Kobo shakes up the eReader market waiting for Amazon to present a new generation of Kindle devices
08 May 2024 . Updated at 05:00 a.m.
The video did not kill the radio star. Television did not put an end to cinema. AND electronic book readers They did not cause the extinction of paper ones, but in the pandemic, with the confinement and forced closure of bookstores, they experienced a peak in demand and popularity.
Every year more electronic books are purchased in Spain. Sales grew by 9% last year and the sector reached a turnover of 68 million euros, according to data from the distributor Libranda.
Among the factors that play in favor of this trend, two stand out: affordable prices (7 euros on average) and the comfort of reading. We can transport an entire library in a device weighing about 200 grams whose battery lasts several days. And the electronic ink screen does not strain the eyes as much as those on cell phones or tablets.
And now a third factor comes into play: color. Traditionally the best-selling e-book reader models –Amazon’s Kindle and Rakuten’s Kobo– were only capable of reproducing letters and illustrations in grayscale, which allowed a full text reading experience, but limited the user’s options for enjoying graphic novels or comics. And to use them as a digital notebook: to be able to make notes, marks or underlines and draw with a stylus.
There have been readers with color screens on the market for some time now, with good features and prices that are also higher than the best sellers. Among them, proposals such as PocketBook stand out, with its InkPad Color 3 (7.8 inches and 32 gigabytes of storage), or Boox, with its Note Air3 C or Tab Ultra C Pro.
These models have an Android operating system anddisplay ten-inch electronic ink, and they are really a hybrid between aereader and a tablet. Will they manage to invade the territory of the iPad and its competitors in the Google ecosystem? Curiously, Apple has just presented a new iPad Pro model that, while reinforcing its capabilities as a digital notebook, aims to compete with traditional laptops.
In this scenario of product launches and redefinition, the Canadian Rakuten Kobo takes an important step. It has brought to the market two new eReaders, the Libra Color and the Clara Color. The first has a 7-inch e-ink screen with Kaleido 3 technology and 32 gigabytes of storage. Sname says it all: it represents colors without losing autonomy or handling comfort compared to its black and white predecessors. And it allows you to make annotations and marks with a optical pencil of the same brand, the Kobo Stylus 2. It costs 230 euros. The specialized press liked it.
Its little brother, the Clara Color, has a screen with the same technology, but with a smaller size, 6 inches, and smaller storage, 16 gigabytes, capable of containing 12,000 eBooks. It is not compatible with the stylus. Its price is more affordable, 160 euros.
It is up to Amazon, which has a monumental catalog of electronic books and dominates the market, to make a move. Will there be color Kindle devices? Yes. When? In principle, they will go on sale in 2025, if the forecasts and pools circulating on the internet are met. They also speculate about the technology that Jeff Bezos’ company will use (rumors say that they will use ACeP, different from the aforementioned Kaleido) and the possible sizes of the screens, with 7 and 10-inch models. We will have to wait a while to see if the launch is confirmed and what the price range will be.
