Kobo Clara BW review: The best budget eReader in Malaysia?
Dedicated eReaders aren’t exactly mainstream devices, but for people who read regularly, they still offer a much better experience than reading on a phone or tablet. I personally have a Kobo Libra 2 on my bedside table, and have previously used the Kobo Clara 2e as well as the Kobo Clara Colour in the past.
So when Kobo came knocking and offered us a chance to review the Clara BW too, it was hard to say no towards trying out their cheapest device in their lineup.
Simple, lightweight and practical
If you’ve used previous Clara models before, the Kobo Clara BW will feel very familiar. The design is simple and understated, with a matte plastic body and minimal branding. I mean sure, it could’ve had thinner bezels or a thinner shell, but while it’s not flashy, it’s functional.
At 174g, the device is light enough to hold comfortably for long reading sessions. Even after an hour or two of reading in bed, I never felt like my hand was getting tired. The compact 6-inch size also makes it easy to carry around, and even fits nicely into a small bag or even the side pockets on a pair of khakis. The back has a textured finish that provides decent grip for one-handed reading, though it does feel a bit plasticky. That’s probably the only real downside in terms of build quality, but it’s not a dealbreaker.
One nice to have feature here though is an IPX8 water resistance rating. This means the Clara BW can survive splashes or even accidental drops in water. However, the more likely situation that you’d find yourself in is if you’re reading on public transport and it’s raining just as you get off the bus or train.
That being said, we highly recommend that you kit out your Kobo Clara BW with either their own or an aftermarket flip case, and even better if you can add a screen protector over it; these are pretty cheap on places like Shopee, and you really don’t want to risk screen damage here.
Subtly improved screen
While the Kobo Clara Colour typically gets all the attention thanks to its colour screen, the Clara BW did get a minor upgrade in its own right. It uses a 6-inch E Ink Carta 1300 panel with a resolution of 1448 by 1072, with a 300PPI pixel density. Compared to the older Clara 2e and Libra 2 with Carta 1200 displays, it supposedly offers better contrast and faster page refresh speeds.
I didn’t really notice contrast being that much better than on my personal Libra 2, but the page refresh does seem better, to my eyes at least. For context, when you turn the pages on the eReader, you will typically have a little bit of the previous screen ‘burnt in’ to the screen. It’s nothing really to worry about; the screen refreshes it every few page turns or so, but I can appreciate the better screen refreshing here.
As for the actual reading part, text looks crisp and clean, and if the default options don’t suit you you can still customise the font. Reading novels or long articles feels very natural too, much closer to paper than any LCD screen can offer. The ComfortLight Pro feature also means that I was able to tweak the screen to have more warmer tones almost like night mode on your smartphone, reducing eye strain when reading with the lights off in bed.
Of course, the Kobo Clara BW is still just a black and white eReader, so your usual limitations of just reading text remain here. If you want to explore reading comics or graphic novels, the Kobo Clara Colour or Libra Colour is probably more up your alley.
The Kobo ecosystem is still the best
As for the rest of the hardware, the Clara BW runs on a 1GHz processor with 16GB of storage. On paper those specs don’t sound impressive, but for an eReader they’re perfectly adequate. Page turns feel quick (likely helped by the newer screen), and the UI in general still feels as clean and simple to understand as before. Your books are sorted the way you want, and by default is listed by your last read titles.
The best part about using a Kobo rather than say, an Amazon Kindle, though is still its ecosystem. For starters, the Kobo store is localised, offering eBooks in MYR and more often than not you’ll find discounts and voucher codes that will let you quickly build your digital library. Furthermore, you can also sideload EPUBs, PDFs and more onto your Kobo eReader. Alternatively, once you’ve bought an eBook off the Kobo store, you can also use third party tools and a computer to quickly convert it into a DRM-free EPUB.
One minor drawback is that occasionally, I couldn’t find books available for purchase via the Kobo store even though it was on the Kobo store for other countries. This only happened like maybe once for every 10 or so titles, so it’s not the biggest problem, but you should probably double check that the book you want to read is actually available on the Kobo Malaysia website first. Kobo Plus meanwhile is a subscription service that lets you access a wide range of titles, though I personally don’t use it as I nothing there fancied me.
For those who are just beginning their reading journey, one nice feature is the ability to highlight words you may be unfamiliar with and look up its meaning. There’s also ways to track you reading statistics, bookmark progress across multiple books and highlight specific lines of text of interest to you.
The biggest advantage to the Clara BW though is its battery life. I charged it up to 100% after setting it up, and while the 1,500mAh battery isn’t particularly large, I was able to comfortably use it for about an hour or two a day at 5-10% brightness, and by the third week I still had about a third of battery life left.
Easiest recommendation for anyone buying an eReader
Switching from physical books to using an eReader isn’t for everyone; some still prefer the touch of paper on their fingers, others simply like having a library to show off at home. However, if you’re ready to make that switch, the Kobo Clara BW is the easiest recommendation I can make for an eReader.
It’s a no frills device that does exactly what it says on the box, and sometimes that’s really all you need. Priced at RM679, it competes directly with the basic Amazon Kindle, but unlike the Kindle, Kobo is officially in Malaysia, meaning you won’t have to go through third party grey market resellers to get one. The Kobo store and UI is much more user friendly too, and besides, you don’t really need to give money to Jeff Bezos, do you?
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