Kobo Elipsa 2E Review

Design and Build

The chassis of the Kobo Elipsa 2E is made from recycled plastics. This makes in quite light compared to other tablets.

It is wedge-shaped (the right side is a little thicker than the left), however, two rubber feet are fixed to the left side of the rear panel to keep it level on flat surfaces.

The screen is flush with the bezels, and the right bezel is much wider.

The rear panel is textured, which helps with the grip.

All the corners are slightly rounded, but the edges are flat. The USB-C Port, and power/sleep button are located on the right (thicker) edge.

Overall, for a 10″ tablet, the Elipsa 2E is very comfortable to hold because of its ergonomic design and low weight, however it’s durability is questionable. My screen broke after carrying it in my rucksack for ten minutes (with no jolts or bumps along the journey) within 30 days of buying it. Then I had a nightmare trying to get Kobo to replace it (the customer support was very unhelpful). And when a replacement did finally arrive, it was broken, too. I’m now on my third replacement, but I don’t use it all that much for fear of breaking it again!

Hardware Specs

The Elipsa 2E has a 2GHz dual-core CPU, and 2Gb of RAM.

However, CPU and RAM will not really be a concern because the Kobo firmware is restricted in which apps in can run. And because Kobo get to choose the installed apps, they only provide apps which will run adequately on the supplied hardware.

There’s 32Gb of storage, which should hold around 10,000 ebooks (assuming an average ebook size of 3Mb).

Screen

The screen is 10.3″ along the diagonal.

It has a monochrome Carta 1200 e-ink screen with a resolution of 1404 x 1872 (227PPI).

There is a frontlight, with warm and cold settings. The screen is quite smooth, which makes writing feel a bit slippy.

It has touchscreen capabilities, and an MPP layer (for stylus input).

Overall, the screen on the Elipsa 2E is okay, but there are much better (and newer) alternatives.

Writing feel

The tactile experience of writing on the Kobo Elipsa 2E is awful.

And much of this is due to Kobo’s decision not to use Wacom-EMR for stylus input

Wacom is a layer below the screen that converts pen strokes (from a Wacom-compatible stylus) into “ink” on me screen. It works really well, which is why all the best e-ink tablets use it.

Instead of Wacom, Kobo opted to use Microsoft Pen Protocol (MPP 2.0), which is not terrible (it is used with surface tablets and Chromebooks) but doesn’t come close to Wacom in terms of practicality and quality.

For starters, the stylus has to have its own power source. On older Kobos, a AAAA battery was required but the newer stylus can be charged via USB (Wacom uses magnets, so never runs out of power or needs charging).

I’ll go into more detail about the Kobo stylus later, but I want to mention here that it uses a cone-shaped nib, with a comparatively wide diameter (compared no other styluses). This makes it less precise and quite clunky.

The hard plastic nib also makes and annoying tapping sound every time it touches the screen. The stylus isn’t very well balanced and feels uncomfortable to hold. And both the nib and Elipsa screen are rather smooth, so there is very little friction, resulting in a slippery writing experience.

Because the frontlight layer occupies the space between the surface layer and the e-ink layer, there is a minuscule gap between where the stylus touches the screen and where the strokes appear, almost as though you are writing slightly below the screen. For new users, this is so small that it may even be imperceptible, but for existing e-ink users that are accustomed to writing on a tablet without a frontlight, the difference can be a bit of a shock, and can require some time to adjust.

Turning to the software, there is a noticeable latency when making strokes, with strokes shown on the screen lagging behind the pen movement. In addition the screen intermittently flashes to perform anti-aliasing on existing strokes, which is quite distracting.

In fairness, writing is okay (in that it ‘works’ – you can take notes on it).

But when compared to other e-ink tablets on the market, writing is not a very pleasant experience at all.

Hardware features

As well as the front light, the Kobo Elipsa 2E has some other useful hardware features.

For connectivity, both Wifi and Bluetooth are provided. And files can be transferred to and from the Elipsa via the USB-C port as well.

There’s a g-sensor, which means that the screen can auto-orientate when it is rotated.

Comparatively speaking, in terms of hardware features the Elipsa 2E only offers the bare minimum of what you’d expect from an e-ink tablet. Other brands offer a lot more, such as speakers, microphone, MicroSD, fingerprint scanner etc. But I guess these omissions contribute to keeping the tablet lightweight.

Battery

The Elipsa 2E has a 2400mAh battery, which is quite low compared to its competition. On the other hand, because the limited apps available in the Kobo firmware do not use an awful lot of power, and wifi/ Bluetooth is automatically turn off when not being used, it can be sufficient.

Test (1hr)	ELIPSA 2E (% battery used)
Note-taking	2%
Reading	2%
Wifi On	+0%
Frontlight (medium)	+1%
Frontlight (full	+2%

So, you could expect to drain about 2% of the battery per hour when note-taking, and 2% per hour when reading. If the frontlight is on a medium setting, expect to add another 1% per hour, and if it is on full, add an extra 2% per hour. Having Wifi on or off doesn’t make much of a difference (but remember this test was only an hour long, so it may make a difference over longer periods).

I calculate typical battery life from these figures by assuming 3 hours of note-taking and 2 hours of reading each day, with the Wif turned on for 3 hours, the frontlight on medium for 2 hours, and on full for 2 hours.

For the NA4C, this works out at about 16% of battery use per day, which would give you 6.3 days of use before it needed to be recharged.

Accessories

Along with the Elipsa, I also bought the Kobo Stylus (I didn’t have the funds to justify buying the folio at the time).

Stylus

The shaft of the Kobo stylus is a rounded square. It looks almost cylindrical, but has enough ‘flatness‘ to prevent it from rolling.

It is made from recycled plastics and has an eraser at the top and a customizable button on the shaft. Personally I don’t like these shaft buttons because I am prone to accidentally pressing them when writing.

It is quite top-heavy and not all that comfortable to hold. This is probably because it has to house its own battery – there is a USB-C port near the top of the shaft for charging. As mentioned previously, the more superior Wacom technology doesn’t require an on-stylus power source. (or charging).

The nib is cone-shaped, and has an appearance that is not unlike a child’s crayon. Compared to other styluses I have used, the point of the cone has a wider diameter, which makes mark-making feel less precise. The nibs are made from hard plastic which creates a hard tapping sound on the screen when writing. However, they do not appear to wear down very quickly – I’ve never had to change the nib of my Kobo stylus.

Overall, I find writing with the Kobo stylus to be very unpleasant.

Software

My review of this tablet should be read in conjunction with my review of the current firmware (see table below), which includes aspects such as the Operating System, User Interface, and Native Apps.

The hardware and software reviews have been separated because the firmware used at the time that this review was written may not be the same firmware being used currently. This could result in the review quickly becoming outdated. Also, as several tablets may use the same firmware, this would mean going back and updating every single tablet review from a particular manufacturer to account for the new firmware. By splitting them up, if there is a firmware update, I am able to make the updates on a single page.

Current versions of this brand’s firmware are shown in the table below, along with the tablets running them.

My rating	Firmware version	Tablets using this firmware
	4.43 (current version) Aug 2025	Kobo Libra Color Kobo Elipsa 2E Kobo Elipsa Kobo Sage
Older Kobo firmware versions may be found here

Brand

For some people, it is also worth considering the brand as whole, including aspects like customer service, ecosystem, values, and criticisms.

My full overview of the Kobo brand can be found here, but I have provided a summary below.

Final Verdict

As a 10″ reading device, the Elipsa 2E is okay – it is light, comfortable to hold, and supports e-books from a variety of different sources.

In every other capacity, the Elipsa 2E sucks. The tactile writing experience is completely unsatisfying, and the software is very limited. And I know from personal experience, it is prone to breaking.

I actually really like Kobo’s e-readers. But it seems like their writing tablets are just an e-reader with an inferior stylus input technology integrated into them. I don’t think they’ve taken a lot of time to assess what users want from a digital writing device at all.

Tablet Overview