Kobo is the first of the three major e-book companies—which includes Rakuten Kobo, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble—to take the plunge and offer a colored display on some of its e-readers. The company recently announced the new Kobo Clara Colour and the Kobo Libra Colour, which are available to pre-order already and will release on April 30.
The new devices build off the workings of Kobo’s past black-and-white e-readers, the Clara and the Libra. These e-readers offer a solid alternative to Amazon’s Kindle e-readers while still offering access to an expansive library of books, including a reading subscription similar to Kindle Unlimited.
While color e-readers aren’t exactly a new thing—we’ve seen some solid color displays from companies like PocketBook and Onyx Boox, both of which are reputable and highly recommended by users—none of those options include the massive ecosystem that Kobo offers, thanks to its parent company, Rakuten.
The new Clara Colour sports a 6-inch display, while the Libra has a slightly larger 7-inch color display. Both feature E Ink’s Kaleido 3 screen technology, which promises resolutions at a sharp 300 PPI on the Libra Colour and Clara Colour. E Ink also promises support for 4,096 colors as well as more saturation in those colors compared to the previous-generation Kaleido Plus display tech.
In addition to being the first of the three big-name e-readers to feature color displays, the new Kobo Libra Colour and Kobo Clara Colour will also be exceptionally affordable compared to some other color e-readers out there. The Kobo Clara Colour will retail for just $149.99, while the slightly larger Libra Colour will start at $219.99. That additional cost on the Libra gets you the built-in page-turning buttons, as well as support for the Kobo Stylus, so you can take notes directly on your Libra Colour.
These prices are what make this announcement truly exciting, as most color e-readers tend to price closer to $300. The Clara Colour will offer a newer display with support for colors at the same price as Amazon’s black-and-white Kindle Paperwhite, making it a really solid option for those that want to read colored comics and other material on a Kindle-sized e-reader.
Both devices still feature the frontlight with adjustable color temperature that the previous Kobo e-readers did, so you aren’t missing out on anything there, either. I’ve used a Kobo Libra 2 for the past few months to take a break from my Kindle, and I can honestly say that the addition of the color displays to two of Kobo’s best e-readers only makes them stand out even more as great alternatives to Kindles, which don’t currently offer a colored display on any model.
