was trying to decide between them.
There is no PB Cloud support but it uses Dropbox, however that means no syncing progress like with kindle.
It takes a few seconds to start since it's Android and fully turns off.
And highlighting is very clunky.
The software situation with that company is pretty sketchy. From their website both mine and yours are listed as the same OS but seem totally different.