Pros & Cons
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- Color E Ink display
- OverDrive library integration
- Waterproof
- User-repairable
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- Loading books can be cumbersome
Kobo Clara Colour Specs
| Book Formats | EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, CBR, Kobo Audiobooks |
| Dimensions | 6.3 by 4.4 by 0.4 inches |
| Screen Size | 6 |
| Storage Capacity | 16 |
| Weight | 6.1 |
The Kobo Clara Colour delivers most of what you could want from a color ereader for a reasonable $159.99 price. It's compact, waterproof, and features a vibrant color display with impressive battery life. Thanks to Kobo's partnership with iFixit, it's also user-repairable—so you can replace individual components if something breaks. Like all Kobo devices, it integrates with OverDrive, allowing you to connect your library card and borrow ebooks or audiobooks from supported libraries. However, transferring your own books requires physically connecting the device to a computer, which is inconvenient. Our Editors' Choice for color ereaders is the $249.99 Onyx Boox Go Color 7 (Gen II), which costs more but adds advanced stylus note-taking and support for third-party reading apps. Still, for nearly $100 less, the Clara Colour is an excellent option if your main goal is simply to enjoy reading in color.
Design: Repairable and Fully Waterproof
Aside from the color E Ink display, the Clara Colour resembles Amazon's standard Kindle ($109.99). Both have 6-inch displays flanked by large, black bezels. A thicker bezel sits at the bottom, making it easier to grab with one hand. Both devices also have recessed displays that help to reduce glare.
The Clara Colour measures 6.3 by 4.4 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 6.1 ounces, which is similar to the base Kindle (6.2 by 4.3 by 0.3 inches, 5.6 ounces), though the Clara is slightly heavier than Amazon’s monochromatic ereader. Amazon’s color E Ink reader, the $249.99 Kindle Colorsoft, has a 7-inch display that’s flush with its thin bezels. It is taller, wider, and heavier than the Kobo, measuring 7.0 by 5.0 by 0.3 inches and weighing 7.7 ounces. The second-gen Boox Go Color 7 measures 6.1 by 5.4 by 0.3 inches, weighs 6.9 ounces, and has a 7-inch display and a similar design to the Colorsoft, but is more compact.
(Credit: Sarah Lord)There are almost no ports or buttons on the Clara Colour. That means the device lacks page-turning buttons like the ones found on the more expensive Kobo Libra Colour ($229.99). I actually prefer tapping or swiping on the display to turn the page, but you may feel differently. A power button is on the back, and a USB-C port is at the bottom front. That’s it. You can use wireless headphones to listen to audiobooks via Bluetooth.
The Clara Colour only comes in Black. The base Kindle, on the other hand, comes in Black or Matcha Green versions. I didn’t think I'd like an ereader with a colorful design, but I find the Matcha Green fun, and I wish that Kobo would come out with multiple color options as well.
The Kobo is made entirely of plastic, which feels fine, if not premium. Most of the back is covered in a dotted texture imprinted directly into the plastic. This helps with grip, but if you prefer a case, Kobo sells form-fitting Clara Colour cases that automatically wake up your device when you open the cover. These cost $29.99 each and come in Black, Butter Yellow, Candy Pink, Cayenne Red, Dusk Blue, or Misty Green.
If you drop the Clara Colour and break it after its warranty has expired, you might be able to repair it yourself. Kobo has teamed up with iFixit to offer kits that allow you to replace the front cover, display, back cover, motherboard, and battery. The packs provide you with all the necessary parts and tools required for installation. They start at $19.99 for the front and back cover kits, while the battery and motherboard are $49.99 each. The display kit costs $79.99. Obviously, this can add up quickly, and it may make more financial sense to purchase a new device altogether, depending on the severity of the damage.
As a beach lover, I'm grateful that the Clara Colour has an excellent IPX8 rating. Accordingly, it can endure up to 60 minutes in 6.6 feet of fresh water. The Kindle and Onyx Boox Go Color 7 aren't waterproof, but the Colorsoft is and is rated at the same level as the Clara Colour.
Display: Colorful and Bright
The Clara Colour features a 6-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 display with a resolution of 1,448 by 1,072 pixels and a density of 300 pixels per inch (ppi) for black and white and 150ppi for color. The Boox Go Color 7 also uses the Kaleido 3 display with the same pixel densities, though it is larger at 7 inches. While Amazon doesn’t specify the display manufacturer of the Colorsoft, it features the same 300ppi for black and white and 150ppi for color.
(Credit: Sarah Lord)All color ereaders, including the Clara Colour, have adjustable warm-and-cool front lights. These help reduce eye strain by filtering out blue light from the screen, while also ensuring a page that looks crisp and clear. You have to manually adjust the lights on the Clara Colour and most other ereaders, but the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition ($279.99) auto-adjusts the brightness (but not the warmth). The lights on the Kobo evenly illuminate the display, providing a clear and readable page. I have noticed that all color ereaders seem to have a warmer overall tone to them than those with purely black-and-white displays. This can sometimes make the text appear less dark and sharp than I'm accustomed to. The Colorsoft automatically adjusts for this by making text bolder. The Clara Colour doesn’t come with any preset adjustments, so you’ll have to manually tweak it if the default settings don’t work for you.
The Kobo Clara Colour's color E Ink display is excellent and no different from any other color E Ink ereader. While I generally prefer a 7-inch display, it's hard to deny the added portability of a 6-inch model.
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(Credit: Sarah Lord)I find that ereaders with indented screens have virtually no glare, both inside and outside, and this is true of the Clara Colour. I could easily see every bit of the screen in direct sunlight on a summer day. This is better than flush displays, like those on the Boox Go 7 Color and the Kindle Colorsoft. Those tend to have a little more glare, though you can easily adjust the lighting on the device to try and mitigate it. The only downside of this design is that dust can get trapped in the corners, although you can easily clean it with a cloth.
Performance: Snappy, With Long Battery Life
The Kobo Clara Colour comes with 16GB of non-upgradable storage, which is enough space to hold thousands of books. Kobo doesn’t specify the type of processor powering the Clara Colour, except that it features a dual-core chip and operates at up to 2.0GHz. The company also doesn’t disclose how much memory is on the device. This is typical for ereaders, as Amazon also doesn’t disclose the processor or the amount of memory on its Kindle devices.
Similarly, the Colorsoft also comes with 16GB of storage, although you can upgrade to the $279.99 Colorsoft Signature Edition for 32GB, which includes an automatically adjusting front light and support for wireless charging. The Boox Go Color 7 features an octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of onboard storage, with the option to add more via a microSD card. It connects to the internet using Wi-Fi 5.
(Credit: Sarah Lord)The Clara Colour is easy to navigate, wakes from sleep quickly, and opens books in a snap. It's powered by a 1,500mAh battery, which the company claims will last up to 42 days when reading for 30 minutes a day with the light at 30% brightness and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned off. Your results will depend on how long you read and your preferred brightness settings. The battery only dropped 10% in my week of testing. For comparison, the Boox Go Color 7 has a 2,300mAh battery that dropped 30% after a week of use. Amazon doesn’t specify the size of the battery in the Colorsoft, but it dropped by 20% over five days of regular use in testing.
Software: Easy to Navigate, Clunky File Sharing
The Clara Colour is built for simplicity. There’s a row of four tabs at the bottom of the screen: The Home tab displays your books and a few written prompts to check out Kobo’s book shop. The My Books tab displays your entire library, while the Discover tab houses Kobo’s ebook and audiobook store, as well as its OverDrive library integration. The More tab brings up settings, a wishlist, and beta features. It's also where you'd normally go to view articles saved to Pocket, but the service shut down in July. The beta features include a web browser, a Large Print mode, a Sketch Pad, and a vocabulary builder that saves words you’ve looked up in the dictionary.
At the top right of the interface is a sun icon you can tap to adjust the brightness, the Wi-Fi button, the battery indicator, a refresh button, and a search bar.
(Credit: Sarah Lord)The most impressive feature is Kobo’s OverDrive library integration. Clicking on the OverDrive button in the Discovery tab allows you to instantly connect to your local library’s ebook and audiobook collection, assuming your library has partnered with OverDrive. Just add your library, enter your library card number, and you are free to browse, borrow, and place holds on ebooks. Checked out books are downloaded directly to your device. It’s a seamless way to access library books and one of the best reasons to own a Kobo.
Kobo's bookstore goes toe-to-toe with Amazon's, with Kobo Plus for $7.99 a month, a clone of Amazon’s $11.99 Kindle Unlimited,
Once you download a book, you can adjust font, font size, line spacing, margins, and justifications. An Advanced tab lets you adjust font size and weight. All of these settings are adjustable via a slider, allowing you to dial in exactly how much of any setting you want.
(Credit: Sarah Lord)Unfortunately, there is no way to wirelessly send books from your computer to your device. Some Kobo models have Google Drive and Dropbox integration, but the Kobo Colour has neither. Instead, you have to plug it directly into your computer and manually transfer files. This is not nearly as smooth a process as it should be. I much prefer Amazon’s Whispersync technology, which allows you to email any document directly to your Kindle.
If you have a large Amazon library, a Kobo ereader isn’t going to be the best fit for you. Due to the Digital Rights Management (DRM) software embedded in the file, Amazon books can only be read on Amazon products or apps. Likewise, Kobo also uses DRM software. But readers with a DRM-free collection or those looking for an alternative to Amazon’s ecosystem should be happy with this model.