Of all challengers, Kobo is doing the best job of fighting against the Kindle’s monopoly on the market. Kobo’s not exactly a minnow though, as a Canadian company acquired by Japanese giant Rakuten.
The Kobo Clara 2E, released in September 2022, is one of the best eReaders Kobo has ever made, with a balanced mix of specs, price, and features that make it just as good as the latest Kindle Paperwhite.
It has better software design than a Kindle and integration with OverDrive, a service for borrowing eBooks from your local library. If you don’t fancy lining Jeff Bezos’s pockets, the Clara 2E is probably the eReader you should buy.
Design
The Clara 2E follows the classic eReader design of ‘portrait touchscreen slab with bezels’. Bezels have been banished from smartphones but make sense on an eReader as it gives you material to actually hold onto.
Kobo is proud of the fact the Clara 2E is made from ocean-bound and recycled plastic – I presume the ‘E’ stands for ‘eco-conscious’ as that’s a term plastered over the product’s marketing materials.
It’s an incredibly lightweight device, which is exactly what you want from something you’ll be holding up to your face a lot to read on. The front and back are made from hard plastic, with the former a dark grey and the latter an attractive navy blue hue that’s embossed with a wavy pattern to help with grip. It also means the back doesn’t get covered in fingerprints.
There’s a USB-C port for charging off-centre on the bottom next to some hard-to-read legal text, and a power button on the top left as you look at the back of the device. I like this positioning as it does not get accidentally pressed, unlike the bottom-edge power button on several Kindle models.
Overall it measures 112.05 x 159.02 x 8.66 mm and weighs a dainty 171g, which is about the same as many smartphones but feels lighter as the weight is better distributed in the flatter design.
Display
The most important part of an eReader is the display, and though the Clara 2E’s is not the most premium on the market, it is a decent one that I didn’t mind reading for hours at a time on.
It’s a 6in HD e-ink screen with a resolution of 1448 x 1072 and 300 pixels per inch. 6in is somewhat a sweet spot for eReader displays, and in this portrait orientation is akin to a compact paperback page in size. It uses an e-ink Carta 1200 screen, a version of the e-ink technology that improves response time and contrast.
You tap the touchscreen to change pages as well as navigate across the software to browse, select, and buy books. Most other Kobos have page turn buttons but the Clara 2E is touch-only.
It’s a shame the screen is not flushed, and instead sits recessed into the body. It’s not awful, but the Kindle Paperwhite is flush now which feels more premium. Dust tends to gather in the ridge on the Clara 2E, but not too much.
You also get Kobo’s ComfortLight Pro tech built in, which automatically adjusts brightness and colour temperature depending on the lighting conditions. It claims to reduce blue light to reduce eye strain, and I felt it helped considerably when reading in low light or in the dark.
Unless you want a larger display, this one is very good despite being on an eReader that is relatively affordable.
Reading experience
So, it’s a decent screen, but what is it actually like to read on?
The whole point of e-ink technology that’s used in all eReaders is that it does not emit light from bright pixels like a TV or smartphone, making the experience as close to a physical paper book as possible.
With the backlight completely off the Clara 2E’s screen has a greyish hue usual to eReaders, with black text overlayed. I preferred to read with the backlight on at all times to whiten the page slightly, but it doesn’t need to be anywhere near 100%.
All eReaders work by loading the next page without refreshing the display on every turn to save energy. This means there are the very faintest traces of the last page when you move on to the next – this is very hard to see on the Clara 2E, and I never noticed it unless I went looking. You’ll get this on even the most expensive eReaders, too.
The hardware does what it should do and stays out of the way to let you get lost in your reading. I ploughed through a novel in no time on the 2E, which is exemplary for short or long reading sessions.
Kobo has more customisation than Kindle when it comes to font sizes and spacing. You can pick from a long list of fonts including one that helps people with dyslexia, and there are sliders to adjust font size, line spacing, and margin size. An advanced setting even lets you adjust the weight and sharpness of the selected font to make sure the page looks exactly as you’d like it.
There’s also a dark mode that makes the background black and text white for the ultimate night time reading set-up.
Specs & performance
The Clara 2E’s one weak point is its performance. It has a 1GHz CPU powering it, and it sometimes struggles. Thankfully this is not noticeable when reading books, with page turns coming instantly. But compared to the Kindle Paperwhite, moving around the software menus is a touch slower, and tapping on menus and icons usually means a short wait. The same goes when typing out book titles to search the Kobo store.
This isn’t a deal breaker, but I did get a little annoyed at the sluggishness sometimes when tapping an icon would take a second or two to react.
Thankfully that’s made up for with a generous 16GB of storage. Kobo says this is enough to get 12,000 books onto the device – more than enough, to say the least.
The Clara 2E is also IPX8 waterproof, which means it could spend up to an hour in two metres of water and survive, technically. Don’t test it, but it means you’re safe to read in the bath or by the pool.
Software & features
The Clara 2E downloads from the Kobo Store in Kobo’s own eBook file format. But it can also display other popular eBook file types: EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, and CBR. Those last two are comic book formats, but the 6in display is a little small to read most comics comfortably.
Kobo Plus is Kobo’s subscription reading service similar to Kindle Unlimited. For a monthly fee you can read as much as you want from a huge selection of books, just like you might pay for and watch whatever you want on Netflix.
The problem is, Kobo Plus is only available in Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I haven’t been able to test it.
Thankfully, the Clara 2E comes with OverDrive integration. OverDrive is a service that links up to your library card and lets you borrow eBooks digitally.
I’ve found it excellent – there are a limited number of borrows per book per library, so you’ll still get put on a waitlist to check out a title if it’s popular, but it’s a great way to read books without buying them. I used it while reviewing the Clara, and it worked very well.
The service is country-dependent, and you’ll have to check if your local library participates, but I found it a great reason to stick with Kobo over Kindle. It’s free.
Also free is integration with Pocket, the app that lets you save articles to read later. You install the Pocket extension on your web browser, and click save to save to Pocket if you want to read an article later.
Pocket is also a smartphone app, but when accessed via the Kobo, you can read things distraction-free. Another win over Kindle.
Audiobooks are also supported on the Clara 2E so you can download and listen with Bluetooth headphones – there’s no headphone jack.
A downside again compared to Kindle is there is no sync feature between eBooks and audiobooks. Kindles supper WhisperSync tech so you can read a Kindle book and then pick up where you left off in the Audible audiobook version and vice versa.
Battery life
Kobo says the Clara 2E can last for weeks on a charge, but it depends on usage – particularly how much you use the backlight or Wi-Fi.
With brightness around 50% and constantly connected to Wi-Fi when at home, the Clara lasted me about two weeks before I needed to charge it. It will last longer if you turn Wi-Fi off when you don’t need it.
There’s a USB-A to USB-C cable in the box but no charging brick.
Price & availability
The Kobo Clara 2E costs $129.99/£129.99/$149.99 and is available to buy direct from Kobo.
Its pricing puts it in competition with the Kindle Paperwhite, which is $139.99/£129.99/€139.99 – but this is with lock screen ads and half the Clara’s storage at 8GB.
If you want a Paperwhite with 16GB storage and no ads – like the Clara – then it will cost you $169.99/£159.99/€169.99.
I think the Clara 2E is a better buy for the price thanks to the value I get from OverDrive, but if you want a flush display and audiobooks that sync with eBooks then the Kindle is the one for you.
Verdict
The Kobo Clara 2E is an excellent eReader that is well priced considering it has 16GB storage, an automatic backlight, and is fully waterproof. It’s great to see it is made from recycled plastic, and it’s a lightweight, fingerprint-free design.
However, it’s a shame the Kobo Plus subscription service is not available globally, and you can’t sync audiobooks with eBooks like you can on Kindles.
But for the majority of people on the lookout for an eReader, the Clara 2E is excellent value and a superb choice.
Specs
6in e-ink display with 300ppiBacklight16GB storageIPX6 waterproofWiFi 802. 11 ac/b/g/n (dual band)Bluetooth USB-C12 different fonts and over 50 font styles112. 05 x 159. 02 x 8. 66 mm171g
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.
