Kobo Libra Colour and Kobo Clara Colour eReaders Launched in India

Rakuten Kobo introduces booklovers in India to its first-ever colour E Ink eReaders with the new Kobo Libra Colour and Kobo Clara Colour, turning the page on the exclusively black and white digital reading experience Kobo fans already know and love. Kobo Libra Colour retails for 19,999 INR, Kobo Clara Colour for 16,999 INR, and Kobo Clara BW for 14,999 INR on Flipkart and Amazon.

With a Kobo-optimized colour E Ink Kaleido™ 3 display, Kobo Libra Colour and Kobo Clara Colour offer a subtle palette that retains the benefits of E Ink technology, now in colour. With the capacity to store thousands of books, a long battery life, and over 24/7 access to the Kobo.com bookstore, booklovers can stock their digital shelves wherever they go. The new eReaders are also equipped with Bluetooth® wireless technology for a seamless audiobook experience.

“We are pleased to be the first global digital bookseller to offer affordable colour eReaders, bringing both your books and our bookstore to life with a beautiful spectrum of gentle hues. It’s everything you love about print, with all the benefits of eReading,” said Michael Tamblyn, CEO, Rakuten Kobo. “For Kobo, colour is a way of deepening and enriching the reading experience, while keeping the daylight readability and battery longevity that E Ink screens deliver so well. We are excited to introduce our first ever colour eReaders to the Indian market, offering an immersive and engaging experience to readers across the country.”

In addition, for every reader who is also a journaler, in-the-margins note-taker, or page-decorating BookTok’er, Kobo Libra Colour is Kobo’s most affordable stylus-enabled eReader with the addition of a Kobo Stylus 2 (sold separately), offering colour handwriting, highlighting, and notebooks. Building on the success of Kobo Sage and Kobo Elipsa 2E handwriting experiences, the new Kobo Libra Colour brings stylus-based writing and Kobo’s patented write-anywhere eBook annotations to our popular 7” format. While not stylus compatible, colour highlighting also appears in Kobo Clara Colour, letting you colour-code your favourite passages with the touch of a finger.

“To build the most enriched reading experience for our customers, we worked tirelessly to optimize the Kaleido 3 display to ensure the latest Kobo eReaders are equipped with the best representation of colour,” said Ramesh Mantha, SVP, Product, Rakuten Kobo. “We introduced collimated front lighting technology to our 6” and 7” size eReaders to provide better colour performance, and have further engineered our software to automate the regulation of colours so they always look their best, no matter the content being displayed.”

Complementing the new colour reading experience, Kobo Libra Colour and Kobo Clara Colour further advance Kobo’s commitment to sustainability, adding new repairability features like easier battery replacement, along with the use of eco-conscious recycled and ocean-bound plastics. The device SleepCovers come in an array of eye-catching colours, including Butter Yellow, Candy Pink and Cayenne Red. Crafted with fully recycled materials, the SleepCovers offer pops of colour with eco-friendly construction.

For Kobo readers who prefer an eReading experience in black and white, Kobo introduces Kobo Clara BW, an upgraded version of our black-and-white classic 6” eReader, equipped with the latest E Ink Carta 1300 screen, and an improved processor with more storage.

Kobo Libra Colour retails for 19,999 INR, Kobo Clara Colour for 16,999 INR, and Kobo Clara BW for 14,999 INR on Flipkart and Amazon . The Kobo Stylus 2 is currently available and retails for 6,899 INR. In addition to India, the devices are also available in retail stores and online in Canada, the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and Turkey.

Get to know Kobo Libra Colour

7” colour E Ink Kaleido™ 3 display: Endless Library, Meet Infinite Journal

Like Kobo Sage and Kobo Elipsa 2E, Kobo Libra Colour adds notebooks, eBook annotations, and is the company’s first 7″ device to support Dropbox and Google Drive. The new colour E Ink Kaleido™ 3 display with Kobo Stylus 2 compatibility means people can now annotate, organize their thoughts, and highlight inspiring lines, all in colour—diving deeper into the writing they love.

32GB of storage and ergonomic design

Ergonomics and thoughtful design are at the core of the new Kobo Libra Colour eReader. Its unique form factor has a curved design that perfectly fits readers’ grip—with page-turn buttons and the option to read in landscape mode. Kobo Libra Colour offers 32 GB of storage* and can store up to 24,000 eBooks or 150 audiobooks, with a battery that lasts for weeks*.

*1GB = 1 billion bytes. Assumes an approximate size of about 1.3MB per eBook, and average audiobook length of 6.5 hours with 28.8MB per hour. Some storage space utilized by software.

** A single charge on the Kobo Libra Colour lasts up to 40 days, based on 30 minutes of reading per day with the front light at 30% brightness and WiFi and Bluetooth® wireless technology off.

Reading Accessories 

The Notebook SleepCover with Kobo Stylus 2 holder is designed to make taking notes on-the-go easier than ever, storing the Kobo Stylus 2 in a convenient magnetic slot. Kobo Libra Colour wakes automatically when you open the cover and sleeps when you close it. The Notebook SleepCovers are made with recycled materials and are available in Black and Sand Beige, retailing for 3,999 INR.

Additional SleepCovers for Kobo Libra Colour are designed with magnets inside the case to snap into place effortlessly and a two-way stand to keep eReaders upright for hands-free reading in both landscape and portrait orientations. The SleepCovers are made with recycled materials and available in three shades, Black, Dusk Blue and Butter Yellow, retailing for 3,999 INR.

Readers can also protect their Kobo affordably with the Basic SleepCover in Garden Green (2,999 INR). Additionally, for Kobo users who love to decorate their eReaders with stickers, decals and photos to show their love of reading, Kobo now offers a Clear Case that retails for 2,599 INR.

All sleep SleepCovers are sold separately.