David Bridges
Rakuten has a trio of latest Kobo ereaders, together with the corporate’s first two with shade shows. On Wednesday, the corporate revealed the $220 Kobo Libra Color and $150 Clara Color alongside the monochrome $130 Clara BW. You possibly can preorder them right now, forward of their April 30 launch.
The Kobo Libra Color has a seven-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 show, which ought to have a noticeable enchancment with 16 ranges of grayscale, 4,096 colours and 30 p.c higher shade saturation than E Ink’s last-gen tech. The Libra Color is the one considered one of Kobo’s new ereaders with stylus help for e-book annotations and highlighting. However you’ll want so as to add the $70 Kobo Stylus 2 (additionally suitable with the Elipsa 2E) to get pleasure from that.
The system has a curved, “ergonomic” design with page-turn buttons. It helps portrait and panorama studying and has 32GB of storage (good for round 24,000 ebooks or 150 audiobooks). Rakuten says its battery can last as long as 40 days on a single cost, however that’s for studying for half-hour day by day with the entrance gentle at 30 p.c brightness and the wi-fi turned off. (Anticipate much less for those who learn greater than that or flip the brightness greater with wi-fi radios on.)
In the meantime, the six-inch Kobo Clara Color and Clara BW forgo the Libra Color’s page-turn buttons and stylus help in favor of extra accessible pricing. The Clara BW differs from the last-gen Clara 2 (Engadget’s decide for one of the best ereader) with a sooner processor, extra storage (16GB) and the newest E Ink Carta 1300 show tech.
Rakuten says the Clara Color and Clara BW can last as long as 53 days on a cost, however that’s with half an hour of studying per day, the brightness set at a mere 10 p.c and WiFi / Bluetooth off.
All three gadgets have ComfortLightPro for automated blue-light adjustment. They’ve an IPX8 water resistance ranking, making them appropriate for poolside or bathtime studying. The ereaders use recycled and ocean-bound plastics of their construct supplies, and Rakuten has partnered with iFixit for self-repairs.
You should purchase separate covers (constituted of recycled supplies) with built-in stands for all three new gadgets. The Libra Color has a normal $30 SleepCover and a $40 NoteBook SleepCover with a magnetic stylus slot. The Clara Color and Clara BW have $30 SleepCovers and a less expensive $20 Primary SleepCover.
You possibly can preorder the brand new ereaders from Rakuten Kobo beginning right now. The Kobo Libra Color prices $220, the Clara Color is priced at $150 and the monochrome Clara BW runs $130. All three gadgets arrive on April 30.
Daniel Mercer
