Kobo Clara Colour Review

Until I find another color e-ink reading device that I can drop in up to 2 meters of water and borrow books directly from my library, the Kobo Clara Colour e-reader is my everyday carry.

I love reading. I've always got a book (usually sci-fi, sorry, not sorry) on me, whether I'm on vacation or just headed to a get-together or barbecue. I read before bed every day and try to get even more time in during waking hours.

I love a real, printed-on-paper book, but my eyes lately have limited me to larger formats like hardcover or trade paperbacks. An e-reader lets me read anything I want because I can bump up the font size of whatever I'm reading. The backlight works a treat during evening and night hours (try reading a print book in the dark), and the 300 PPI black-and-white e-ink makes it super sharp and easy to read in bright sunlight.

The Clara Colour does all this, plus it has a color layer for cool color covers, color highlighting, and kinda/sorta reading comic books (though true comic fans should probably stick to a tablet for that). Non-fiction books with color photos? Yes, please.

The color is lower resolution than the black-and-white. At 150 PPI, it's a little fuzzy and washed-out-looking, but honestly, it looks like older comic book art or faded photos. It's a lovely experience, especially in a world where every other screen I own is bright and high-def.

Plenty of Battery and Waterproof Too

The Kobo's waterproof rating is IPX8, which lets you submerge it in up to 2 meters of water for up to 60 minutes. Why you'd want to is another matter, but take this to the beach, in the bath, in the pool, wherever you have water, and you don't have to worry about a thing if you drop it in the drink.

Kobo claims the battery lasts up to 42 days if you read 30 mins daily with the front light at 30% brightness and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off. I did not test these specific claims, but I've been reading on my Clara Colour for at least a week and haven't charged it once.

It's easy to charge via the USB-C port on the bottom right, but I wish they'd put a little light there to tell me if the device is charging so I don't have to open it to check the battery percentage.

Clara Colour is super light to hold, so your hand won't get as tired as fast as it does with a printed book. In fact, it's the lightest e-reader compared to the same-size Kindle Paperwhite or Nook GlowLight 4 (by grams, but still). The screen is recessed like the GlowLight 4 and tends to catch stray dog or cat hairs in there at times, which Kindle Paperwhite's flush screen does not.

Get the SleepCover

You can get three different covers for Clara Colour, but if you have the $30, grab the non-basic SleepCover, which gives you a little origami cover to prop up your Clara Colour. The folding is built into the case, and a discreet little magnet keeps it folded when you stand it up on a flat surface. It's even fun to use as a little alternative handhold.

When folded over and behind the Colour, the back of the cover has a nice little suede feel, which helps it stay in your hands when reading.

Speaking of grippiness, outside the SleepCover, the Clara Colour is pretty easy to hold. The plastic is textured enough to feel on your fingers, and it definitely helps you hold the near-weightless e-reader in your hand.

Now, I really love the buttons on my Nook GlowLight, but I'll forgive the Clara Colour for not having any, I suppose. Turning pages is quick and responsive, forward and back, and there's not a lot of background visual flashing when you turn a certain number of pages like there is on the GlowLight.

Opening the SleepCover wakes the Clara Colour directly, with no other extra taps or button presses needed. A nicely recessed and finger-sized button set into the back turns the Kobo on or puts it to sleep.

My only complaint is that when the SleepCover is folded over the back, and I want to wake the device (when I leave it open and it goes to sleep to conserve power), I have to slide a finger between the folded cover and the wake button.

Sure, it's easy enough, but a side-mounted button would make this even easier.

Access to Overdrive - Long Overdue

Tapping in the middle of the screen brings up quick menu items and a page slider, as is typical for an e-ink reader. You can adjust the brightness of the light and the size and style of font, see your reading stats, and tap the full Setting gear here.

When tapping and holding on a word in the text, you can highlight it in one of four colors, add a note, search the book, or search on Wikipedia or Google.

The webpage you get from one of the latter is similar to the one you'd see on a phone or computer screen, complete with blue hypertext. It's kind of neat. There are two pages of settings, too, letting you manage stuff like what's in the header or footer when you tap the analytics icon, how often to refresh the screen (I have it set to every Chapter to minimize the flashing), and choices for Dark Mode.

You can also decide where you want the page's forward and back buttons. I was excited to see a control scheme that puts the forward button on the bottom—this works great with either hand, and I have to admit reluctantly that it helps when I miss physical buttons.

The killer feature, though, is having built-in access to Overdrive. One of the biggest problems I have with other e-readers like Nook or Kindle is using an app (in the case of Kindle) or a computer to sideload public library content (as with the Nook GlowLight 4). There's just no excuse for that anymore.

Kobo's Clara Colour has a tab on the bottom of the Discover page (accessible from the main Home page) exclusively for your Overdrive account. You can log in or even create an account (with your library card and local library) right on the e-reader itself.

The Discover page has tabs for the Kobo store, Audiobooks, Kobo Plus (a membership that lets you read an unlimited amount from a select number of titles), and OverDrive. Better yet, when shopping in the Kobo store, you can tap the little three-dot menu button next to a title and place a hold for the library version of the same book via Overdrive. This is the way to do it.

I'm not as into audiobooks as some, but having access to them via the Kobo bookstore as well as my local public library just makes the Kobo so much better a value. You'll need a Bluetooth speaker or headphones to listen, as there's no headphone jack.

I read the entirety of Ocean's Godori (a space opera novel by Elaine U. Cho set in future Korea) on the Clara Colour and loved how the device disappeared and let me read the book unobstructed.

The build quality is fantastic, the textured case (or suede SleepCover) keeps it in my hands whatever my position, and being able to check out library books is so good it needs to become industry-standard.

I took it paddleboarding with me and didn't worry too much about splashes; I can imagine hanging out in a pool all day with it, too.