If you frequent certain segments of the interwebs, it’s surprising how often you hear people wishing Kobo would release a new Kobo Libra with a regular black and white E Ink screen, but so for there’s been zero indication that that is going to happen anytime soon, if ever.
Last year at this time everybody knew that Kobo was about to release new models because they had turned up for approval on the FCC website months in advance, and leaks of product pages started appearing a month before Kobo officially announced and started accepting pre-orders for their three new models, two with color E Ink screens.
The Kobo Libra Colour is closing in on its one year birthday later this month, and yet Kobo still hasn’t released a BW version to compliment it, despite releasing a Clara BW at the same time as the new color models last year. At this point it’s looking less likely by the day a Libra BW will ever come along.
As I’ve said in the past, I think Kobo not releasing a Libra BW was a big mistake, especially considering all the people that recently wanted to switch from Kindles to Kobos. Kobo not offering anything comparable to the Kindle Paperwhite is head-scratching.
Not everyone wants to settle for the cheapest model that Kobo sells, and not everyone that just wants to read regular ebooks is willing to sacrifice screen clarity and overall contrast for color E Ink just to have covers and highlights in color.
There’s still a chance that Kobo could release something new this fall, and if they find a way to hide their FCC listings they might be able to pull off a surprise release, but let’s face the facts: Almost every new Kobo that has been released has had information leak months in advance. So far this year there’s been nothing but crickets on the new Kobo front.
Sorry to say, but it’s not looking good for a Libra BW in 2025. It looks like Kobo is doubling down on color E Ink, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they didn’t release any new models at all this year. At this point a color Elipsa is probably more likely than a Libra BW.
Agree on possible color Ellipsa. I am a probable buyer. Not so sure about not getting a B and W Libra. Seems like low hanging fruit to me…not much needed to use the same Libra chassis and have a compelling lineup for many buyers.
Kobo is in dire need of a management change. Not having a 7” e-reader to compete with the Paperwhite is the latest inexcusably bad move by Kobo. I’ve tried to switch to Kobo over the last year and a half, but I’ve given up on them as they are too screwed up. As Nook is an even bigger mess, I am stuck with Monopoly-zon.
I’ve had the same problem. I’ve gone back to Kindle. Not even having the option to choose a black/white e reader is really annoying. I don’t want a 6 inch device and I definitely dont want an 8 inch reader with a bad battery that is 4 years old!
Loving my Libra 2 more and more every day…
These companies don’t listen to what their customers want. Most people who are avid readers of fiction (and that’s the primary reason to get one of these devices) don’t care so much about color as they do about the contrast and quality of the screen.
Since kobo is on the market, at least one new model has been released every single year.
That is technically true, but a couple times they only made minor changes to existing models, like adding a warm light to the Elipsa 2E in 2023, and in 2020 they basically re-released an existing model (the Aura 2) with minor changes to the outer casing and they changed the name to the Nia.
I don’t think a color Elipsa could be a good idea, as the BW version is already very expensive because of the huge screen and it’s not a really popular model. A coloured one would be even more expensive.
There is a huge demand on a BW Libra 2 successor and the number of BW models in all brands still outnumber the colored ones. So I would expect something more reasonable from Kobo, especially that they don’t have anything in the 2024 Paperwhite category. A Libra BW and a Forma BW would be a blast both with Mobius screen. Just my two cents.
Yeah, I totally agree. They need another BW model in the 7″ range, but they seem oddly content with color screens now. The Elipsa appears to be their least popular model, but for some reason these companies seem to really want to push eNotes lately. And Onyx’s 10″ Color eNote always seems to be selling better than their BW version, despite costing a lot more, so maybe there is a wider market for color versions. Personally, I got sick of eNotes a while ago. If I’m going to take notes, which I rarely do, I’d rather type them out, so I don’t get the appeal of (sloppy) handwritten notes, although I do like the larger screens for reading sometimes.
Look, I’m just going to give my solution. I read with color inverted (white text on black background, light at 30%, and natural color so things get more yellow as the night progresses. This sharply limits the ‘screen-door’ effect as only the white text has the effect, and I can’t tell given how small the letters are on the screen.
I hate how Amazon keeps making my PW Kindle 202x signature ed., whatever the last gen was, even slower and more prone to crashing with every single update. I hate how they likely deliberately bricked all three of my Oasis 3rd gen readers. So I luckily managed to download my entire library from Amazon and converted 2500 books to kpub, and now read with inverted color profile to keep my sanity.
Yeah, Dark Mode works great with color screens because it nullifies a couple of the most obvious drawbacks, but I was never able to get along with Dark Mode since I have an astigmatism and it just makes the white text look blurrier.