The Kobo Clara 2E is a well-made e-reader, which at the start blush receives the whole lot right. A sharp, well-lit display, waterproofing, USB-C charging, and heaps of content material to enjoy—they`re all there. Unfortunately, its pokey processing velocity and questionable person interface choices left us feeling disappointed.
Pros and cons
Compact length and mild weight
Excellent Pocket Integration
Great front-lit show
User interface may be extra intuitive
Slow processor
We love the Kobo Clara 2E`s length and sharp show however had been deeply dissatisfied with its pokey performance.
About the Kobo Clara 2E
Display: 6-inch HD E Ink Carta 1200 touchscreen
Display Resolution: three hundred PPI (1448 x 1072)
Dimensions: 112.05 x 159.02 x 8.sixty six mm
Weight: 6.03 ounces
Supported Formats: Audiobooks (Kobo Audiobooks only), EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, CBR
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Compact length and mild weight
Due to its dimensions, the Kobo Clara 2E is one of the maximum compact, mainstream e-analyzing gadgets to be had proper now. I can without problems slip the Clara 2E into the lower back pocket of my denims to take with me to the espresso shop, no greater bag is required. Its scarcely-there-at-all weight of 6.03 oz made it clean to experience an hours-long, one-passed analyzing consultation with out feeling strained even as playing my latte.
Easy at the eyes
The Clara 2E packs a 6-inch HD E Ink Carta 1200 touchscreen with a three hundred PPI (1448 x 1072) resolution. This approach the phrases in this e-reader`s show are clear, crisp, and clean to read, like what you will get on a broadcast web page on a laser printer. In a aspect-by-aspect comparison, the usage of the identical font on the identical font length, I became not able to figure a distinction withinside the best of the Clara 2E’s textual content to the textual content displayed on my Kindle Paperwhite—a excellent thing.
However, the Kobo tool lags in the back of the Paperwhite concerning the front lighting. In darkish conditions, you will discover that the Clara 2E’s display is pleasantly legible and the colour temperature of its display may be adjusted. But the mild is not uniform throughout the display; there are darker patches in numerous locations. Other e-readers, together with the Kindle Paperwhite, be afflicted by this problem as well.
Tough Enough
Kobo claims its Clara 2E`s outer shell is made from 85% recycled plastic, however the use of the e-reader each day proved robust sufficient to continue to exist the 2 weeks of informal put on and tear I placed it thru all through testing.
What’s extra, the e-reader’s textured backplate makes it clean to hold, lowering the opportunity of by chance losing it, inspite of moist hands. It’s a clever characteristic for the reason that the Clara 2E is designed to face up to being submerged in as much as 6.five ft of water for an hour. (Rub-a-dub-dub: study Steven King withinside the tub.)
Tons of content material
At the time of penning this review, the Kobo Store provided over six million books for Clara 2E customers to download in addition to a developing variety of magazines and newspapers.
Like many current e-analyzing devices, the Clara 2E also can be linked for your favored wi-fi headphones or earbuds so that you can pay attention to audiobooks… furnished the ones audiobooks are bought from the Kobo Store. During testing, I determined that at the same time as it is viable to side-load analyzing fabric onto the Clara 2E, I could not get it to play outside audio files.
It’s really well worth noting that for near a decade, Kobo’s e-readers have provided one of the fine Pocket study-it-later consumer experiences. If you do not have already got one, sign on for a Pocket account after which signal into your account at the Clara 2E. Once you have accomplished so, you may be capable of store content material out of your favored web sites to consume in your e-reader, lengthy after you have grew to become off your laptop for the day.
What we do not like
Speed
It has none. Swiping thru pages at the Clara 2E, offered some issues. Most notably, pages that contained pictures loaded very slowly.
Compared to its maximum apparent competition, the Kindle Paperwhite, the Clara 2E become extraordinarily slower through seconds and fractions of a second, while appearing near-equal tasks. I stated that different simple hardware functions, along with turning the Clara 2E’s the front lights up or converting font sizes, suffered from big enter lag as well.
I suspect that at the same time as the device’s 16GB of garage is extra than sufficient to fulfill the ebook and audiobook wishes of maximum folks, its 1.0Ghz processor isn’t always as much as the challenge of riding Kobo’s more and more more stressful e-reader running system.
The OS isn’t the fine
A e-reader submerged in water.
Credit: Reviewed / Seamus Bellamy
The Clara 2E is designed to face up to being submerged in as much as 6.five ft of water.
I`ve continually favourite Kobo gadgets for his or her cost proposition. Unfortunately, over the years, I’ve observed that their working device has turn out to be much less intuitive.
For example, Pocket and OverDrive—offerings that permit you to borrow ebooks from many libraries throughout North America—are squirreled away in extraordinary submenus, as opposed to on Kobo OS’s domestic display along Kobo’s ee-e book suggestions. There isn’t anyt any manner to create domestic display shortcuts to accurate this issue.
I apprehend that promoting books is the bread and butter of any ebook company, however growing an exciting studying enjoy to your clients must additionally be a pinnacle priority.
Should you purchase the Kobo Clara 2E?
No, it is too gradual and too pricey for what you get
An e-reader laying flat on pinnacle of a table subsequent to a couple of glasses and different objects.
Credit: Reviewed / Seamus Bellamy
Kobo`s new Clara E2 is a small e-reader with large problems.
Over the beyond decade, I’ve reviewed lots of Kobo’s e-readers and, have encouraged the bulk of them to ee-e book lovers. Unfortunately, regardless of the Clara 2E being a well-made device, I observed that its gradual pace takes an excessive amount of farfar from what must be a fluid enjoy.
I respect the Clara 2E’s sharp, clean display, considerate design, and amazing OverDrive and Pocket integration. But it is disappointing to peer those latter capabilities, that can open a international of unfastened content material hidden away in sub-menus.
When it is now no longer on sale (and it regularly is), Amazon’s 16GB Kindle Paperwhite fees just a few greenbacks greater. It capabilities the identical quantity of garage because the Clara 2E, has greater to be had content material, and on the time of writing, a lightning-short interface it is a delight to navigate. Even aleven though it is important to apply third-birthday birthday celebration workarounds to ship unfastened content material to a Kindle, maximum will locate it a greater great consumer enjoy than what the Kobo Clara 2E can offer.
