BETTER THAN A KINDLE?

KOBO CLARA HD TAKES ON THE KING OF EBOOK READERS

E-READERS FINALLY GET A SUPER-RESPONSIVE SCREEN.

KOBO’S NEW CLARA HD e-reader is more than capable of giving its direct competition — Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite — a run for its money. Priced exactly the same as its Kindle counterpart, the Clara HD manages to outperform Amazon’s most popular e-reader in almost every area that matters.

Key among those is the screen. The Clara HD’s 6-inch front-lit display matches the Kindle for sharpness (both are 300ppi), but integrates a blue-light filter which uses your timezone to automatically change screen brightness at night to reduce your exposure to sleep-disrupting blue light. It fits that display into a compact body that’s lighter than the Paperwhite, making it easier to slip into just about any bag.

Cover art and text are rendered at a higher DPI (dots per inch) on the Clara HD than on other Kobo e-readers, making them appear significantly sharper in comparison. The Clara HD also introduces a new ‘rapid page turn’ engine which allows you to quickly move forward in an ebook by holding down on the bottom-left corner of the screen. The slight caveat is that this feature only works with KEPUB e-books — i.e. the ones bought directly from Kobo.

The responsiveness of the new E-Ink screen was also much faster and more precise than we’re used to seeing on either Kindle or Kobo e-readers, which makes things like text selection for dictionary lookup (or highlighting and note-taking) much less hit-and-miss than before. It also has wireless Overdrive functionality, so you can browse and borrow from your local library’s ebook collection directly on the device.

With battery life that lasts a couple of weeks, the Clara HD is a feature-packed device with a display that’s the best-in-class for an e-reader at this price point.