In this review of the Kobo Clara 2E, we dive into the device’s features, build quality, battery life, and overall performance. Released in 2022 the device is still provides the latest features that you expect from an E Reader. Kobo being an veteran in the E Ink Reader Market has produced as astoundingly great device in 6″ segment of E Readers
The Kobo Clara 2E arrives in standard packaging. Inside, you’ll find the device, a USB-C cable, and a quick start guide. The device itself impresses with its build quality and design, particularly considering it’s made from recycled plastics and priced quite reasonable in this segment of E Readers.
Lets dive in and find out more…
Kobo Clara 2e Specification
Kobo Devices
Aspect of Consideration
- Unboxing
- Design
- Display
- Reading
- Hardware
- Battery
- Pricing
Design
The device feels well-made, defying expectations typically associated with recycled materials.
It’s sleek, lightweight, and comfortable to hold with its thin profile and rounded edges. The back, while looking somewhat scratchy, feels pleasant to the touch.
The overall hardware design and ergonomics stand out, offering a comfortable and Carefree reading experience, complemented by its submersible waterproof feature.
Display
With a pixel density of 300 ppi, the Kobo Clara 2E’s front light impresses with its flexibility and quality, especially in different lighting conditions. However, the standout feature is the screen quality, marked by sharpness, excellent contrast, and responsiveness. The display on the Clara 2E impressed with its crispness and image clarity right out of the box.
Front light: In a fairly dark environment, with the front light off, the screen is notably dark. Gradually increasing the front light intensity, it reaches a pleasing level at 20%, matching the whiteness of paper. The light’s uniformity is excellent, providing a comfortable reading experience even at the highest setting without washing out contrast or sharpness.
Additionally, it offers warm to cold light options, enabling users to find their preferred tone and intensity. A setting around 15 worked best across various conditions for the reviewer. Overall, the Clara 2E’s front light pairs excellently with its screen, providing exceptional readability.
Refresh Rate: The device’s performance is snappy, offering smooth navigation between chapters with minimal ghosting, thanks to the full screen refresh feature. The six-inch screen delivers remarkable clarity and quality, both in daylight and dark mode, though reflections might be more noticeable in brighter conditions with dark mode enabled.
Reading
When it comes to reading Kobo has managed to give a decent reading experience. The device’s menus feature standard Kobo functions, such as accessing libraries, buying new books, browsing eBooks, and listening to audiobooks.
Overdrive allows access to digital libraries, while reading options include sorting by author, series, or collection. It lacks Dropbox integration, but transferring files via USB-C is straightforward for non-DRM protected files like PDFs and ePubs.
The reader settings provide various customization options for formatting, front light adjustments, navigation, and bookmarking.
PDF Performance
The Kobo Clara 2E faces considerable challenges when dealing with PDF documents. While it offers zooming options and rotation, the device struggles with responsiveness and crashes, particularly with larger or image-heavy PDFs. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the issues encountered:
- Usability: The zoom function works, but the one-finger drag performance is sluggish. Additionally, scrolling through pages in zoomed mode is slow, and responsiveness is notably delayed, especially with complex pages or images.
- Navigation Problems: In zoomed mode, tapping or sliding to navigate the document often leads to crashes or delays. Moreover, the current setup expects users to scroll through the entire page before moving to the next, which disrupts the reading flow.
- Rotation and Dark Mode Issues: While rotation and dark mode options exist, there’s room for improvement. The rotation could benefit from a reset button or quicker reverse rotation, while the dark mode seems ineffective for PDFs.
- Performance on Different Documents: The device performs better with lighter, text-based PDFs, but it struggles with heavier documents. Some PDFs, even without images, cause crashes or significant delays in loading and page flipping.
- Image Quality and Landscape Mode: The crispness of text in PDFs may differ between portrait and landscape modes at the same zoom level. There might be a perceived loss of clarity when viewing documents in landscape mode, which needs further analysis to confirm.
Audiobooks and Bluetooth Functionality
The Kobo Clara 2E presents a mixed experience with audiobooks and Bluetooth functionality:
- Bluetooth Pairing: Pairing Bluetooth headphones with the Clara 2E is straightforward and mostly trouble-free. The device allows you to connect headphones easily through the settings menu.
- Audio Playback Constraints: While listening to an audiobook, the device restricts multitasking; you cannot use other functions simultaneously. Additionally, when the device goes to sleep mode, there can be issues with pausing/resuming the audiobook using Bluetooth controls, leading to disconnections.
- Use with Car Audio: The device can also be connected to a car’s Bluetooth system for audio playback, offering a convenient way to enjoy audiobooks while on the go.
- Absence of Speakers: The Clara 2E lacks built-in speakers, making Bluetooth headphones, external speakers, or a car audio system the only ways to listen to audiobooks on the device.
Hardware & Software
The device runs on a tailored OS for Kobo devices. The interface has all the essential features that you expect from an E Reader. However, third party apps are not supported.
The device boots up reasonably quickly, and if you’re familiar with the Kobo environment, there’s nothing surprising. The device has decent hardware support which is justifiable keeping in view the price bracket it falls in. It has the following specifications:
- 16 GB internal storage (non-expandable)
- 1 GHz single-core CPU
- Wi-Fi support limited to 2.4 GHz
- Battery: 1500 mAh
- Waterproof up to 60 minutes in two meters of water
- Bluetooth device support for audio books
Battery
Testing the battery life for reading and audiobook performance with Bluetooth headphones connected revealed promising results. For reading, at 20% front light intensity, the device consumed under 2% per hour, translating to approximately 50+ hours of continuous reading.
Audiobook playback via Bluetooth used about 18% of the battery per hour, giving around 6 hours of continuous listening on a single charge. Overall, for a thin and light device at this price point, the battery life of the Clara 2E is excellent.
Pricing
The Clara 2E competes with the Kobo Libra 2, which offers a larger screen and physical buttons at a slightly higher price. However, the Clara 2E’s six-inch screen impresses with its clarity and crispness, making it a competitive choice within its segment.
What is Included in the package? The package contains the Device, minimal paperwork, and a USB charging cable, and an AC power adapter.
Conclusion
In essence, the Kobo Clara 2E stands as an excellent choice for users within the Kobo ecosystem seeking a functional, affordable, and quality e-reader primarily for Kobo ebooks and audiobooks.
- PDF Handling: The Clara 2E doesn’t excel in handling PDFs due to issues with formatting, ease of use, and performance, consistent with Kobo’s general platform limitations in handling these document types.
- Primary Function as an E-Reader: For most users primarily interested in reading Kobo ebooks and listening to Kobo audiobooks, the Clara 2E performs admirably. The device impresses with its picture quality, front light, and eco-friendly design, offering a pleasant reading experience.
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