Design: Almost pocket-sized, which is both good and bad
The Kobo Clara HD is tiny. It resembles a small 4x6-inch notepad you might use at your desk and weighs just a little under 6 ounces, which is light and small enough to fit in a large jacket pocket and stow comfortably in even small bags without really noticing it’s there. Oddly enough, despite the featherweight design, I found this e-reader uncomfortable to hold for extended lengths of time. The black bezel is widest at the bottom at about 1 inch, which is a decent amount of room, but holding the reader at the bottom was very unnatural. The sides of the bezel, however, present only about .5 inches to work with, which wasn’t enough room even though I have small hands. I found the minimal amount of bezel space on the left and right sides of the reader to be restrictive and experienced hand cramping especially when trying to hold the Clara HD with just one hand. The better solution was to hold the device in the palm of one hand or with both hands and completely avoid contact with the bezel. Another design miss is the material on the back of the device. It’s a smooth plastic that offers no grip control. And while there’s a texturized design, it didn’t do much beyond collecting lint. But the touchscreen is responsive, which makes turning pages a cinch, as well as making other small adjustments to brightness and text size or navigating to other menu options. Sadly, the Kobo Clara HD is not waterproof, and I would caution anyone from being tempted to take it poolside and inadvertently lose it to the water since it’s quite slippery and lightweight. The sole button on the device, the power button, is located at the bottom of the e-reader. It’s very slim and rests flush against the plastic, but it doesn’t require much effort to engage.
Setup Process: Easy and mostly speedy
The Kobo Clara HD required minimal fuss to set up. Out of the box it was 30 percent charged and took about 2 hours to charge in full. Once powered on, I had to choose the method for setup. While logging in to a Kobo account is an option, you can also choose to sign in and set up your device via other platforms like Google and Facebook. Once I logged in with credentials, connected to Wi-Fi, and set the time zone, an update was applied and the device restarted. This is where I noticed a slight hiccup. Though I thought the update and system restart implied that the device was up and running, the system prompted me to log in again and indicated the system would be updating a second time. This did the trick, but it was a little annoying to have to repeat the steps.
Display: Crisp and easy to adjust
The Kobo Clara HD’s 6-inch, high-definition touchscreen is one of the highlights of this device. The screen resolution comes in at 1072 x 1448 and 300ppi, which is the pixel-per-inch quality you want in an e-reader. The Clara HD uses E-ink technology, which means it doesn’t have a backlit display and everything is shown in black and white. The upside is that it’s easier on the eyes. I could read clearly whatever was on the screen with zero distortion from any angle, and adjust the light when I wanted to. The ComfortLight PRO front lighting built into the reader offers two different ways for adjusting lighting. I found the most convenient option was simply touching the screen on the left side and moving up or down to brighten or darken the screen. There’s also a brightness icon in the top menu where you can increase or decrease light intensity. This takes longer and the screen flashes in a way that’s not very pleasant. I also appreciated the Natural Light feature. It introduces blue light throughout the day when you need it and then gradually decreases the amount to help you unwind. Over the week I used it I’m not sure how much I noticed the transition, but I appreciated the lack of thought I had to put into benefiting from this feature. Just like there are options for lighting, there are options for text size, font choice, line spacing, and margins. You also have the power to decide where on the screen you want to access these settings when you read. I fiddled with the font size quite a bit. Since the Kobo Clara HD has a small 6-inch screen, I struggled to find the right balance of text size that didn’t feel like I was blowing everything up and continuously turning the page or straining my eyes to read what was on the screen.
Reading: Best for basic text
While the Kobo Clara HD does support comic books and other content originally published in full color, you will lose out on the full effect of the reading experience. I read a couple of comic books and noticed more of a flashing pattern on the screen when turning pages and waiting for pictures to load. This isn’t as severe when loading/reading text only. Turning pages is easy, and the intuitive gestures for annotating and highlighting text do mimic the experience of reading in print. Swiping gestures work best on this e-reader. Tapping motions I found to be much less responsive and would cause the screen to flash with each tap.
Store and Software: Good variety and multi-format support
The Kobo Clara HD comes with 8GB of storage, which Kobo says makes the device capable of holding up to 6,000 e-books. Even better, this e-reader supports 14 different file formats including e-books in EPUB, EPUB3, PDF, and MOBI form along with images, comic books, and documents. I didn’t purchase any e-books from the Kobo store, but the brand claims there are more than 6 million titles in the store. The Kobo store browsing experience on the Clara HD is clunky. The interface is not that smooth or fast, and I found it better in a browser. In addition to the e-books store, Kobo Clara HD supports e-books from other sources than those in the Kobo store that are protected by Digital Rights Management. You just have to install Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) to access them on the Kobo. ADE isn’t necessary for borrowing books from the public library. Thanks to the OverDrive integration, I was able to seamlessly borrow books, which always downloaded almost instantly. You can also save and read articles by logging in to your Pocket account if that’s something that interests you. I spent less time with this feature, but Pocket users might appreciate the integration.
Price: Fair for the quality
The Kobo Clara HD retails for about $120, which is fair given the competition and the quality of the device. It doesn’t pack a punch when it comes to bells and whistles, but what it does well it does better than other e-ink readers. And it’s not much more than competing models that don’t offer the same amount of storage and file flexibility. The Kobo Clara HD offers an experience that is very close to perusing print books. If you’re looking for a device that puts the focus on reading content, especially online articles and books from the library, this top e-reader should be on your list. While it’s not the most ergonomically designed, it’s relatively gentle on the eyes and puts the power in your hands with thoughtful light settings and reading customization options.
