This is another big year for e-readers with the release of the new Amazon Kindle (a refresh of the company’s basic model) and now the Kobo Clara 2E (launching in a few days). Both of these models feature a list of benefits to suit the needs of most bookworms.
The Kobo Clara 2E is Rakuten’s latest competitor to the Kindle Paperwhite edition (for the most part). Looking to one-up the news surrounding Amazon’s latest entry-level model and shedding more light on the Kobo series. Both companies consistently fight neck to neck with new models as they are both top-choice winners within the industry with little to no competition outside of the two.
For the most part, the Kobo Clara 2E doesn’t bring much to the table for new features. It offers a waterproof rating of IPX8 (waterproof for up to 60 minutes in up to 2 meters of water), which has been done before. It offers 16GB of storage, which is also nothing new. The same goes for its backlight, dark mode, weeks of battery life, and ability to to play audiobooks (Bluetooth headphones required). Even the resolution is the same as the previous model and (now) all of Amazon’s models.
What sets this model apart seems to be its environmental friendliness. The e-reader is made of ocean-bound and recycled plastic. Hence the “E” in the model name. Even the packaging it comes in is fully recycled (all the way down to the soy ink that is used to print the graphics).
The company is clearly reaching for a pro-Earth vibe with this release and will likely continue to do so as it releases new models in the future. You can read more about the company’s eco-friendly mission on its website here.
Beyond that, it’s hard to say what sets this apart outside of the fact that it appears to be an eco-friendly, slightly-rehashed version of the Clara e-reader in general. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that. It still keeps the company’s widest-selling model modern enough to compete with what’s out there without having to dump a bunch of cash into R&D. It offers more than enough to keep the average user happy.
It will be shipping starting this Thursday (September 22nd) and retails for $129. It is currently available for pre-order here on the company’s website.
Specifications:
| Display | 6” HD E Ink Carta 1200 touchscreen |
| 300 PPI, 1448 x 1072 resolution with Dark Mode | |
| Storage | 16GB |
| CPU | 1 GHz |
| Connectivity | WiFi 802.11 ac/b/g/n (dual band), Bluetooth® wireless technology, and USB-C |
| Battery | Weeks of battery life |
| Waterproof | IPX8 – up to 60 mins in 2 metres of water |
| Front Light | ComfortLight PRO – Adjustable brightness and colour temperature |
| Customizability | TypeGenius: 12 different fonts and over 50 font styles |
| Dimensions | 112.05 x 159.02 x 8.66 mm |
| Weight | 171 g |
| Actual size and weight may vary by configuration and manufacturing process. | |
| Supported Formats | 15 file formats supported natively (EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, CBR) |
| Kobo Audiobooks | |
| Languages | English, French, French (Canada), German, Spanish, Spanish (Mexico), Italian, Catalan, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Turkish, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Polish, Romanian, Czech |
