Round One, Hardware
Specs-wise, these two are almost equal. They both have Bluetooth for connecting headphones and listening to e-books, they have warm front lights for comfortable late-night reading, they’re waterproof, and both have battery life measured in weeks. The main difference in hardware is that the Kindle has a 6.8-inch screen, a little bigger than the Kobo’s 6-inch unit. That’s an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on whether you value a bigger screen over portability or vice versa. So far, there’s not so much to choose between the two. If you’re only looking at the hardware and specs, then Kobo wins, but seeing as an e-reader can last you for years and years, it doesn’t make that much difference.
Round Two: Software
When you’re reading an e-book, you’ll spend most of your time looking at the pages of that book, of course. I have used both Kindle and Kobo on and off over the years, and the Kobo not only has better, more customizable typography and a far-superior built-in dictionary, but it also just looks nicer. The Kindle feels like you’re reading computer text on a screen. The Kobo feels like you’re reading the page of a paper book. “The reason I keep on picking up a Kobo device is because of the reading experience,” says Kobo fan and reader ChristianBK in a Reddit thread. This might seem like a picky, esoteric difference. But if you’re in the market for an e-reader instead of reading on your phone or iPad, then you’re already in pretty esoteric territory. You’ve opted for an e-reader because it offers a superior reading experience, and typography and design are a huge part of that. Then there’s the rest of it. Kobo’s library and store views are quite different from the Kindle. Again, the Kobo feels less web-pagey than the Kindle. This isn’t always better. Kobo’s recommendations, for example, are displayed as cards in a kind of fanned stack. It’s fine, but it doesn’t make it any easier to navigate. There are two other major software differences. One is the way previews work. On the Kindle, you save a preview to your library, then you go and open it. It’s a truncated version of the book. On Kobo, you can preview the book right there in the store browser view. The experience is much more like picking up and browsing books in a store. The downside is that in my local territory, at least, the Kobo is missing a large chunk of previews. Whereas almost every book in the Kindle store offers a preview, it seems that many Kobo books do not, which means that you will probably never buy them unless you already follow the author or know the book. The other big difference is that Kobo readers have the Pocket read-later service built in. This means you can save long web articles, and they get formatted for Kobo. If you have a bunch of Kindle books already, then you may be locked into the Kindle ecosystem, but if you prefer a superior reading experience or if this is your first time buying an e-reader, consider the Kobo. They’re way nicer.
