Rakuten Kobo has just unveiled their Black Friday sales promotion on their website. They have deeply discounted the Kobo Libra Colour, which came out earlier this year. This model is $20 off, the Kobo Sage is $30 off, and the Kobo Elipsa 2e is a staggering $50 off for US customers. The same deals are available on Amazon, which is a better option since they have a liberal return policy. The Libra Colour is $199 Kobo Sage is $239 and Elipsa 2e is $349.
I would recommend the Kobo Libra Colour as the best e-reader on this list. The Rakuten Kobo Libra Colour is likely one of the best e-readers and e-notebooks on the market. It utilizes the latest generation E INK Kaleido 3 e-paper technology, which makes the screen vibrant. There are several major selling points behind this new device. It has a 35% larger battery than the previous generation, Libra 2; it has physical page-turn buttons, Google Drive, and Dropbox to access cloud storage and capability with the Kobo Pencil 2 to conduct highlights and write notes in ebooks.
Most E INK Kaleido 3 colour screens have a flush screen and bezel protected by a glass layer. Onyx Boox, Bigme, Goyue, iReader, iFlytek, HyRead and Hisense are the most notable. The downside of these devices is they get glare from bright overhead lighting or when used outdoors in sunlight. At the same time, the brand-new Libra Colour has a sunken screen and bezel with no glass. So, there will be little to no reflection from any light sources. Furthermore, Kobo put the Kaleido 3 Colour Filter Array at the top of the stack, so colours will be more vibrant than the competition, which typically has Colour in the middle stack.
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.
