Kobo’s color e-reader is a far better deal than Amazon’s new Kindle Colorsoft


The Kindle Colorsoft offers an impressive color screen, but it’s not for everybody. Luckily, if you don’t want to lock yourself into Amazon’s ecosystem, the Kobo Libra Colour is an excellent alternative that’s on sale for an all-time low of $199.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and Target for Black Friday. You can also buy it for the same price from Rakuten Kobo, and if you purchase it with a $50 gift card, the retailer is throwing in a $10 credit that’s good toward books, styli, and audiobooks.
Personally, I am a big fan of the Kobo Libra Colour. The waterproof e-reader features the same color E Ink technology used in the Kindle Colorsoft, along with the same crisp 300ppi resolution, which is halved in color mode. There are some subtle differences, though. For example, the Colorsoft’s screen appears more vibrant and neutral than that of the Kobo, and ultimately, my colleague Andrew Liszewski preferred it. Still, that doesn’t make the Colour’s inferior. Its 7-inch screen is warm and bright, and Kobo offers an adjustable natural light slider if you want to change up the hue.
However, perhaps the biggest selling points of the Libra Colour are the additional features it offers, which come at a cheaper price. It costs $80 less than the Colorsoft at $199.99, but unlike the Colorsoft, the Libra Colour offers stylus support (though you’ll have to purchase the stylus separately). That’s handy, particularly if you want to highlight passages in whatever you’re reading. What’s more, the Libra Colour features physical page-turning buttons, which I feel makes an e-reader more intuitive to use.
The Libra Colour offers a few software perks, too, including native support for read-it-later app Pocket so you can read articles offline. You can even borrow free library ebooks directly on your Kobo, thanks to its built-in support for Overdrive. Obviously, the main drawback is that the Kobo doesn’t natively support Kindle books. That being said, you can still convert your Kindle library and read them on your Libra Colour, even if it does take some extra steps.
The Kindle Colorsoft offers an impressive color screen, but it’s not for everybody. Luckily, if you don’t want to lock yourself into Amazon’s ecosystem, the Kobo Libra Colour is an excellent alternative that’s on sale for an all-time low of $199.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and Target for Black Friday.…
Recent Posts
- Nvidia’s BlueField-3 SuperNIC morphs into a special self-hosted storage powerhouse with an 80GBps memory boost and PCIe-ready architecture
- 8BitDo’s Ultimate 2 controller gets an upgrade to next-generation anti-drift sticks
- Framework’s first tiny Desktop beautifully straddles the line between cute and badass
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 unofficial renders tease a slimmer design and a bigger, hidden-in-plain-sight upgrade
- Netflix drops an uneasy new teaser for You season 5, and I can’t help but laugh as killer Casanova Joe calls himself ‘the luckiest guy in New York’
Archives
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- September 2018
- October 2017
- December 2011
- August 2010