Kobo Elipsa review: A versatile E-Ink ebook reader and notetaker Review

Kobo has a observe file of creating serviceable e book visitors. Final year I examined the Kobo Nia, a sturdy entry-level system, and back in 2018 reviewed the Kobo Forma, which has, until now, been the Kobo flagship system and a competitor for Amazon’s Kindle Oasis. Whilst arguably residing considerably in Amazon’s shadow, Kobo has now carried out one thing Amazon has not — introduced an e book reader that can acknowledge handwritten notes. The Kobo Elipsa comes with a stylus and a address for a rate of £349.ninety nine in the British isles, or $399.ninety nine in the US. 

The Kobo Elipsa has an E-Ink Carta screen, and this technology has beforehand been applied to make equipment that can acknowledge handwriting. I appeared at the reMarkable 2 E-Ink pill earlier this year, for instance, but this is the very first time e book reading through and observe-using have been merged in a solitary system, for the British isles industry at least. 

Kobo has a perfectly-recognized online bookstore, and like its most important rival Amazon there are cost-free apps for Android and Apple equipment so you can choose your e book reading through with you on an Android pill or cell phone, and on Iphone or iPad, with the potential to synchronise your spot throughout equipment. As opposed to Amazon’s Kindles, Kobo equipment have created-in guidance for OverDrive, Pocket and Dropbox, and can be applied to go through ebooks borrowed from public libraries. That facility is highlighted ideal on the property monitor of the Kobo program on the Elipsa, and if you currently have the demanded information and OverDrive account setup you can log in ideal absent. Alternatively check your possess area authority’s web page for aid. 

For the reason that the Kobo Elipsa has been intended for observe-using, it has to offer a larger sized monitor than we’re applied to in modern e book visitors. The E-Ink Carta 1200 touchscreen steps ten.3 inches throughout the diagonal, and there are major bezels all close to the monitor, with 1 of the long-edge bezels quite vast indeed at 25mm. This will make for a system measuring 193mm vast by 227.5mm deep by 7.6mm thick. The Eipsa’s desktop footprint is quite shut to that of the Amazing two (187mm x 246mm), even though the Elipsa is substantially thicker (7.6mm vs 4.7mm). Inspite of staying thicker, the Elipsa is lighter — 383g vs the Amazing 2’s 403.5g. 

That is not the conclusion of it, due to the fact the Elipsa has a SleepCover which is a two-piece unit comprising a bumper fashion base and a address held in spot by sturdy magnets. Flip the address to the back of the Elipsa and it doubles as a tiny kickstand. There is a stylus holder created into the SleepCover, which adds a tiny top to it, but retains the stylus securely. Place all this together and the Elipsa is a rather significant bundle.  

The Elipsa itself has a plastic chassis, but feels solid in the hand the SleepCover is also (somewhat thick) plastic. The electrical power button, cost gentle and USB-C port for charging and file transfer are all at the bottom of 1 of the Elipsa’s long edges, and there are corresponding access holes in the SleepCover. 

Top rated ZDNET Critiques

The monochrome ten.3-inch monitor is excellent for e book reading through, with a resolution of 1872 by 1404 pixels (227ppi). It is really sharp and very clear, and text is straightforward on the eye. The 1.8GHz quad-main processor is speedy plenty of to provide smooth site turns, and site refreshes are comprehensive, with no ghosting of the beforehand go through site. 

Kobo’s program is an object lesson in simplicity of use. Tap the monitor whilst you are in a ebook and reading through development, search software and chapter navigation surface at the bottom of the monitor, whilst at the top rated there’s a menu for changing different options.  

Changes are as you would assume from an e book reader. You can transform font size, line spacing, margin size, justification and toggle auto rotation on and off, as perfectly as set the front-gentle brightness. You can also see specific in-ebook studies — how long until the ebook is go through, how long you need to have to go through to complete the latest chapter and how long to go through the future 1, and a graphical representation of your development via the ebook.  

Additional extensive reading through options are accessed through the cog software on this menu. Kobo even will make a affordable stab at getting over the e book reader challenge of staying not able to flick back and forth as you could possibly with a printed ebook: long-urgent the bottom remaining and ideal corners to speed-site forwards and backwards offers a passable approximation of skimming a paper ebook. 

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There are two noteworthy absences. A single is the potential to transform the color temperature to make reading through at night simpler on the eye. This has been these types of a regular element of e book visitors for so long that its absence in this article is astonishing. A midway household, probably, is the potential to flip from the typical dim text on a gentle background to the reverse. The other absentee is Bluetooth, or a 3.5mm headset jack for listening to audio publications.  

I had no challenge reading through ebooks, and a lot of file formats are supported for side-loaded files — EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ and CBR. 

That said, the Elipsa is larger sized and heavier than any e book reader I presently use (and I use visitors from equally Kobo and Amazon on a regular basis). I located it considerably unwieldy when lounging on a sofa or reading through in mattress, and a little bit hefty for prolonged intervals of 1-handed use. 

The stylus opens up the observe-using features of the Elipsa. It is run by a solitary AAAA battery, and arrives with 1 suggestion. Added ideas value £/$9.ninety nine for a pack of 5. When reading through a ebook, you can push the lower of the two stylus buttons to highlight a portion, and the upper button to erase highlights. However, the true utility of the stylus arrives in making notes. 

Picking out My Notebooks from the menu row at the bottom of the property monitor opens up the place for using notes. Person notes are stored in notebooks, of which there are two styles: 1 is freeform, whilst the other will convert handwriting to text that is editable off-system, whilst also accommodating freeform drawing. 

The writing process is challenging at very first, as you need to wait for the monitor to catch up with the nib, but it did not choose me long to acclimatise. Conversion to editable text was great — faultless at my very first attempt, and the accuracy level was absolutely well worth the temporary wait for processing to choose spot. 

When writing for conversion you have to generate along pre-configured traces on the monitor, but in the freeform notebooks a pair of ‘paper’ variations are offered. It is really a disgrace there are not far more variations — the Amazing pill has a massive array. With any luck , Kobo will incorporate far more variations through program updates. 

Person internet pages and done notebooks can be despatched to Dropbox or simply exported through a USB-C connection as DOCX, basic text or HTML. You have to go via the process of deciding to export, picking out a file format and converting on the Elipsa itself. Making use of the cable process, exports are neatly filed in an Exported Notebooks folder that exhibits up when the Elipsa and computer system are related. Wi-fi transfer would be a pleasant addition, but the wired program labored easily.  

The Kobo Elipsa has 32GB of interior storage and a battery that will provide ‘weeks’ of usage, ‘dependent on particular person usage’ — there’s almost nothing like hedging your bets, Kobo. I located, as with all e book visitors I’ve applied from Kobo in the past, that I was equipped to get to charging facilities often plenty of to top rated up without staying caught shorter. As you would assume, toggling Wi-Fi off conserves battery capability. 

There are several bells and whistles as considerably as pen-primarily based input is concerned, handwriting-to-text conversion is a little bit sluggish, and there’s a deficiency of templates for non-convertible observe using. But the essentials are all coated, such as a conversion program that understands the big difference amongst terms and photographs. I located handwriting conversion impressively accurate, and whilst the SleepCover is probably a tiny unwieldy it does, at least, provide protection and stylus storage. 

Conclusions 

The Elipsa employs the thoroughly clean, person-welcoming and navigable interface of other Kobo e book visitors. Its versatility is excellent – it is really as straightforward to go through loaned library publications as people acquired from the Kobo retail outlet, file format guidance is great, and simply making a wired connection is plenty of to transfer domestically stored files to a computer system. The handwriting features are fundamental but perfectly executed, and conversion to editable text is impressively accurate. For a very first-era hybrid e book reader/notetaker, the Elipsa is a quite great system. 

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