Kobo Mini

If a market for cheap, entry-level e-readers didn’t exist, Kobo would have no trouble kickstarting one with its no-frills 5-inch Kobo Mini. It weighs in at just a little over 130 grams and measures 10mm thick, and features a touch-enabled 5-inch e-ink display, 2GB internal storage, Wi-Fi, and up to a month of battery life on a single charge. It may not have the fastest processor or the biggest e-book library, but for easy reading on the go without spending too much money, it can definitely get the job done.

It supports a wide variety of digital content formats such as EPUB, PDF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TXT, HTML, CBR, and even CBZ. It also comes with 7 different font styles at 24 font sizes, and exclusive weight and sharpness settings. The built-in dictionary helps ensure that readers never feel lost. And with exclusive Kobo Everywhere technology, e-books can be stored and retrieved safely from a cloud storage folder.

One of its biggest features is undoubtedly its tight social networking integration. Unlike other e-book readers, it works well with Facebook and Twitter, so users can share things like book passages wherever and whenever they want. While it doesn’t have a lot of extra features, it certainly has all the ones that matter for those who don’t want their reader to get in the way of the reading.

Need to Know: Kobo Mini

1. Accompanying Kobo eBookstore offers almost 3 million books, newspapers, and magazines to its users. (The Good)

2. Battery life lasts up to a month with Wi-Fi turned off. (The Good)

3. Its processor has been slowed down to conserve power but this also results in slower performance. (The Bad)

4. Lacks 3G wireless connectivity. (The Bad)