Engineering Excursions: New Product Analysis & Review: Kobo Clara HD eReader

New Kobo Clara HD eReader

In my previous post, I had written about how in mid-December, my Kobo Aura ONE eReader had failed at the most inconvenient time, while on a flight at 36,000 feet. Despite all manner of attempts over the following two weeks, I was unable to fix it.

With my heavy reading schedule and unable to get Rakuten Kobo to replace my failed unit at the time, I had to resort to buying a replacement. So on Christmas Eve, I shelled out $139 CAD and bought their new Clara HD eReader. Despite the inconvenience and additional expense, I needed it to get me back on track with all the reading and studying that I had to do. I officially activated it on Jan 13th. It is now just over a month since I've been using it, so this is a little update and analysis of how the product has fared so far.

The Clara HD that I have has the following specifications, as per the official product brochure and online details:

111 x 157 x 8.3 mm in size (width, length and depth)
166 g in mass
6.0" Cara E Ink HD touchscreen
1072x1448, 300 dpi screen resolution
8GB of onboard memory
ComfortLight PRO adjustable display brightness and auto-adjusting colour temperature
OverDrive library access
No physical page turn buttons
No waterproof protection

Though newer, the Clara HD is much smaller and not as premium in specification as the flagship Aura ONE. Most noticeably, the display is not flat and edge-to-edge - it has a raised border. This is the first time I'm using an eReader with a raised border surrounding the screen, and my immediate impression was how it definitely affects the visual and tactile reading experience. The sensory feeling as the finger contacts the edge of the raised black plastic border of the body, while moving from one page to another, takes away from the feeling of "turning a page". This definitely affects the user experience for someone who has been used to uninterrupted edge-to-edge displays prior to this.

Apart from the initial system software update that occurred when I first powered on and setup the Clara HD, I have not updated it after, as I wanted to see how things fared over the first month of usage. It is currently running version 4.12.1211 (13a6961059 12/11/18).

As of date, the experience has been largely trouble-free, though I do notice an occasional freeze while reading and attempting to navigate to the next page, requiring a press of the power button to enter sleep mode, followed by another press to wake it back up, refresh and unfreeze the screen, after which I can resume reading. This could be a debilitating glitch in the software that ruins the user experience, or a transient bug that will be removed with the next software update.

The Clara HD seems to be a mid-tier product in terms of pricing - it sits between the lowest end Aura ($129.99 CAD) and the Aura H2O ($199.99 CAD). The upper end of the product range seems to be the Aura ONE ($249.99 CAD) and the new Forma ($299.99 CAD). The product lineup can be seen in the comparison chart below, available online from Indigo's Chapters website:

Kobo eReader comparison chart, from the Indigo Chapters website

However, the reviews that I had read prior to purchase rated it ahead of both the Aura and Aura H2O in terms of performance. That may be in part due to Kobo having had time to learn lessons from these older products and improve performance on the newer Clara HD during product development prior to release. Some reviewers had gripes in the area of ergonomics - the location of the power button at the bottom, and more than one noted the strange patterning of the case at the back, which did not seem to add value in terms of grip and stability, particularly on occasion where one's hands might be moist. I do concur that the location of the power button at the bottom of the case is a strange choice - there is additional dexterity required in order to maneuver the body while powering on and off. I have not noticed too much of an issue with the patterning of the rear of the case. I should note that since my hands are on the somewhat smaller side, I don't find the form factor of the Clara HD to be too much of an inconvenience - it seems to be reasonably easy to hold in one hand and read. It currently seems to achieve about two weeks of battery life with the pace of reading that I engage in.

As of right now, the Clara HD is quite satisfactory in terms of performance. I've completed 2 books and 274.2 hours of reading since initial activation. I will keep track of system performance over the next while as books are added, the pace of reading varies and system updates are made available for install.

REFERENCES:

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[1] Kobo Aura ONE Replacement Unit Failure: Design and Support Issues

[2] Kobo eReader Comparison