Most owners love how small, light and pocketable it is, enjoy seeing covers and comics in color, and are happy they switched from Kindle, with easy library and sideloading. The big complaint is the color layer making the black-and-white text grainier and lower-contrast than a regular e-ink screen, plus the colors themselves looking dim and washed out. A meaningful number also ran into freezing or crashing, firmware glitches, and out-of-the-box screen defects like dead or stuck pixels and uneven lighting.
What 229 owners say
913 comments reviewed · scored on the 229 clearest verdicts
58%
Recommend
133 owners
25%
Neutral
56 owners
17%
Don't recommend
40 owners
Source
Breakdown
Score
N
Counted in the score
Reddit
58%
229
What owners like
Seeing book covers, comics and highlights in color is a real joy and the main reason owners chose it · 38 · 17%
Small, light and pocketable, easy to hold one-handed and carry everywhere · 36 · 16%
Owners who switched from Kindle are happy and have no regrets leaving Amazon · 34 · 15%
Easy sideloading and seamless library access via built-in Libby/Overdrive · 22 · 10%
Easy on the eyes with a nice warm light for comfortable reading · 18 · 8%
What owners flag
The color layer makes black-and-white text grainier and lower-contrast than a regular e-ink screen · 20 · 9%
Colors look dim, dull or washed out, and the screen is darker overall · 12 · 5%
Freezing, crashing and firmware bugs, sometimes leaving it stuck mid-book · 9 · 4%
Dead or stuck pixels, uneven lighting and other out-of-the-box screen defects · 8 · 3%
Battery life is weaker than a Kindle and needs charging more often · 5 · 2%
Top quotes, sourced
913 reviewed · 229 shown
Sentiment
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Reddit— neutral
“its new to me and I've been enjoying the few pics so far. i would like something with better built quality in the future. Could definitely use some colour, seeing some really nice combos on this forum, happy with the functionality for now. It is a Kobo Clara Colour, it's an e-reader.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I love my kobo Clara Colour. The touch on it works great. It’s colour and it’s portable. There is no buttons to mess with. Love mine so much.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I just bought The Witcher omniubus, and it is basically unreadable on my Kobo Clara Colour. The font is far to small for comfortable reading. There is a zoom option, but that is not a good experience with eInk.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I just made one for the Kobo Clara Colour and this e-reader is slower than the older clara 2E even if the color version has a better CPU! (Kaleido 3 are more power hungry for sure...)”
Reddit— neutral
“Mind you, this is for Kobo e-readers. Tablets use different screens and would still omit light even at the darkest setting. Mine is the Kobo Clara Colour.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I bought a Kobo Clara Colour, quite content. My Kindle Paperwhite is now in a drawer and my library in Calibre.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“The Kobo Clara Colour screen seemed a little distorted, or the texture because of the color feature so I ended up exchanging for the Kobo Clara BW which is the best of both worlds, IMO.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“That makes purchasing a kobo a better deal in my opinion 🤷🏾♀️. See the side by side comparison between my kobo clara colour and matcha basic below 🙂.”
Reddit— neutral
“I have the Kobo Clara Colour, which is more affordable & more portable, I mainly like to highlight in colour so it’s good for that, but no digital note taking ability.”
Reddit— neutral
“I think I prefer the paperwhite, the clarity is better and find the kobo screen a bit yellow (but need to fiddle with the settings to offset that).”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I really wanted a coloured ereader and not only was the Kindle Colorsoft worse reviewed, it was like £100 more expensive than the Kobo Clara Colour. The Clara is also water resistant which is great because I'm a klutz, iirc only the Paperwhite is.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I've been struggling with this and general lagging since I bought my Kobo Clara Colour and reading this gave me the strength I needed to go to the store and request a refund”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I mainly use the Clara and the Voyage. The Voyage is such an amazing ereader, I think it will always be my favourite.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I called myself buying a Kobo Clara Colour when they were released and hated it. With myself, I notice the color on my Colorsoft being a bit more crisp compared to the kobo.”
Reddit— neutral
“I tried using [Embed Comic Metadata](https://github.com/dickloraine/EmbedComicMetadata), and Kobo Clara Colour doesn't like the metadata so much.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I ended up selling the PPW5 because I prefer the KCC for its size, weight, UI, quality of dark mode, and color feature.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“For some reason, I can’t use send djazz in my kobo clara colour :( it always says file not found. But in my kobo libra 2, it works fine when I tried to send the same file…”
Reddit— neutral
“My Kobo Clara Colour has pretty homogenous lighting. I can see the light a bit more in the corners from certain angles occasionally, but generally, it’s good.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I have a Kobo Clara Colour (picked up on a good offer) and a PW… I always gravitate towards the PW. My wife now uses the Clara. It didn’t add much apart from a brief novelty of having colour cover art.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I got a Kobo Clara Colour about a month ago absolutely entirely only for colour book covers after having been a Kindle user for over a decade. I love it. It's not that much more than the BW, and the colour book covers give me a little bit of joy every time I see them. Good enough reason for me!”
Reddit— neutral
“I don't notice any difference in sharpness between the two and my kobo is actually a bit faster than Kindle but not by much. But it does ghost quicker.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I switched from a Kindle Paperwhite (10th generation) to a Kobo Clara Colour and I love it. The slightly smaller form factor is great, and I really like the textured back of the Kobo.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I tried following that post when I got my Kobo Clara Colour and couldn’t get it to work. How are you connecting your library cards to your overdrive account?”
Reddit— neutral
“So I've just migrated from Kindle to Kobo Clara Colour.
Is it me, or is the store a bit of a wasteland in comparison to Kindle?”
