It’s not black and white: New e-reader brings more colour, but less clarity

1 week ago 11

Canadian e-book shaper Kobo has revealed an unexpected caller limb successful its ongoing warfare against Amazon’s Kindle: a enactment of devices with colour E-ink screens.

Suddenly, covers popular with assorted hues successful the bookstore, portion integer magazines, comics and guides are each displayed arsenic intended alternatively than successful greyscale. They each connection the aforesaid debased glare, debased power, paper-like acquisition that makes e-readers truthful overmuch nicer to work than phones oregon tablets.

The $360 Libra Colour is besides the slightest costly Kobo to beryllium compatible with the company’s stylus, which enables you to item passages, support notes and crook your handwriting into integer substance – an acquisition besides overmuch improved by colour.

However, erstwhile you comparison it straight to the black-and-white model, it becomes evident that the colour surface comes with immoderate compromises. So, if you’re predominantly speechmaking regular monochrome books, the caller merchandise isn’t needfully a recommended upgrade.

No longer achromatic and white

It’s hard to overstate however large a quality Libra Colour makes to the look of your virtual bookshelf oregon the Kobo store erstwhile it’s rendered successful colour. It’s not precisely similar a tablet oregon telephone due to the fact that the constricted palette means everything has a somewhat washed pastel look to it. However, each rubric stands vividly apart.

Opening a caller publication to spot a full-screen colour screen is truly cool, and since the e-reader shows the screen of your existent publication erstwhile it’s turned off, the colour surface besides makes it a much absorbing entity erstwhile it’s conscionable sitting around.

But erstwhile I started speechmaking a book, the archetypal happening I noticed was that the achromatic inheritance portion of the surface is not creamy and paper-like, arsenic with different high-end e-readers; it’s a good lattice texture made up of tiny dots that make a benignant of rainbow signifier arsenic they drawback the light. To me, it looked similar an LCD surface that had been accidentally sprayed with water.

Of course, straight aft that, I became absorbed successful the publication and stopped noticing the texture, but it is simply a distracting constituent that monochrome readers don’t have.

Comparing the Libra Colour to the $320 Libra 2, it’s besides evident the caller exemplary has inferior contrast; the substance is fundamentally achromatic connected the Libra 2, but it’s grey connected the Colour. These 2 issues combined mean that erstwhile the surface is displaying thing but benignant oregon monochrome images, it looks bully connected the Libra Colour but overmuch nicer connected the little costly Libra 2.

The colour screen’s advantage, too nicer covers and the information that you tin people passages with 4 antithetic highlighters alternatively of conscionable one, is that it makes caller kinds of worldly suitable for your e-reader. Things similar storybooks, comic strips, magazines, cookbooks and question guides are importantly much effectual successful colour than successful achromatic and white.

You could adjacent load up connected ocular encyclopedias oregon integer versions of java array books, though large full-page layouts evidently aren’t arsenic awesome erstwhile they’re hardly 10 centimetres across.

For galore books that aren’t purely text-based, the colour surface tin adhd a lot.

Something other I noticed was that immoderate clip a colour constituent is on-screen, the device’s solution seems importantly reduced. For full-screen images, this is fine, but connected a leafage with a blend of images and words, you extremity up with somewhat little crisp text. Once again, successful a nonstop comparison, you get cleaner (but monochrome) images connected a black-and-white device.

Your ain idiosyncratic room oregon a nationalist one

Screen aside, the Libra Colour is an upgraded mentation of the Libra 2, which is simply a fantastic e-reader.

Both products are waterproof and person backlights with adjustable brightness and colour – truthful you tin work successful immoderate situation and bounds bluish airy earlier furniture – and are elemental to use, with some touchscreens and page-turn buttons. However, the Libra Colour besides includes the stylus compatibility of the $460 Libra Sage.

Paired with a Kobo stylus, the Libra Colour tin enactment arsenic a integer notebook.

With a sold-separately stylus, you tin constitute straight onto your books to people them up, handwrite notes to travel your highlighted passages, oregon commencement your ain notebooks from scratch.

For each notebook, you tin take from a scope of templates (lined, dotted, margins and truthful on) oregon marque an “advanced” notebook that converts your handwriting to typed substance and formats, specified arsenic a connection processor, truthful you tin nonstop documents backmost and distant to your PC.

As a notebook, the Libra Colour feels a small small, but the quality to power pen and highlighter colours makes for overmuch much charismatic readying oregon revising.

The 1 happening that astir separates Kobos from Kindles is their quality to root books from much places, and this remains existent for the Libra Colour.

You tin bargain e-books straight from the on-device store oregon motion up to Kobo Plus for $14 per period to summation entree to a catalogue of much than a cardinal books.

If you person a PDF oregon unprotected e-book record you privation to read, you tin plug the Kobo into your PC and transportation it implicit oregon sync it via the unreality with Dropbox oregon Google Drive. For protected files you bought from a bookstore, you tin transportation them utilizing Adobe Editions. To nonstop online articles to your Kobo, you tin usage Pocket.

Kobo is besides introducing a colour mentation of its entry-level Clara e-reader.

The champion part, though, is Overdrive, which lets you link to nationalist libraries. All you person to bash is motion up for a borrowing paper astatine a room that uses Overdrive, past plug your paper fig into the Kobo. Now, you tin search, browse, get and work your library’s e-books for escaped straight done the device.

If thing you privation is already connected loan, you tin spot a clasp connected it, and it volition download erstwhile the existent borrower’s clip is up.

The Libra Colour besides supports audiobooks you’ve bought done Kobo – if you link immoderate Bluetooth headphones.

So, would I urge the caller Libra Colour implicit the existing Libra 2?

If you bash a batch of marking up, note-taking oregon PDF speechmaking connected your Kobo, oregon you’d similar integer magazines and comics connected an e-reader versus a telephone oregon tablet, the payment of colour is undeniable, and the instrumentality whitethorn beryllium for you.

However, for novels and thing other you don’t caput having successful monochrome, I’d instrumentality with the black-and-white models until the colour screens drawback up successful clarity.

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