Kobo Glo HD

While it might seem as though Amazon has a tight grip in the e-reader market there are, in fact, other choices available – most notably the Kobo Glo HD. It comes in a fairly small package of 6.1 x 4.5 x 0.3 inches and weighs in at only 180 grams. Experts found it incredibly easy to grip and comfortable to hold thanks to its larger bezels and dimpled, rubberized back cover. It also only comes with the only the necessary buttons and ports: power, reset and micro-USB port. The only issue critics ran into when handling the device was a slight creakiness to the front when they held it tightly.

In an effort to edge out Amazon, the Glo HD’s 6-inch display offers a resolution of 1,448 x 1072 pixels for a pixel density of 300pixels per inch. This is slightly higher than the Kindle Voyage though not by much. Still, reviewers were sufficiently impressed with the sharp text and clearer images with Tech Radar stating, “…it’s the best experience I’ve had on an ereader.” Even in bright sunlight critics did not experience any glare thanks to e-ink technology. As the “glo” in the name suggests, the Glo HD offers front lighting for low-light reading, which offered experts fairly even light distribution. With that said, they did notice some discoloration and blotchiness towards near the bottom bezel. As the Glo HD has limited buttons, the majority of commands are done through the touch screen, which experts found to be very responsive.

Despite its 1GHz processor, reviewers actually noticed significant lag when turning pages or opening up a new book when compared to the Kindle Voyage. Still, they add it does handle the HD screen well enough and while the delay was annoying it wasn’t a deal breaker. Battery-life is fairly standard and drained down to 50 percent after a month of use even with WiFi always enabled. The Glo HD also comes with 4GB of internal storage. Unfortunately, it does not come with an expandable microSD slot. To counteract this Kobo offers a cloud service to store your e-books. Speaking of books, it should come as no surprise that Kobo cannot compete with Kindle devices in terms of sheer book selection. Despite its smaller library it still offers more than 4.7 million titles and supports 15 file formats including ePub and ePub3.

Despite its limitations, reviewers still recommend the Kobo Glo HD. CNET states, “…we can confidently recommend the Glo HD as an upgrade to the Glo, or for someone looking for their first-time e-reader.” Mashable adds, “…the Glo HD has just about everything most users want from a current-gen e-reader…”