Kobo Glo

The number of e-book readers with built-in backlighting used to be zero. No longer. There are now over half a dozen e-book readers with backlit screens, and one of them is the Kobo Glo. It comes with a rather sizable 6-inch e-ink Pearl touchscreen display and lasts up to 55 hours of continuous usage with the light on.

In terms of speed, the Glo has no issues. It runs on a 1GHz Freescale processor that’s more than capable of driving the 1024×758 pixel touchscreen display. The high native resolution results in crisp on-screen text, great for reading on the go. And of course, with the built-in backlighting, it’s possible to read pretty much anywhere regardless of whether it is day or night.

As with Kobo’s other e-book readers, the Glo is designed to work well with social networks and offers easy access to nearly 3 million books in the Kobo eBookstore. And the best thing is that it is available in a range of different colors, so you can easily choose a style that’s uniquely you.

Need to Know: Kobo Glo

1. High-resolution e-ink Pearl touchscreen display offers crisp text on all kinds of digital content. (The Good)

2. Built-in backlighting makes it possible to read at all times of day. (The Good)

3. Lacks built-in 3G wireless connectivity. (The Bad)

4. A bit too expensive for its price-to-features ratio. (The Bad)