Hands-On with $149 Kobo eReader, Up for Pre-Order Through Borders

It looks like Borders is taking a page from Barnes & Noble’s playbook once again, gathering multiple eReaders into the fold. The Kobo eReader — which got a bit of attention recently when its $149 price point was revealed — is now available for pre-order through Borders and will come to the U. S. in June.

Kobo dropped by our office last week to give us a peek at the new reader and let me play around with it for a few days. Overall, I’m impressed, though there are some drawbacks. But for an eReader that’s at least $100 less than most others out there, Kobo’s offering is pretty compelling.

Starting with the most important aspect — the screen — good news is that it uses the same eInk technology as the other major eReaders on the market. You get the same sunlight-readable, easy-on-the-eyes experience as the Kindle, Nook, or Alex (Border’s other eBook device). Bonus: the screen is 6″, same as the aforementioned devices, and larger than the Sony Pocket Edition, which now costs the same: $149.

The range of font sizes was pretty good, as were the margins around the edges and the space between lines. I stuck with the default serif font on the eReader in my short time with it, but sans-serif is also available.

The reader itself is extremely light: just 7.75 ounces. I was surprised as it’s almost the same size as the Nook but felt so much lighter. Of course, this eReader doesn’t have a secondary LCD screen.

I was also surprised at how much I enjoyed just holding it. The back has a rubbersque coating like the Nook but adds a quilted pattern that makes it feel softer and more comfortable. Don’t ask me how this works — it’s still just plastic — but it was definitely a nice experience.

Since the price on this is so low, I didn’t expect anything super complex, which is not a knock. Though the trend is to add more features and functions to eReaders, there’s still a place in the market for devices that just focus on the reading and not wireless downloads, Android apps, or in-store experiences. Of course, as we saw with the PocketBook 360, that place does not exist in a $200+ price range. $149 is definitely more attractive.

On the left side of the device there are four buttons: Home, Menu, Display, and Back. There’s a miniUSB port on the bottom for connecting and an SD card slot on the top to supplement the 1GB internal memory. The DPAD on the right bottom corner was very responsive and not stiff at all, which I really appreciated.

I was a little surprised that only the Left/Right buttons turned pages and not the Up/Down ones (those controlled font size on the fly). I also would have liked some orientation control. Not an accelerometer, just a manual switch like you find on Sony’s readers and the COOL-ER. Navigation was fairly intuitive and the menus had a nice design/look, something other digital readers sometimes overlook.

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