Though there are apps that allow bookworms to read the latest titles on their smartphones or tablets, many prefer a dedicated ereader. Rakuten Kobo's new Elipsa model is not only the largest that the company has produced so far, but the first to come with stylus input to allow for both reading and creating.
"When looking at what should come next for Kobo eReaders, we always go back to our customers, to the people who read everyday, to learn how we can make their reading lives better," said the company's CEO, Michael Tamblyn. "With Kobo Elipsa, we meet the needs of people who don’t just want to read a book; they want to engage with it – mark it up, highlight, write in the margins, or in a notebook of their own, because that is how they get the most out of the books, articles and documents they read."
The Elipsa features a 10.3-inch E Ink Carta 1200 touchscreen display at 1,404 x 1,872 pixel resolution (that's 227 ppi), comes with a dark mode cooked in, and includes adjustable ComfortLight technology for day or night use.
It has quad-core 1.8-GHz processing brains supported by a gigabyte of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage, and comes with 802.11n Wi-Fi for downloading content from Kobo's well-stocked eBookstore (or elsewhere), and handy Dropbox integration for storing and sharing documents online.
Supported ebook formats shape up as EPUB and EPUB3, PDF, FlePub and MOBI, and there are 12 fonts available with over 50 resize options. Comic books in CBZ and CBR formats can also be displayed on the big screen, as well as TXT, RTF and HTML files, and JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF images. The ereader also comes with OverDrive access so that avid readers can easily borrow ebooks from local libraries.
The Elipsa steps into reMarkable 2 territory too, with the inclusion of a Kobo Stylus for note-making, annotations or doodling. There are different pen types, shades, line sizes, and eraser sizes available, the device can translate handwriting into to text, or clean up lists and shapes with a tap, and a number of page backgrounds are available in the included notebook feature, including blank, lined and square options.
The new ereader comes with a nifty cover as well, that provides a home for the stylus when not in use and folds to provide a comfortable reading angle when it's not protecting the display. Kobo promises weeks of per-charge usage from the 2,400-mAh battery, with charging as well as cabled connectivity undertaken via USB-C.
The Elipsa is up for pre-order now for US$399.99, with general availability from June 24.
Product page: Kobo Elipsa