After Kobo released three new ereaders at the end of last month, and then discontinued their most popular and best selling model earlier this month without releasing a direct replacement, their current line of ereaders is rather confusing now and doesn’t make much sense when you look at it as a whole.
Some people didn’t want to believe it when I said the Kobo Libra 2 was being discontinued, but there’s no doubting that fact now that Kobo has removed the Libra 2 from their main ereader product page. There are still a few left on Amazon, but it’s selling for $10 above MSRP.
Now the Libra model is only available with a color E Ink screen in the form of the Libra Colour, and some people don’t like that and want a regular black and white screen for reading text because of the notable drawbacks inherent with color E Ink technology.
On one hand Kobo is only giving customers the option to buy a color model when it comes to the 7″ Libra, but then when it comes to 6″ models they offer three different versions with black and white screens and one with color.
To make things even more confusing, the three black and white models are all priced within $30 of each other.
At $109, the Kobo Nia should have been discontinued years ago. It’s outdated and it lacks a bunch of upgrades that come on the new Kobo Clara BW, so why are they still selling it?
For an extra $20, the Kobo Clara BW adds waterproofing, an upgraded screen with better contrast and higher resolution, a warm frontlight, it has double the storage space, it adds dual-band WiFi support and Bluetooth for listening to audiobooks, it adds Dark Mode, it has a faster processor, it has a USB-C port instead of the older microUSB port, and the new Kobos are all user repairable, unlike the Nia.
There’s also the fact that Kobo is still selling the previous generation Clara 2E alongside the new Clara BW, and they’re still charging full price for the Clara 2E at $139 despite the fact the new model costs $10 less. The two models are nearly identical, but the Clara BW has a newer Carta 1300 E Ink screen, which is supposed to be better but it’s really not. It is a bit faster but the black ink actually looks darker on the Clara 2E’s Carta 1200 screen.
Then there’s the 10″ Kobo Elipsa and Kobo Elipsa 2E. Again, both are virtually identical, expect the 2E adds a warm frontlight. The Elipsa 2E was released over a year ago, so why is Kobo still selling the previous generation Elipsa as well?
Most companies phase out older models when a new version is released, but apparently Kobo only does that to models that people really like, like the Libra 2.
I feel like the remaining Elipsas have to just be unsold stock, but they don’t seem to want to cut the price enough to actually move the inventory out. Maybe the Clara 2E is the same situation, but it doesn’t have *any* discounting, so who knows.
The Libra 2 is (was?) very popular ereader, no wonder the stocks ran out. On the other hand the Nia was never a good deal compared to any other, just for a few bucks more you could have a much better ereader. So no wonder if they have thousands of pallets left in the warehouse stacked with Nias and different Clara iterations.
Sage is also still being sold without a replacement. I would’ve thought they would have chosen the larger 8 inch screen for color instead of the 7 inch libra
That would make sense to everyone but Rakuten, I guess.
Maybe they figure that a color Sage would not generate the sales and profits that a less pricey color Libre will. Much depends on profit margins!
Or maybe a color Sage is in the works, or planned for later once they see how the Libre C does.
The calculation of maximum profit alters with different mixes…
Nathan, Clara 2E is gone as well (gone from European web-site). European retailers are just selling out the remaining stock and that’s it… :-/ Libra 2 is gone. Libra 2, Clara 2E and Sage had 20EUR discount before release of Color versions.
It is extremely confusing situation. I have the feeling that we can start counting down Sage and Elipsa’s days…
It looks like the Nia is gone from the UK website as well, so if they drop it and the Clara 2E things will start to make more sense. The Elipsa 2E is currently on sale for the same price as the 1st gen Elipsa so that doesn’t make sense. If they still can’t get rid of the 1st gen Elipsas after a year the 2E will probably be around for a long time even though it doesn’t appear to be selling well. At nearly 3 years old the Sage is probably on the way out, though.
Well, I’ve got mine! But it seems to me that the 7.8/8.0 inch screen is a niche that cries out to be filled.
Libra 2 is a GREAT device but if something happens to mine then I won’t be able to find a replacement in the same form factor, so I’d have to settle with one of the following options:
– A color version that I don’t like, I’ve seen it in a physical store and it’s not for me (sorry).
– PW5 that doesn’t have page turn buttons. I have and I’m actively using both PW5 and L2, if only they could be “fused” to create a perfect device lol.
– Pocketbook Era with an inferior screen
– A used Libra 2 which might or might not be available, I guess people really like them and don’t want to re-sell them, at least in my country.
For me as a consumer it doesn’t make any sense.
I gather one of the key factors for some models failing or not reaching full sales potential (Sage, Libra 2E) is that one of their main specs is a dealbreaker (227 ppp screen, very poor battery capacity) even though they are good products. IMHO, Kobo had it coming when they released them. How could such a great company make such blunders?
The only one with 227 ppi is the Elipsa, and all 10″ black and white eNotes have that same resolution, except the Kindle Scribe, so they didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. The poor battery life on the Sage was a blunder, but Amazon did the same thing with the Oasis and it’s pretty well-liked, so I don’t know how much of an impact that really has overall. The high price is probably the biggest deterrent.