Rakuten Kobo invested heavily in color e-paper for its latest generation of e-readers. They released the Libra Colour and Clara Colour and discontinued the Libra black and white and Nia. The Kobo Sage is getting really old, suffers from tremendously horrible battery life, and is increasingly getting harder to find.
Kobo has always embraced e-readers with physical page-turn buttons. However, the only current generation that employs it is the Libra Colour. The Kobo Sage came out in 2021, and finding one in stores or online is not easy anymore, suffice to say it does technically have page-turn buttons. The Clara BW and Elipsa 2 only have touchscreens; ditto with the Nia if you can find one on EBAY or a refurbished model.
When Kobo released their latest generation of e-readers, I talked with the lead hardware guy, who said that Kobo is prioritizing color e-readers going forward. This means that it is very likely that traditional black-and-white e-paper will be phased out, and Kobo will mostly offer color e-readers going forward.
Kobo e-readers and their color gamut are some of the best in the business. This is because Kobo has positioned the Color Filter Array at the top of the screen stack, enhancing color vibrancy compared to other brands. Kobo does color better than Onyx Boox, Fujitsu, Meebook, and almost everyone else, except Amazon and their Colorsoft.
From my perspective, Kobo seems to be removing physical page-turn buttons and going with touchscreen displays. The only current generation products are the Libra Colour, Clara Colour, Clara BW, and Elipsa 2, which have touchscreens. This strategy might be deliberate because this is what Amazon has done. The executive in charge of Kindle said that customers don’t want buttons anymore and want touchscreens; this is why there has never been a Voyage or Oasis refresh. Kobo might be following a similar strategy, so there is more parity between the two brands.
The only brands with physical page-turn buttons on most models are the Barnes and Noble NOOK and Pocketbook e-readers. Almost everyone else seems to have abandoned them, just like the SD card.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
