Yesterday Kobo announced the upcoming release of a new white version of the Kobo Clara Colour, but, mysteriously, they didn’t release a white version of the Kobo Clara BW to complement it. That’s a bad sign for those that prefer regular black and white E Ink screens.
Both devices are virtually identical, aside from the fact that one has a color E Ink screen and the other has a black and white E Ink screen. So why didn’t Kobo release a white version of the Kobo Clara BW too?
At this point you can’t dismiss the possibility that Kobo might be planning to phase out their black and white models entirely moving forward. You probably think I’m just jumping to conclusions, but let’s go over the facts.
Four out of five of the latest versions of Kobo devices to get released have color E Ink screens. There’s the Libra Colour, which has been available with a black bezel or a white bezel since it was released. Now Kobo offers the same black and white options with the Clara Colour.
But the Clara BW is only available in black, and it’s the only “current” Kobo device that’s available with a black and white E Ink screen, and it’s the only BW Kobo device that uses the latest generation BW screen. That isn’t an accident.
In some regions Kobo is still selling the Kobo Sage, which has an 8″ BW E Ink screen, but that device was released 4 years ago, and it uses an older generation BW E Ink. There’s no way it’s still under production; Kobo is just selling off their remaining stock, and it hasn’t been available from their US store for several months.
The only other BW device that Kobo is selling is their 10.3″ eNote, the Kobo Elispa 2E, and it’s more of a niche product than their reading devices. It was released 2.5 years ago and the screen was outdated when it was released, so not a lot of people were interested in it. Some companies started selling eNotes with higher resolution screens before it came out, and after all this time has passed, Kobo still hasn’t upgraded the screen to compete with current eNotes. Again, not a good sign.
A lot of people assumed Kobo would eventually release a new Libra with a black and white screen, but it’s been a year and a half since Kobo discontinued the Libra 2 in favor of the Kobo Libra Colour, and that still hasn’t happened yet. The odds are it’s not going to happen at all at this point (like all the people that were hoping for a new Kindle Oasis or Kindle Voyage for years).
Main Takeaway
The fact is Kobo has only released two BW ereaders over the past four years, not counting their eNote that few people seem to be interested in, and one of the two devices replaced the other (the Clara BW replaced the Clara 2E). And the Clara models are just revisions of the same general device from 2018. They haven’t actually designed a new BW model since 2021. Now they had the opportunity to give us a white Clara BW but they decided not to, despite the fact it uses the exact same casing as the Clara Colour.
Hopefully Kobo will continue to offer both color and BW ereaders moving forward (it seems crazy not to), but the signs are pointing to a transition to color screens whether we like it or not. Unless Kobo releases a new BW model soon, the odds of them focusing only on color E Ink screens keeps increasing by the day. I still think E Ink could be incentivizing Kobo to go all-in on color E Ink, and Kobo’s color models appear to be surprisingly popular so maybe it is a good business decision for them.
Yeah, I don’t believe there will be any new BW ereader coming from them in the future. And it sucks. Their ereaders are hands down best of all brands, but the color e-ink is just ruining the experience.
I would honestly pay $1000 if they re-released the Kobo Libra 2
You can buy mine that looks practically new for $1k! 😁
This makes me very tempted to get a Sage while I still can … and maybe a B&W Clara too (still rocking a GloHD!)
I doubt they…or for that matter E ink are incentivised to go all in on color and totally lose whatever fraction of buyers that would only want a black and white device. If Gallery3 drastically improves rendering speed, maybe. Right now black and white devices take even less effort to produce than a color device(no color film add on) and the basic panels can be made at the same time, for an economy of scale. For E ink, more units are probably more units. I doubt Kaleido is where Eink wants to stop innovation.
What I want, and I assume many others also want, is a black and white reader with *more* contrast. I could not care less about color. My Aura-HD is getting old and I don’t know what I’d replace it with when it eventually dies. The 6″ Clara is too small. Yes, I know Kobo does not have direct control of the screens they buy.
But something Kobo does have control of is the software. Font tweaking is what makes distinguishes Kobo readers. It would be great if Kobo furthered that distinction by allowing side-loaded fonts to be tweaked the same as the base fonts.