Kobo Clara HD Review - Review 2022

Kobo'due south $129.99 Clara HD eastward-reader throws your public library experience into overdrive. With a new software update, it now has the best interface available for borrowing and reading books from U.s.-based libraries that use Overdrive software. That's plenty to earn our Editors' Choice recommendation, which it shares with the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite.

Fifty-fifty if you lot don't infringe from libraries, this is a lovely device. The Clara HD is the e-reader boiled downwards to the essentials: a abrupt screen in an easy-to-concord body with long battery life and a comforting, colour-changing front low-cal. Every bit long every bit you don't have an existing library of Amazon books, this is a better buy than the Paperwhite.

Kobo is a big deal in several countries outside the US, nigh notably Canada. Information technology runs its ain ebook store, which recently had everything we looked for that isn't published by Amazon. It works with Overdrive books from public libraries, and supports a broad range of other formats natively: EPUB, PDF, RTF, text files, JPEGs, CBR, and CBZ, for books and documents you find effectually the web. If those are the files you read, the Clara Hard disk drive is the reader for y'all.

Small and Sleek

The Kobo Clara HD, at 6.three by four.3 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and 5.9 ounces, is significantly smaller and lighter than the Kindle Paperwhite (6.7 by 4.6 past 0.iv inches, vii.2 ounces). It has the aforementioned 6-inch, 300ppi E-Ink Carta screen as the Paperwhite and the Barnes & Noble Nook GlowLight three. It'south worth mentioning that its 300ppi resolution is slightly sharper than Kobo's concluding-gen e-readers, which were 265ppi.

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The back is slightly tapered, with a stipple pattern that makes it easy to grip. I put the Clara HD in a $39 leather SleepCover, which feels terrific, protects the reader, and acts every bit a stand. The power button is the only physical button on the Clara HD. Different the GlowLight 3, there are no physical page-turn buttons; you lot tap the side of the screen to turn pages, which is fine. The Nook'due south page-turn buttons are pretty stiff anyway; for really pleasing concrete buttons, you have to go all the manner up to the $249 Amazon Kindle Haven.

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The Clara HD's colour-changing front lite is a great strength. You can shift it from energizing blue to restful yellow, and anywhere in betwixt; it tin also shift automatically based on the time of day. The Barnes & Noble Nook Glowlight 3 does the aforementioned matter, but Amazon'southward still committed to serving you lot blue light only.

Bombardment life is great. Afterwards reading Sylvain Neuvel's new "Only Human" and volume 6 of the manga "Yotsuba," I nevertheless had more than than half the bombardment to go.

Unfortunately, the Clara Hard disk isn't waterproof. None of the e-readers bachelor at this toll point are, merely given that Kobo pioneered water-resistant e-readers with its H2O models, information technology would have been squeamish to encounter. You lot'll have to leap upwardly to the $179.99 Kobo Aura H2O for that.

The Clara HD besides doesn't back up audiobooks, but neither do its competitors in this price range. For audiobooks on an due east-reader, again, we suggest the Kindle Oasis.

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Reading Experience

Kobo's user interface feels similar the Ubuntu of ebook readers. It's very basic.

The Clara HD connects to the net using ii.4GHz Wi-Fi. You tin download books using the Kobo Store pick on the principal menu; it also tries to recommend books to you, and did pretty decently discovering my taste. Y'all can as well elevate books over into its 8GB of storage using a micro USB cable, and I had no problem doing then from a PC or a Mac. Along with books, y'all can sign into a Pocket account and read whatever commodity stored in Pocket on the eastward-reader. That tin be a lot of fun.

Y'all can arrange your books into collections of related titles. The default view is a simple list. Tap into a book, and yous're reading, in x different fonts with a wide variety of sizes and weights. Tap on words, and you can highlight or annotate them, go lexicon definitions, or share quotes to Facebook. Y'all tin add bookmarks, pop over to the table of contents at any time, and in Kobo-purchased books, you tin get stats on how far you are through the book.

So, Kobo has the basics, and handles them well. It doesn't go nearly as deep as Amazon does in adding supplementary material to books—there's no X-Ray keeping track of characters and plots, and yous don't take Amazon'south deep Goodreads integration. Just a lot of Kindle readers don't utilise those features, anyway.

The Clara Hd handled Kobo-purchased, PDF, and EPUB books well, including tables of contents. Weirdly, Kobo-purchased books don't take overall page numbers, simply numbers inside chapters. EPUBs downloaded from elsewhere show page numbers.

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We tried several manga and comics on the Clara Hard disk drive, in PDF and CBR formats. Folio flips on heavy PDFs are a niggling irksome—CBRs are much faster—but in general, nosotros'd advise the Aura H2o for your manga reading, because the 6-inch screen here is just a little likewise small-scale. The problem is text size, not clarity.

Borrowing, Not Buying

It used to be awkward to borrow library books with Kobo, but a September software update changed everything.

If your library uses Overdrive, you can enter your library card number in the device'due south Settings and then run into your local library integrated into the Kobo shop. You tin can scan the library's virtual shelves or search, right on the device. If a book is available, you'll run across a Borrow with Overdrive option, and it will be wirelessly downloaded. You tin can also utilise your library or Overdrive's site to browse and download books, and they'll sync automatically. If a volume isn't immediately bachelor, you can place information technology on hold. On the home screen, you see exactly how many days you have left before you accept to return it.

In that location's one minor declining: If y'all're a member of multiple library systems (similar I am), y'all tin only sign into one at a time on the device. Still, though, this is great. Information technology's better than the Amazon interface, which requires you to use your library's site to send the book to your e-reader. I downloaded Nancy Isenberg's "White Trash," and the formatting and internal linking was perfect.

Comparisons and Conclusions

Some people are library readers. I think more people should be library readers. If y'all're a library reader, your Kobo becomes a magic extension of your library system.

The Kobo Clara Hd is an piece of cake, calorie-free, and simple way to read ebooks. It slips into a pocket, its 300ppi screen is abrupt, its battery life is terrific, and its colour-changing front light won't keep you up at night. Unlike Barnes & Noble, which is in dire corporate financial straits, Kobo is owned by very stable giant Rakuten, which also owns the company that rents out all of your library's ebooks. And Kobo has the best Overdrive library reading feel of any e-reader.

That said, Amazon and Apple own 92 percentage of the ebook market place in the US, and Amazon has also go ane of America's largest publishers. Yous can't read Amazon or Apple ebooks on this eastward-reader. That means we can't kick Amazon'due south Paperwhite out of the Editors' Choice category entirely. Merely now it has to share with Kobo.