The technology is not exactly new, but with the release by the Japanese company Rakuten of a pair of new Kobo e-readers with color screens, we feel that the digital book is finally entering a new era… at 4096 dimensions.
Rakuten will put the Kobo Clara Color and Kobo Libra Color on sale on April 30. These are not high-performance devices, on the contrary: the Kobo brand, which was already Canadian, is located in the market for inexpensive digital e-readers. They are in direct opposition to Amazon Kindles. Both ranges are made up of devices whose sole function is to display digital books, preferably purchased from their respective manufacturer’s online store.
The Clara Color is an entry-level e-reader, therefore. Its retail price will be $180. Its main characteristic is that it is very portable: its screen is 6 inches diagonal, which is roughly the most compact format for consumer e-readers. Its resolution is 300 pixels per inch for black and white content, and 150 pixels per inch for color elements. Generally speaking, it is especially the cover of digital books, or e-books, which benefit the most from the addition of color to the screen of this type of device.
The Libra Color has a slightly larger display, at 7 inches diagonal. Its resolution in pixels per inch is identical to that of the Clara. Its battery is a bit bigger in size, too. Above all, its screen is compatible with the Kobo 2 stylus ($90, sold separately). In addition to reading books, you can annotate them or create your own notebooks, sketches or doodles. At $250, the Libra Color becomes the most affordable pen e-reader in Kobo’s lineup.
Revenge of the colors
These two new Kobos have a Bluetooth antenna to pair them with wireless headphones that will be used to listen to audiobooks. Like the rest of the range, they connect via wifi to various online services, including their eponymous store and its unlimited ebook service (Kobo Plus costs at least $10 per month). You can also transfer files via Dropbox and Google Drive, or web bookmarks via the Pocket service, which is worth being known.
Obviously, you can ultimately connect a Kobo to your personal computer to directly access its internal storage. It’s 16 GB on the Clara Color and Libra Color, which is more than enough to accommodate the equivalent of your city’s municipal library, or almost. Kobo is also a partner with the OverDrive service, to borrow ebooks just like at the library. To do this from the Quebec Digital Loan service, you have to go through a computer, which is not quite as convenient.
Finally, you can synchronize books purchased or borrowed from the Kobo store between your e-reader and the Kobo mobile application, which you install on a phone or tablet. That’s good, but the Kindle applications and even Google Play Books do better, also synchronizing from one device to another the reading status in all its ebooks, not just those purchased in their respective store.
One thing is certain, given the price of the new Kobo, people who are not too reluctant to go digital to satisfy their desire for reading no longer have any reason to look back. The Libra Color is probably the best option, since you can always buy a stylus right away, or later, if you really need it.
Rakuten incorporates a display technology called E Ink Kaleido 3, which features 16 gray gradients and 4096 other colors. With a bright backlight capable of avoiding blue light, the brand’s devices are gentler on the eyes than an LCD or OLED tablet like the Apple iPad. And their autonomy stretches for almost a month between two charges. The chances of a breakdown while reading on the bus, on the beach or elsewhere are much lower.
Beyond color…
For various reasons, many people will prefer to read on an iPad rather than purchasing an additional e-reader. An iPad has the advantage of being much more versatile. But there are solutions for those who would prefer the versatility of a tablet over the color E Ink screen of an e-reader. There are e-readers from slightly less well-known brands in our country that do exactly that: they use the same Android software as a smartphone and allow you to install all the applications you can dream of, via the Google Play Store.
The best example is Boox brand e-readers. The Tab Mini C costs a little more, at $500, but it offers a little more too: 7.8-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 screen, better storage, and… Android, in fact. E Ink technology is really bad for displaying video, but for everything else, this device allows you to choose the content sources (books, news, music, etc.) of your choice, and avoids having to use two devices simultaneously to do so.
One thing is certain, both the Boox range and the new Kobo confirm one fact: the digital book has not killed the good old paper book, and that’s a good thing. But by adding a little color to it, it is certainly more attractive than ever.