Kobo Libra 2 | eReader | 7” Glare Free Touchscreen | Waterproof | Adjustable Brightness and Color Temperature | Blue Light Reduction | eBooks | WiFi | 32GB of Storage | Carta E Ink Technology | Black
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Lotus
05-04-2025perfect size for manga! beautiful screen, love it
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grinchmike
> 3 dayThe unit died the first day I used it, screen froze and no response, could not shut off or reset. Amazon return was painless, they sent a new unit the day I contacted them and instructions on return, took it to Kohls and took 5 minutes to complete. The Libre 2 is nice works great (so far). Easy to use and screen is very good. My daughter has the new Paperwhite, a much better built unit and the screen is better than the Libre 2. I may order one of them for myself as a back up.
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SUHarris
01-04-2025Man. I’m so glad I switched from the paperwhite. This libra 2 is 1000x better. Great battery life, way easier to hold. Perfect size. Love that I can read horizontal or vertical. The buttons are amazing. Like I cannot recommend this enough. It integrates so well with calibre if you use that to organize your books!!
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Addy
> 3 dayI upgraded to this from the original Paperwhite. While I loved my Paperwhite, it had no backlight and was showing sings of wear and tear. After a lot of research, I chose Kobo due to the native overdrive configuration. To be able to check out library books directly to my device was amazing. I love this thing! Its quick, snappy, I CAN READ AT NIGHT, and the ability to click buttons to turn the page is something I didnt realize I needed. I also love the placement of the power button on the back. I never accidentally lock it while reading. The Kobo store is more pricey than the kindle store (makes sense because kindle works out deals with their authors) but they have sales and your points build up quickly. I believe that it also accepts epubs natively if you need to sideload books bought on other platforms.
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Noe Valley Expat
> 3 day3 stars of 5 — cant recommend purchasing at this price. Kobo is supposed to have three things going for it, when compared to the Amazon Kindle: (1) checking out library books; (2) less intrusive advertising; and (3) less tracking/selling of your personal data. It rates poorly in all three categories. As far as the core purpose, reading ebooks: this Kobo is every bit as good as the comparable Kindles. I like the shape and heft of it — its more substantial than the smaller Kindles, which is better for me. Theres more than enough lighting, font, and other options to keep me reading. Theres even a Dyslexic-style font, which helps many people who simply find it difficult to move from the printed page to ebooks. Checking out library books isnt that much easier on the Kobo, because the default search takes you to purchase options, so it takes several clicks to check out the book. I found it easier to find books on the Librarys site, and follow the prompt on the Kobo after... which is no different than for Kindle. Likewise, if you discount the Kindles screensaver adverts, the Kobo pushes you just as hard towards Kobo purchases as Amazon does towards its ecosystem. And as for privacy, its hard to independent evaluate the difference. Amazon makes a lot of money from data gathering, sharing, selling and its hard to imagine that Kobo can afford to turn all of that down. So in the end, I find the Kobo simply to be a more expensive competitor, without the UI (or privacy) benefits we might see if it were an Apple product. Consequently, I dont see much reason to go with Kobo unless you really dont want give more money to Amazon.
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Ean Oz Sager
> 3 dayI had a kindle and this is so much better! integrates directly with Overdrive, most of the books I have wanted to read have been available. You get about twice as much bang for your buck as with Kindle. The books are slightly more expensive but you arent locked into a specific store to purchase them.
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Shafiq Jelani
> 3 dayI comes from kindle. And the kobo libra 2 just blow my mind. Its so much crispier. After looking at kindle screen for years now up to the latest gen, the kobo libra 2 display is the best one. Text are so crispier and less eyes strain.
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Freda Powell
Greater than one weekI really like the size. My hands get arthritic some days and this reader is the perfect size to hold. Larger than a cell phone, smaller than a hard cover book. VERY light weight with out a cover. Its the cover that makes it feel just a tad heavy. I can choose font, font size, brightness, and button management and a couple of other features Im not sure how to use but overall a great product.
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Chris M
> 3 dayUPDATE: Im increasing my rating from 4 to 5 stars after using for months. With software updates, the device has been very stable and a pure joy to read on. ORIGINAL REVIEW: Overall, I think the Libra 2 is a fantastic ebook e-reader, and I recommend it. There are a few things that knock off 1 star from a perfect rating, though. Hardware - The good things: - The screen is amazing. The text is very crisp and dark and the front light is very even (at least on my unit). - The warm light is very pleasing for evening/night reading and works very well. (The evenness of the lighting was ever-so-slightly not perfect with the addition of the highest setting of warm light, but not enough to be distracting). - The rounded corners of the grip side make holding it in one hand fairly comfortable. - The weight of the device is light enough that it can be held one-handed (without a case) in comfort for a while. - The battery provided me 20 hours of reading using very generous front-lighting (probably over 70% most times) (with Wi-Fi turned off). The battery reached 10% at that point and popped up a low battery message. Im not sure how this compares to other e-readers since manufacturers like to advertise in weeks instead of hours, but using their convention of 30 minutes per day, this would be about 6 weeks of reading between charges. - Its available in white, which is what I got, because it is very good at concealing fingerprints. - The power buttons location is well placed. It never gets accidentally pressed and is easy to feel for without looking, and it has a definite click to know that its been pressed. - The USB-C port is obviously nice to have (vs. micro USB). (Note: The included cable is a USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable, and no charger is included. So you will still need a charging brick with a Type-A port to use with this, and will need a Type-A port (or adapter) on your computer if you connect it to one.) Hardware - The not-so-good things: - The plastic case has a cheap feeling to the touch. It is not as nice as the more rubbery touch of the Kindle Paperwhite, for example. My unit even makes a slight creaking noise when squeezed gently near the corners. The embedded texture on the back helps make it feel a bit less cheap and does help to provide more grip when using without a case, but it still isnt pleasurable to the touch. Its just plastic. if you use a case while holding it, this wont be an issue. - The page turn buttons, whether by design or not, have an uneven pressure to them. If pressed toward the inside, it requires much more force to get it to click. If pressed toward the outside, only a light force is required. - When turning the front light completely off, the screen background is grayer (less white, less contrast) than other e-readers Ive seen (e.g. Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Oasis). (But with almost any amount of front light, the contrast is outstanding.) Hardware - One other thing: - The screen is slightly recessed. I personally prefer this to flush-screen e-readers. It doesnt have as premium a look, but it makes it very obvious to feel if the touchscreen is being contacted or not and prevent accidental touches. Software - The good things (common to all Kobo e-readers): - The interface is very well organized, clean, and simple to use. - The front light brightness can be adjusted with just a simple swipe up or down along the left edge of the screen, without first dropping down any menu and then having to close that menu. - The header can optionally show remaining pages in the chapter, which I find to be more useful than an estimate of how much more time is left, which can easily be miscalculated. - A subtle book progress bar is optionally displayed along the bottom of the screen. I really like this and prefer it to seeing a percentage. It provides a similar feeling to reading a physical book, where you can just tell how far you are in it, but without having to take any more screen space than necessary. - Kobos concept of pages: I really like the way Kobo software determines how many pages are in a book. It readjusts this number automatically based on the font size, margin settings, etc., so when it displays the number of pages left in a chapter, for example, you know that there are exactly that many page turns left for the settings you have selected for that book. I find this to be much more useful than Kindles way of showing pages, which is to correspond to the published physical book when possible. - Built-in Overdrive. Its nice to be able to check out and return books from the library right from the device. - Built in Pocket App support. I have not used this feature, but its nice to know I can read supported web articles on the Kobo if I want. - epub format support: Ive found that some of the classic literature is available in epub (but not Kindle) format, so I can borrow from the library without having to use any conversion software as I would on a Kindle. - Installing additional fonts is simple. Just connect to a computer, create a fonts folder, and drag the fonts into it. Software - The not-so-good things: - There are still some bugs (which will hopefully be fixed). My initial experience was not great. But all the bugs I found and list here were encountered during setup and configuration. I have not had any issue at all during reading sessions, which is what is most important. - Upon first powering up and connecting to Wi-Fi, after the device did an immediate software update and appeared to be finished with it, it became EXTREMELY laggy. It would take maybe 30 seconds to respond to actions. Rebooting resolved it. - The device has rebooted spontaneously while searching the Overdrive catalog and locked up completely a couple times (once while in sleep mode and once while changing a setting). - After connecting to Wi-Fi successfully, the device prompted me again for the password the next time I connected and again a third time. Only after that did it finally save the connection settings as it should. - When an Overdrive library book is returned, Kobos automatically download a preview copy from their store as a placeholder (supposedly to store annotations, bookmarks, etc, but also Im sure as a convenient way to purchase the book). Thats a bit annoying, and these can easily be removed after being downloaded, but one time it downloaded preview copies alongside their corresponding three library books I had checked out (that I had NOT returned and were NOT expired) and it erased all my progress in them. I have not tested any of the audiobook or bluetooth features. For me, I like the device so much that the issues I listed are easily acceptable. The bottom line is that it is very enjoyable to read on the Kobo Libra 2.
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ksmith
> 3 daygot first one put epub on an worked for about 6% of book then lockup an reboot tried reseting rebooting diff file, did the online help and was sent one next day this worked fine to 20% read . then could not get it to load at all did some searching an found few people say convert to kepub , calibre can install the addon. first book is working perfectly now