Is Kobo Done Releasing eReaders with Black and White Screens?

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 It was released 2.5 years ago and the screen was outdated when it was released, so not a lot of people were interested in it.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).

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.