Kobo released their first color ereaders, the Kobo Libra Colour and the Kobo Clara Colour, a little over a month ago, and it looks like Kobo’s decision to go with color E Ink was a brilliant idea.
The Kobo Libra Colour in particular has received a lot of attention since it was released, and most opinions of it seem to be positive. Some people don’t like the darker screen, of course, and the color grid layer gives the screen kind of a weird textured look, but it’s pretty surprising how many people don’t seem to be bothered by those things.
Speaking from experience, you do tend to get used to the different look of the color screens the more you use them. At first it’s hard not to compare color E Ink with regular E Ink and LCD screens with brighter colors, but it appears there’s a market for color E Ink despite some drawbacks.
I’ll admit, I’ve been skeptical of color E Ink since the first color ereaders started coming out four years ago, but they’ve managed to improve the color screens quite a bit since the beginning, and I think it’s gotten to the point where some folks don’t mind a few tradeoffs for the benefits of color.
Kobo Libra Colour
It’s hard to trust online reviews these days, but if you look at the reviews at Kobo and at Amazon, the Libra Colour is off to a good start. It has a 4.6-star rating with 78 reviews via Trustpilot on Kobo’s website. The black version has a 4.2-star rating on Amazon with 47 ratings; the white version has a seperate page for some reason, and it has a 4.5-star rating with 30 reviews.
Reviews aside, what I find most surprising is how much chatter there is about the Libra Colour on the Kobo subreddit. Since it was released, there’s been way more posts about the Libra Colour than other Kobo models, including the other two new models that were released at the same time.
Kobo Clara Colour
Of the two new color models, the Libra Colour seems to be way more popular, but the Clara Colour is getting some possitive reviews too.
At Amazon, it’s listed on two seperate pages for some stupid reason. On one page it has a 4.3-star rating with 17 reviews, and on the other page it has a 4.5-star rating with 8 reviews. At Kobo, it has a 4.7-star rating with 35 reviews through Trustpilot.
What’s interesting is the Kobo Clara BW with a regular black and white screen has less overall reviews to this point, which would suggest they’re selling more of the color model. The Clara BW has 14 reviews on Kobo’s website, with a 4.6-star rating. At Amazon it has a 4.7-star rating, also with 14 ratings.
It’s still too early to tell if color E Ink is going to become as popular and regular E Ink, but color appears to be trending up. And it’s not just Kobo, either. Back in March I posted about how Onyx’s Note Air3 Color was outselling the regular black and white Note Air3 on Amazon, and that’s still the case 3 months later.
Take out the crayolas and colour me impressed.
I find the k3 colors fine. But the fuzziness and graininess I found a big compromise compared to b/w. For me I prefer an active display device for color content and combine that with a 2nd passive smaller b/w e-ink device. But I hope that we see further improvements for color e-ink.
Fair enough.
I am hoping that Kobo decides to do a large color, 9 or 10 inch sized. I just prefer the format options and am a big Pocket user. I acknowledge that 6 and 7 inch will sell more units. Preferably with page turn buttons. It comes out, I am in line.
I have the Clara Color. When compared to my Kindle Paperwhite, the only thing that bothers me is reading outside. The contrast difference is very noticeable. Indoors, with the lights set on both, I find no real difference and I love having the color!
One reason I think it’s the first color unit that has pretty decent color capabilities AND a decent price.
Yes, has gotten tons of good reviews, and the content creators on YouTube are raving about — tons of very positive YouTube videos on the Koba Libra Color.
Keep it up Kobo — you’re onto something here!
I bought a Libra Color and the things that stood out to me was that it was noticeably dimmer and than our Kindles (which are not new or top-of-the-line), and the color is a bit fuzzy because the DPI is lower than B/W. It wasn’t bad…but just not ready for prime time IMO. Needs to be more vibrant, and higher res. I wouldn’t mind a slower refresh time if that’s the tradeoff that’s required. But I’m glad to see that they priced it reasonably.