Kobo eReader gets reviewed, earns 4 of 5 stars

Readers here know that I am a rather avid reader and prefer to read on a dedicated ebook reader. I wrote a bit about some of the new options on the Apple iPad for reading, but after grabbing my Nook the other day I decided I will not be giving up my Nook because the reading experience is much better than the iPad and it is MUCH lighter. One of my favorite clients on the iPad, my Palm Pre Plus, and Nexus One is Kobo and as Joel pointed out they announced their own eReader device last month for just $149. Electronista posted a full review of the Kobo eReader and awarded it four out of five stars.

The Kobo eReader is priced quite well for an ebook reader, especially for one with a 6 inch eInk display and 1GB of integrated memory. For comparison, the Sony Pocket Edition is available for $199.99 with a 5 inch eInk display and 440MB of memory. The Kobo eReader supports Adobe Digital Editions DRM, PDF, and EPUB so you can load books from other stores or your local public library too. It is nice to see some public domain content loaded by default so you can get started reading right away.

There is no wireless connectivity for downloading content from the Kobo store so you need to connect to a PC or Mac (both are supported) to get content onto the device. Interestingly though, it does have Bluetooth that you can use to sync to a BlackBerry with Kobo loaded on it. This doesn't work with the iPhone, webOS, or Android versions of Kobo though so it is limited.

I won't be giving up my Nook for the Kobo eReader, but it looks like a decent option for those who want a lower cost eInk device to get started with.