In 2016 I purchased the Kindle 7 and used it up until November last year (2024). So, I had a Kindle for a very long time.

Truth be told, it was the same model, and I never bothered to upgrade it - I replaced it once during warranty. Although, at some point, a better screen resolution and backlight would’ve been nice to have.

Last year I started to look around for an upgrade. It was time.

I saw that Amazon was releasing new Kindle versions, one of which would’ve been a direct upgrade to the Kindle 7, with some nice color options (a light green as standard), a better resolution and a backlight. It sounded like a good upgrade.

The EPUB problem

As I started to read more in my native language (Romanian), I wanted to continue doing that using a digital format. Most Romanian books are available as EPUB or PDF in local online stores.

This gets you into the issue of “OK, I purchased the book. Now how do I put it on my Kindle?”. You have to go through all the hoops of getting it on your Kindle to finally enjoy it. But it does get annoying at some point to keep doing this.

Because remember, these all have Adobe DRM. It’s not like you can go around and share it or put it on your device with “Send to Kindle” option.

You can rarely find a Romanian book on Amazon to purchase directly on your Kindle.

This was a big enough issue for me to start considering dropping the Kindle and moving to something else.

Wanting to break away from the Amazon ecosystem, I decided to look for other alternatives that support these formats and have a decent track record as e-readers. I didn’t want to get something that is shiny but zero support or community in case I needed help.

Kobo Clara Colour

After narrowing down all the options I settled on a Kobo. It seemed they had a great track record, having been around since 2010, and offered very good alternatives to Kindle, a community and some extra perks.

I went for a Kobo Clara Colour, it was on sale and to be honest I loved the colored e-ink screen1.

You might think it’s useless, but even having the book covers colored when you open and browse them, or while it is idling, is pretty neat. Of course, this shouldn’t be enough of a selling point, but it looks pretty gorgeous in person.

Kobo Clara Colour - Books dashboard listing them. 60% brightness
Kobo Clara Colour - Idling
Kobo Clara Colour - Opened book. 60% brightness
Kobo Clara Colour - Highlighted content in blue. 60% brightness

Feedback

Here is my feedback on the Kobo Clara Colour after 6 months of usage.

  • Great battery life. I finished around 10 books on it, and charged it twice during this time. I do keep it at about 20% brightness most of the time.
  • Light and a good grip. The device is very light , and on the back, it has a nice texture that makes it very grippy and hard to drop.
  • Good placement for power button. The power button is on the back, in the top right corner, which is so much better than the Kindle one that is on the bottom side. I closed my Kindle so many times when I was using it with one hand in bed because that side was leaning on my fingers.
  • Online Store. Kobo has an online store, so you can purchase books directly on your device. Surprisingly enough, there were some books in Romanian.
  • OverDrive integration. This doesn’t help me too much, but for people in different countries it might be very useful since you can borrow books directly on your Kobo with a library card.
  • Colored annotations. This has quickly become very useful. You get 4 different colors for annotations. I made a system where yellow is for general, blue is information, green is for fun stuff, and red is for critical things. So far, the system works pretty well.
  • Convert KPUB. If you want the annotations to work as smoothly as possible, convert your EPUBs to KPUBs. This will solve the issue of making annotations that extend from one page to the next one. It will also make the experience of reading much snappier.
  • Intuitive interactions and fast response. No issues with page changes, fast loading, good interface. I like the interface more than the Kindle one. It is much cleaner and easier to see/find your books.
  • Good colors and sharpness. It’s not as sharp as a black-and-white e-reader, but it’s nothing to complain about. On a color screen, you have two layers, one on top of the other, to create the color effect. This messes with the sharpness a bit.
  • No native send to Kobo. On Kindle you had the option to send documents to your device by emailing them to a dedicated address that was provided to you. There isn’t such a feature on Kobo, but you can use send.djazz.se that does the same thing and works great.
  • IPX8. Didn’t test that yet😅, but it’s waterproof.
  • Audiobooks. I haven’t used it for this yet.
  • Repair options. It looks like they put some thought into it and give you options to repair and extend the life of your device. Hopefully, I don’t need this for a while, but it’s good to know that there are options.

Final thoughts

I don’t miss the Kindle at all.

The transition was smooth. I have less headache when it comes to purchasing EPUBs, and I enjoy making annotations using the color system that I mentioned above.

Footnotes

  1. E Ink Kaleido™ 3 it’s the official name ↩