Kobo has just presented the Clara 2E, a new compact reader that plays the ecology card, with manufacturing using more than 85% recycled plastic, while improving the strengths of the previous model.
The tech industry may be fascinating, but it pollutes a lot every year. Some manufacturers therefore decide to find more ecological resources to manufacture their devices, in order to limit the environmental impact – and also benefit from a new marketing argument. Kobo, Rakuten’s e-reader brand, has just launched a new product: the Clara 2E, which takes over from the Clara HD. If it retains the main characteristics, it also improves some technical aspects, such as waterproofing. And above all, it can boast of being much more eco-responsible.
Kobo Clara 2E: great improvements
The new Kobo Clara 2E reader is intended as the direct competitor of the Kindle PaperWhite. The newcomer measures 6 inches – and is therefore a little smaller than Amazon’s – and weighs 171 g. It has 16 GB of flash memory and an e-Ink Carta 1200 HD screen – with a definition of 1,448 x 1,072 pixels – which promises more comfortable reading than on the Clara HD. It manages the dark mode – more restful for the eyes – and benefits from ComfortLight PRO technology, which allows you to adjust the brightness, color temperature and blue light as you wish. And, great novelty, it is completely waterproof, since it has IPX8 certification – and is therefore waterproof for up to 60 minutes at a depth of 2 meters.
Unlike the Kindle PaperWhite, which is limited to a few formats, the Kobo Clara 2E accepts a large number of e-book formats, namely EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT , HTML, RTF, CBZ and CBR. An undeniable advantage. Kobo’s e-reader has a USB-C port for charging and a Bluetooth module to listen to audio books with wireless headphones or earphones, or even a portable speaker. A function that unfortunately remains reserved for Kobo books. Regarding autonomy, the manufacturer speaks only of “several weeks”, without further details, against “several months” for the Amazon reader. Moreover, and unlike some versions of Kindle, it does not display advertising.
Kobo Clara 2E: an eco-responsible reader
This is one of the brand’s main arguments: the Clara 2E is Kobo’s first e-reader designed as part of its new environmental protection program. It offers a coating made up of more than 85% recycled plastic, including 10% ocean waste – without this changing its design. The waste includes water bottles and CDs that were salvaged and transformed to create this new device. The firm also plans to remove 200,000 and 1 million respectively from the oceans. The SleepCover protective case – sold separately for 30 euros – is also made of recycled materials. Another good point, Kobo intends to offset 100% of the carbon emissions associated with shipping its eReaders to customers.
The Clara 2E reader is already available for pre-order on Kobo’s online store, but will only arrive in our hands from September 22. It is priced at 150 euros, a lower price than the launch of the Kindle PaperWhite, but higher than its current price, which at the time of this writing falls below 100 euros for the 8 GB version – the Clara 2E therefore has 8 GB of flash memory more, while making a gesture for the environment.
