Kobo Clara Colour e-reader review | Hacker News Reader

Kobo Clara Colour e-reader review

engadget.com

30 pointstromp13 comments

I got one of these when they first came out, and am about to return it. The colors are not as bright as I had hoped, and even in greyscale mode it's pretty dim. The screen also had a defect (sort of like a dead pixel; it shows up in night mode as a bright glimmer).

My daughter loved it since she reads graphic novels and comic books. But when she found out it doesn't work with her Kindle books, that killed it for her. Rumor is that Amazon is going to come out with a color ereader in 2025, perhaps with an ACeP screen. [1] I think those are brighter but slower on page turns.

I'm glad Kobo is innovating, and look forward to seeing what v2 looks like (and Amazon's first offering). In the meantime...I'm sending this one back. The return process was surprisingly manual and consumer-unfriendly. Even though it says you can send it back within 30 days for any reason, they were telling me that the busted pixel didn't qualify. I had to call back to get someone who would put the RMA through.

1: https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/amazon-to-launch-next-ge...

You could unlock the entire world of books by using a tool like Calibre so you don't have to be locked into one ecosystem.

I am using Calibre with my 6 inch Kindle paperwhite. I notice that it display the books bought from Kindle store a lot nicer than the same books but in .epub format sideloaded by Calibre. Do you know how I can improve this?

Likely there's a Calibre plugin to convert to Kindle's format. Kobo also supports .epub out of the box, but the software really works best with their .kepub format. There's a Calibre plugin which automatically converts .epub into .kepub when sending to the device.

The other thing is that you can use the kobo without ever connecting to a network or setting up an account. (edit Kobo eReader.conf and add "SideLoaded=True") Because of this I would easily recommend it.

I bought a clara 2e, loaded all my books via usb, and have been happily reading offline.

I also have a remarkable 2, but the kobo has a backlight.

My main reason for trying it to see how good the color display was, and I wasn't too impressed. I was hoping it would work for BeeLine-enabled text (I'm the founder), and it's not quite vibrant enough IMO. Perhaps the next generation will be more suitable.

Until then, we'll stick with Kindles, which are cheaper and clearer.

What format are her kindle books in? You can usually remove the DRM and even convert them to epub (though if you install homebrew on your kobo, like Koreader, you may even be able to read kindle's proprietary format).

It's very simple using a tool like Calibre.

Just use calibre, you don’t have to put up with these arbitrary DRM locks.

I got the Kobo colour libra. I'm really enjoying it. I had a kindle and I really hated on it. It felt so laggy, I never got used to the touch vs buttons.

I've got a big library of kindle books but I mostly read new books so it wasn't a big deal to switch. I mean, I've still got the kindle if I ever want to re-read something, I gave the device to one of my kids. Plus using something else opens up buying from many different places rather than JUST amazon.

The Kobo feels faster and smoother. The buttons are nice. The interface is nice. I don't rate the colour display that highly, but it's a nice gimmick and I don't read stuff with lots of graphics anyway.

It's funny, they make the connection between the screen aesthetics and old comic books yet they don't actually try a comic book or illustrated book on the device to experience any of the color. It feels like a wasted review if they're not going to engage with the distinct feature.

I am very pleased with my Boox device running Kaleido 3. All reviewers kept bashing the screen, but it's perfectly fine. Yes it's not as bright as B&W e-ink devices and colors are not as vivid as LCD/OLED, but honestly, when not comparing it directly side by side, it's perfectly adequate for both reading books and comics.

Has e-reader tech advanced to the point where battery life isn't even worth mentioning in a review already? That's surprising.

Most reviews of the new Kobo I've seen do mention the battery life, which is in weeks. It's hard to say though, since it depends on how much you read, what backlight level you use, and if you use the stylus (for the Libre Color).

You do have to use the backlight a bit more than greyscale ereaders, since the additional layer means that less light gets through from the greyscale layer. My wife was surprised at how dim it is compared to her (old, inexpensive) Kindle.

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