Kobo Libra Color Review

Design and Build

The chassis of the Kobo Libra Color is made from recycled plastics. This makes in quite light, but also quite thick compared to other tablets.

The screen is sunk into the shell, so it is not flush with the bezels. The right bezel is much wider because it houses the page-turn buttons. This edge also curls up, making this side of the tablet even wider. This lip does, however, help provide a very comfortable grip.

The rear panel is textured, which also helps with the grip. In the top corner of the rear panel is the power/sleep button. It is flush with the panel, and slightly concave, which makes in easy no locate with the fingertips.

All the corners are rounded, and the edges have a curved contour. The USB-C Port is located on the right (thicker) edge.

Overall, the Libra color is very comfortable to hold because of its ergonomic design and low weight, but the thickness and sunken screen makes it look a bit tacky and cheap.

Hardware Specs

The Libra color has a 2GHz dual-core CPU, but Kobo do not provide information about how much internal memory it has.

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…having said that, the pre-installed web browser performs poorly!

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

Screen

As mentioned previously, the screen is not flush with the bezels – it is sunk below them, a bit like a picture inside a picture frame.

Personally, I prefer flush screens because dust and other particles can get caught between the screen and bezels, and from a visual perspective, I thick it looks a bit shit.

The screen is 7″ along the diagonal, making it one of the smallest e-ink tablets on the market.

It has a Kaleido 3 color screen with a monochrome resolution of 1264×1680 (300 PPI). and a color resolution of 632×840 (150PPI:). Whilst it can be nice to have a splash of colour, particularly if reading comics, or textbooks with color charts, Kaleido 3 does have some drawbacks when compared to monochrome (which I explain here).

There is a frontlight, with warm and cold settings, which is also a useful feature (but again with some slight drawbacks). 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 Libra color has an okay screen.

Writing feel

The tactile experience of writing on the Kobo Libra 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 Libra screen are rather smooth, so there is very little friction, resulting in a slippery writing experience.

In addition, 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 in ‘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

Alongside the color screen and frontlight, the Kobo Libra Color has some other useful hardware features.

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

There’s a g-sensor, which means that the screen can auto-orientate when it is rotated. The Libra color is also waterproof (IPX 8) , which is quite a rarity in the e-ink tablet market.

Another hardware feature that is not usually found on e-ink tablets is the physical page-turn buttons. For some people (me included) having physical buttons to turn the page is a nice functionality to have when reading.

Overall, the Libra color has some unique hardware features that are usually associated with e-readers rather than e-ink tablets.

Battery

The Libra Color has a 2050m Ah battery.

Although this is quite a small capacity compared to other e-ink tablets, it actually has okay battery life, providing the frontlight is not pumped up to full. This is because the limited apps available in the Kobo firmware do not use an awful lot of power, and wifi/ Bluetooth automatically turn off when not being used.

Test (1hr)	LIBRA COLOR (% battery used)
Note-taking	3%
Reading	2%
Wifi On	+2%
Frontlight (medium)	+1%
Frontlight (full)	+9%

So, you could expect to drain about 3% 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 9% per hour. Having Wifi turned on uses an extra 1% per hour.

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

For the Libra Color, this works out at about 39% of battery use per day, which would give you 2.6 days of use before it needed to be recharged – this is poor compared to other e-ink tablets but bear in mind that cranking the frontlight full for a couple of hours is a massive factor in my test.

Accessories

Along with the Kobo Libra Color, I also bought the standard folio and the Kobo Stylus.

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 (saying that, I don’t use it very often).

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

Folio

The folio I purchased with the Kobo Libra is the one does not have a loop for the stylus – a mistake on my part when I bought it.

It is made from a soft, almost rubber-like plastic on the yellow exterior, and has a softer gray texture on the interior.

The tablet is wedged into a harder plastic tray with a cut-out for the power button on the rear. The problem with this design is that the button can’t be easily accessed if the front panel is folded back over the
rear panel (as most people do when reading) I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve put the Libra down to go and do something else and come back to find it has gone into sleep mode. To wake it back up, I have to fold the front cover back over to get to the button.

The entire right-edge of the tablet is exposed when inside the folio (the tray only has three edges). Whilst this provides handy access to the USB-C port for charging and data transfer, it also means that this entire edge is unprotected. The edges of the front/rear panels do not even overlap the edge.

There is an option to fold the folio to convert in into a stand, but this is not very stable and wobbles around.

Overall, the folio is a bit rubbish – it could have been so much better.

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 portable color e-reader, the Kobo Libra Color is okay. The Kobo software is optimised for reading, and it supports DRM-protected ebooks bought from third-party bookstores. The page turn buttons, lightweight build, and ergonomic design makes it great very comfortable to hold and for reading books.

But, as a writing tablet, or productivity tool, it is, in my opinion, a massive fail. The tactile writing experience is awful, and the software is limited.

Tablet Overview