It’s time for a back to school sale on select Kobo reading devices. The Kobo Clara Colour and Kobo Clara BW are both on sale from Kobo’s website and at Best Buy (yeah, Kobos are sold at Best Buy now, including in stores so you can see them before buying). The Kobo Clara Colour is also on sale at Amazon, but, oddly, the Kobo Clara BW is not, even though it’s sold by Kobo. But they do have this Clara BW bundle on sale for $1 less than buying a Clara BW on its own (that makes a lot of sense).
Both Clara models are $20 off, which isn’t a huge discount by any means, especially considering their recent price increase, but that’s as good as it gets for the Claras—I doubt they’ll be priced any lower for Black Friday.
The $20 off sale is valid in both the US and Canada, but the equivalent prices are lower in Canada. For example, the Clara BW is $159 CAD, which is only $115 USD (too bad we can’t get those prices in the US!).
Kobo also recently added some more limited edition cases to their lineup for both the Libra Colour and Clara models. They aren’t really cases, though; they’re just a back shell, and the prices are kind of ridiculous considering they provide no protection for the screen whatsoever, but that’s what people want these days, apparently. Other companies are busy releasing new reading devices, while Kobo is content releasing new “cases” for devices they released over 2 years ago (that makes a lot of sense too). It would be nice if Kobo was more active on the hardware front, but it’s easy to forget they’re just an ebook store—not very many ebook stores are selling their own dedicated reading devices, outside of Amazon and B&N, and they both sell a lot of other stuff too.
I noticed Kobo has some cases for older devices on sale as well. The sleepcover for the Kobo Clara 2E is only $12.99, down from $29.99. And this case for the Kobo Nia is marked down to $9.99.
I’d be curious to learn exactly how many of these limited edition cases Kobo is actually selling. Nathan claims that “that’s what people want these days”, but I’m skeptical. The only comments I’ve read online about these is that they pretty much suck.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. When I saw the release of the new “limited edition” cases, I scoffed. These cases are such a joke & only trying to appeal to the people who jumped the Amazon ship. Honestly, it’s a joke. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t release new sleepcovers as well if they’re only going to release cases instead of actual hardware or meaningful software updates. I’ve been a long-time Kobo user & have really loved them & their devices overall, but they have definitely declined over the years & it’s really sad.
Kobo seems to put a lot of stock into what’s popular on social media. They noticed all the people posting pictures of Kobos with stickers and clear cases and remote page turners, so they released their own options to cater to the social media crowd.
To me this makes sense. People are having fun with this stuff, so they may as well cash in with this.
The covers are nice but I prefer the screen to be covered as well. For protection and I like to hold my device with both hands like a print book. I get the desire to cover the case in stickers. I did with mine, but I appreciate the compromise Amazon made: a clear back and a fabric front, so you get screen protection and the ability to add stickers