Rakuten’s Kobo Clara Colour is an e-reader through and through. I realize that may be one of the most obvious statements I’ve ever made, resulting in more than a few eyerolls. However, there’s a reason why I’m making that very distinct point. The Kobo Clara is meant for reading, and that’s it. You don’t watch high-quality movies and videos on it. Clara is not to play games or use apps like a regular tablet. You aren’t using it to browse the open web, although you can save articles offline. It does allow you to listen to audiobooks with Bluetooth wireless headphones connected.

But the main use is to read books, magazines, and text content. You can even borrow books directly using Libby — checking them out digitally from your local library if supported. Everything about the device is designed to enhance the experience of modern reading. 

And probably one of the most striking things about using this neat little reader is that it feels decidedly like holding a real book. Maybe not a super thick first edition with the most unique handbound cover, but it certainly feels like holding a lightweight paperback. As someone who’s always preferred the traditional feel of reading, from holding the book in my hands, to scrolling pages and resting my eyes on real paper, the Kobo is pretty close. But it’s also not without stiff competition, like Amazon’s Kindle, Boox’s devices, or the dozens of other gadgets just like it that came before — hello Nook. What makes the Kobo Clara unique versus the other options? Why would you choose it over anything else?

That’s what I’m hoping to break down for you here. Grab a drink or a snack, cozy up in your reading nook and let’s turn the page.

The display is the star of the show

The six-inch e-ink Kaleido 3 display is quite striking and surprisingly dense at 300 pixels-per-inch for black and white and 150 pixels-per-inch for color. The maximum resolution is 1,448 by 1,072 which works well for the smaller screen size. I’d venture to guess that most interested in an e-reader like the Kobo aren’t going to fuss too much over the specs and resolution, as long as it looks good, and it does. 

The default brightness and settings give the screen a bright white hue, but there’s an adjustable “natural” glow that gives it a warmer, yellower tone, as well. And, of course, dark mode swaps the white background for black and swaps the all-black text to white. Both the natural glow and dark mode settings are absolutely phenomenal in low-light conditions, like when you’re reading in bed at night or, in my case, reading on your outdoor patio with the ambient lights low, or you’re hiding away in your dank dungeon of an office with blacked out curtains on the windows.

Parsing the non-native Kobo experience

With every modern smart device, phone to tablet, the experience plays a central role in how well a device is received. Allow me to clarify. The software is a big part of it, like Android versus iOS, but also what you can do with that software. On Android, for example, you have a lot of freedom to get out of the box a retailer might put you in. To explain it more aptly, on a Samsung, you don’t have to use Samsung’s app store, you can use Google’s or even another. Now, Kobo doesn’t have anything substantial like that, but the question is, are you locked into a retail app that its parent company Rakuten has provided? Kind of, but not really.

At least with the Kobo Clara Colour there are no apps to install whatsoever. You can shop ebooks and audiobooks on the Kobo store, and there’s always the option to sign up for Kobo Plus — a premium subscription. But you’re not locked in to only downloading or reading books from Kobo. In fact, the very first thing I did was upload one of my favorite books, Spellsinger by Alan Dean Foster as an EPUB which I have in my library. It was easy to upload, too. I just plugged the Kobo into my desktop via USB-C, and moved the offline file I have saved right over. That was it.

Bring your own books, or not

I manage most of my library using Calibre, so being able to upload my own content is and always will be an important feature for me. I will note here Spellsinger is available on the Kobo Store, as are Alan Dean Foster’s other works, if I wanted to purchase there. That speaks to the availability of Kobo’s content. But also, I already owned it.

Any and all books you upload show up in your library, provided they are in a compatible format. Kobo supports 15 formats natively, including EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, and CBR. Plus, it supports Kobo Audiobooks, which is a given, really.

Eagle-eyed readers might notice it does not support AZW3, Amazon Kindle’s proprietary format, but that’s precisely where a piece of software like Calibre comes in handy. You can tinker with the books you own elsewhere, though I do have to mention it is illegal to remove DRM. 

That said, so many digital storefronts require you to repurchase content you already own and then, eventually, shut down, which blocks access or results in delisted content like we see often in the video game world. It’s the reality we live in today, unfortunately. But a lot of the things you buy, especially digitally, you don’t own. 

I’m not at all suggesting that’s the case with Kobo or Rakuten. However, thankfully, with Kobo you can bring your own library to the digital shelf.

Now, the Native Experience

Prime to the core experience is how the native software presents itself. In Kobo’s case, or with the native reading features, I find them to be pleasant and serviceable. It’s simple, but realistically, you are mostly doing simple things with an e-reader so it makes perfect sense.

When you turn the device on, or wake it up from sleep, you see the main interface separated into tabs. Along the bottom, the tabs are Home, My Books, Discover, and More. Most of those are self-explanatory, with Discover being the Kobo store tab essentially, and More acting as the device and account settings tab.

The Home tab displays a mix of your current progress, books you’re reading, book suggestions from your library and some minor advertisements. On my device there are a couple of small ads for Kobo Plus, for example. They’re not obtrusive at all, but I understand why some might find that annoying. Comparatively, the Kindle blasts ads pretty much everywhere, lock screen included.

The rest of the Kobo interface explained

In My Books, or your library, you see the full list of ebooks on the device. You can sort by book title, authors, series and collections — the latter of which you create on your own and can manage on the Kobo itself.

The Discover or store tab is separated into sections too: eBooks, audiobooks, Kobo Plus, and OverDrive, the latter of which is the public library access service. You need a local library card to use it if your library is supported.

Finally, the More tab gives you quick access to device settings. You can also manage a wishlist, tied to the Kobo book store, see articles you’ve saved through Instapaper, review your device activity and reading stats, access Beta features, adjust device settings as mentioned, and read through some helpful resources.

Additional controls which show up in the top right, in order, allow you to adjust the screen brightness or enable a bedtime and natural reading mode, connect to WiFi, control Bluetooth and related devices, check battery power, sync content, and search Kobo store titles and digital offerings.

The modern electronic reading experience

Now, on the task of reading books, there’s not much to it. You open the book you want, and since there are no physical buttons you just tap on the screen to cycle through pages, highlight text content and interact with the device — if you want physical buttons, the Kobo Libra Colour has those. You can tap and hold a line of text, or adjust the cursor length and then select colors to add a semi-permanent highlight. That’s great if you want to remember quotes or lines of content, which Kobo says is excellent for book clubs and the like. 

When you highlight a single word you can also see an instant web-scoured definition. There are quick access options to look up the same words on Wikipedia or do a Google Search if you’re feeling froggy. The Google Search is pretty finicky. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not really a feature I’ll use, but if you feel otherwise, it’s a good thing to keep in mind.

Beyond that, you can tap anywhere on screen to bring up and access the reading options. That allows you to change the brightness, change font, margin, and spacing details, and access reading specific settings. For example, you can turn on dark mode in the reading settings, enable or disable the book progress bar, hide page numbers, and so on.

What does reading on Kobo feel like?

Honestly, it’s an excellent device that allows you to fine-tune the reading experience to truly adapt it to what you like. If you want to get in there and really customize everything to do with your reading materials, you can. But also, there’s the option to just leave all of that alone and focus on your books and media if you don’t care.

The Kobo Clara page says the battery will last for up to 42 days on a single charge, with 30 minutes of reading per day and the front light at a 30% brightness, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth both turned off. That’s an incredibly specific set of parameters to be honest, but I found the claim to be mostly true. It lasts for a long time without needing a charge, weeks versus days, and I never turned off Wi-Fi and kept the brightness to my preferred levels. That makes it perfect for travel and off-grid use, too.

What’s the verdict, and the price?

The Kobo Clara Colour is $160 at full price by itself. The folio cover, which the team sent me in a candy pink, is an additional $30 — there are other colors. You can also order an optional remote for hands-free page turning, which is great if you’re lying in bed and have the Kobo mounted on a stand, that’s $30. Finally, there’s a clear case that’s $20. But right away, you can see all of those prices are reasonable. The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, by comparison, is $160 for the newest model with ads and $180 without them.

The Kobo Clara Colour display is beautiful, the battery life is exceptional, the water-resistance, decent software, and reading experience are all top notch. And while there are a couple of minor ads on the homescreen, mostly for Kobo’s premium subscription, there are no lock screen ads, and so far, no ads plastered all over other menus or screens. The storefront remains hidden away until you want to use it. Plus, you can move your own books and content over very easily, provided they’re in a supported file format.

If you’re in the market for a standalone ereader you could do a lot worse than the Kobo Clara Colour. I love this thing. My kids love this thing. My wife loves this thing. It has quickly become a staple reading device in my family, for at home and away.