Technology

Kobo announces its first color e-readers

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A hand using a stylus to take notes on the Kobo Libra Colour e-reader.
Image: Rakuten Kobo
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Rakuten Kobo is launching its first color e-readers, the Kobo Libra Colour and the Kobo Clara Colour. Both use E Ink’s latest Kaleido color screen technology, which has subtle, pastel-like hues and drops from a 300ppi grayscale resolution to 150ppi when you view content in color.

I’ll be testing both e-readers soon, but so far, they look like small upgrades to Kobo’s existing e-readers. That’s not a bad thing, though! The seven-inch Kobo Libra 2 is my favorite e-reader outside of Amazon’s ecosystem, offering the Kindle Paperwhite’s IPX8 waterproof design but with extras like physical page-turning buttons, no lockscreen ads, and more storage.

Image: Rakuten Kobo
The Kobo Libra Colour comes with physical.

I’ll be testing both e-readers soon, but so far, they look like small upgrades to Kobo’s existing e-readers. That’s not a bad thing, though! The seven-inch Kobo Libra 2 is my favorite e-reader outside of Amazon’s ecosystem, offering the Kindle Paperwhite’s IPX8 waterproof design but with extras like physical page-turning buttons, no lockscreen ads, and more storage.

The Kobo Libra Colour comes with physical page-turning buttons and is compatible with the Kobo Stylus 2 for taking notes.
The Kobo Libra Colour comes with physical page-turning buttons and is compatible with the Kobo Stylus 2 for taking notes.Image: Rakuten Kobo
The Kobo Clara Colour is just like the Clara 2E but with color, an improved processor, and more storage.
The Kobo Clara Colour is just like the Clara 2E but with color, an improved processor, and more storage.Image: Rakuten Kobo

The $219.99 Kobo Libra Colour retains all of those features but is also now compatible with the Kobo Stylus 2, just like the Kobo Elipsa 2E. However, it’s $30 more expensive than the Kobo Libra 2, and you’ll have to buy the stylus separately for $69.99.

The $149.99 Kobo Clara Colour is slightly more distinct from its closest sibling, the $139.99 Kobo Clara 2E. It offers the same six-inch display and IPX8 waterproof design but now comes with 16GB of storage, as well as an improved processor. I hope so; the Kobo Clara 2E’s sluggish performance was one of my chief complaints.

Kobo also introduced an upgraded black-and-white Kobo Clara BW, with the same storage and processor upgrades, for $129.99.

All of the devices are available to preorder starting today and will ship on April 30th.

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