Kobo Clara HD

Absolute Rot - Do not buy a kobo ebook – Bought at JB Hifi as I travel and read a lot. Thought this would save me space. Uploading epub versions of my books, and connecting to my library were simple. The screen is slow to respond, but I expected that with the eReader. The reason for not using the iPad was that this would lead to less distractions and you have the "book" experience. Worked well for the first three weeks, then something happened, the unit froze (though it had charge) and had to end up doing a reset. This lost all my books, which I had to set up again.

I thought the problem was behind me, but then it occurred again, and this time it had lost all of the books again, and I had to reload, but since I was travelling without my laptop, it was just a piece of crap i had to lug along for no reason. Back home I reloaded. Then it happened again, again and again. The last time it only lasted a week.

Now it is hopelessly frozen, will charge and sometimes get onto the "wifi" page, but won't show up on the computer when connected and no amount of long presses resets the damn thing again. Very, very disappointed by the Kobo product. In fact, it would have been cheaper for me to buy the hard copies of the few books I read on the Kobo. Still looks new but does not work. Spent a few days trying to fix it, but now looks like an expensive landfill item to me. Do not buy this. Obviously there is minimal quality control, or how would such a thing have got through. Incidentally, I lodged a complaint within the first three weeks of failingit, but have heard nothing back. I certainly will not buy any Kobo again.

Reliability Issues – I bought the Kobo Clara HD in December 2019 for an elderly relative. In the space of six months, each time while the relative was reading the book, the unit inexplicably suddenly reset itself on several occasions wiping out all the content, and returning to the state it was in when first bought. I complained to Kobo, who replaced the unit fairly quickly - I have no complaints.

The replacement unit worked well for the next three years till two days ago, when again it inexplicably lost all account details and wifi connection - but not the content this time. It turned out to be straight forward fixing it, though I had to drive an hour to get to the relative's place and set up the wifi and account details for it to work again. Which, apart from being a nuisance, should have been unnecessary, as the older Kobo units didn't require registering an account and a wifi connection in order for them to function.

This has left me wondering if and when this Kobo unit will play up again. To my mind, my experience with normal inexpensive Android tablets is that they seem more far reliable than this Kobo unit, and two other older Kobo units which crashed and I had to throw in the bin. Why are cheap tablets more reliable than the relatively expensive Kobo units?

Other than for that, the unit is very good and easy to use. There are plenty of sites on the internet with free Epub books (mostly classics) and thus one does not need to buy them from Kobo, though Kobo do have a reasonable selection of free books.

If one wishes to buy say a new ebook from Amazon in its Kindle format, it is very easy to then convert it to Epub format and load and run it in the Kobo unit, by using the free conversion "Calibre" program for Windows or MacOS (and vice versa).

To summarise, it's an excellent unit if it doesn't play up.

I love it so much, best invention – If you love books this is a must. I love how I can fit a lot of books on it, I can fit it into a small bag, I can read outside without glare, I can read at night without turning on the light. I can read using one hand which was helpful when I was breastfeeding late at night. I love how I can change the font, font size, spacing and margins to my liking. The backlight is great on the eyes at night.

The only things that I didn't really like was the sunken screen, I'd prefer it flat against the edges because dust collects in the edges and I get confused with the "how much time is left" in the book function. I'd prefer it to say in hours and minutes instead of 2.3 hours for example.

Great product though the screen a bit small – I love reading so a Kobo is a perfect gift for me from my partner. This product I bought when it was on sale so the price was very reasonable. It was light so very easy and convenience to carry around, especially on public transport. However, 6 inch screen is a bit small for me. I had to enlarge the font so I could read easily. Overall, I am very happy with this product. Now I use it everyday at home as well.

Poor customer support from Kobo – You need Adobe Digital Editions to get Google Books onto this device but the authentication process doesn't work and Kobo just washes their hands of it all saying it's not their software. Google offers no support and neither does Adobe. The online forum is full of people with similar problems and no successful solutions. Probably a great device if I could get some books onto it without having to re-purchase everything I already have from other suppliers. I suggested Kobo give me free access to one of the books for a week so I could use the device while solving the problem but they declined the $13. I will be returning the device to JB HiFi next week due to poor support.