Owners love the Clara Colour as a pocketable, lightweight reader that finally shows covers and highlights in color and connects effortlessly to library books and open formats, all without ads or Amazon. The trade-off is the color screen itself: colors read muted and the extra layer adds a grainy, screen-door look that makes plain black-and-white text softer than a regular e-ink reader. A meaningful number also hit freezing or lag, and most agree it is not the device for serious comics, manga or PDFs.
55% of 342 verified owners recommend the Kobo Clara Colour.
What 342 owners say
1,709 comments reviewed · scored on the 342 clearest verdicts
55%
Recommend
187 owners
22%
Neutral
78 owners
23%
Don't recommend
77 owners
Last 6 months:48% recommend(85 recent verdicts)→ holding steady vs older reviews
Source
Breakdown
Score
N
Counted in the score
Reddit
55%
339
Other forums
50%
2
Independent blogsiIndependent blogs with no affiliate links or paid relationship — we checked every one.no affiliate links
100%
1
Reviewed, but not counted — and why
Affiliate blogsiThese blogs earn a commission when you buy. Across our data they rate products ~35 points more positively than actual owners — shown for transparency, never counted in the score.paid commission
33%
3
Affiliate blogs here say 33% recommend, while the owner-based score is 55%. They earn a commission on every sale — so we show them for transparency but never let them move the score.
The headline score reflects owners (Reddit, enthusiast forums), independent lab tests, and blogs with no affiliate links. YouTube and affiliate blogs are shown for perspective but kept out — hover the i for why.
What owners like
Small, light and pocketable, easy to hold one-handed and carry everywhere · 40 · 12%
Seeing book covers, comics and highlights in color is a real joy · 38 · 11%
Easy sideloading, open formats and seamless library access via built-in Libby/Overdrive · 26 · 8%
Owners who switched from Kindle are happy and glad to leave Amazon and its ads · 24 · 7%
Easy on the eyes with warm light and solid battery life · 18 · 5%
What owners flag
Color looks muted and washed out, more like colored newspaper than vivid print · 17 · 5%
The color layer adds a grainy, screen-door texture over the page · 16 · 5%
Black-and-white text is softer and lower-contrast than a pure e-ink reader · 14 · 4%
Freezing, crashing and page-turn or zoom lag for some owners · 13 · 4%
Too small and slow for comics, manga and zoomed-in PDFs · 10 · 3%
Top quotes, sourced
1,709 reviewed · 307 shown
Sentiment
Community
Sort
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I just bought The Witcher omniubus, and it is basically unreadable on my Kobo Clara Colour. The font is far to small for comfortable reading. There is a zoom option, but that is not a good experience with eInk.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I love my kobo Clara Colour. The touch on it works great. It’s colour and it’s portable. There is no buttons to mess with. Love mine so much.”
Reddit— neutral
“its new to me and I've been enjoying the few pics so far. i would like something with better built quality in the future. Could definitely use some colour, seeing some really nice combos on this forum, happy with the functionality for now. It is a Kobo Clara Colour, it's an e-reader.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I bought a Kobo Clara Colour, quite content. My Kindle Paperwhite is now in a drawer and my library in Calibre.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I just made one for the Kobo Clara Colour and this e-reader is slower than the older clara 2E even if the color version has a better CPU! (Kaleido 3 are more power hungry for sure...)”
Reddit— neutral
“Mind you, this is for Kobo e-readers. Tablets use different screens and would still omit light even at the darkest setting. Mine is the Kobo Clara Colour.”
Reddit— neutral
“I have the Kobo Clara Colour, which is more affordable & more portable, I mainly like to highlight in colour so it’s good for that, but no digital note taking ability.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“That makes purchasing a kobo a better deal in my opinion 🤷🏾♀️. See the side by side comparison between my kobo clara colour and matcha basic below 🙂.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“The Kobo Clara Colour screen seemed a little distorted, or the texture because of the color feature so I ended up exchanging for the Kobo Clara BW which is the best of both worlds, IMO.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I've been struggling with this and general lagging since I bought my Kobo Clara Colour and reading this gave me the strength I needed to go to the store and request a refund”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I really wanted a coloured ereader and not only was the Kindle Colorsoft worse reviewed, it was like £100 more expensive than the Kobo Clara Colour. The Clara is also water resistant which is great because I'm a klutz, iirc only the Paperwhite is.”
Reddit— neutral
“I think I prefer the paperwhite, the clarity is better and find the kobo screen a bit yellow (but need to fiddle with the settings to offset that).”
Reddit— neutral
“I tried using [Embed Comic Metadata](https://github.com/dickloraine/EmbedComicMetadata), and Kobo Clara Colour doesn't like the metadata so much.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I called myself buying a Kobo Clara Colour when they were released and hated it. With myself, I notice the color on my Colorsoft being a bit more crisp compared to the kobo.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I mainly use the Clara and the Voyage. The Voyage is such an amazing ereader, I think it will always be my favourite.”
Reddit— neutral
“My Kobo Clara Colour has pretty homogenous lighting. I can see the light a bit more in the corners from certain angles occasionally, but generally, it’s good.”
Reddit⚠ product linkThis comment contains a link to buy the product. Not a confirmed affiliate link, but a buy link in an opinion can be a form of marketing — weigh it accordingly.▲ recommend
“I ended up selling the PPW5 because I prefer the KCC for its size, weight, UI, quality of dark mode, and color feature.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“For some reason, I can’t use send djazz in my kobo clara colour :( it always says file not found. But in my kobo libra 2, it works fine when I tried to send the same file…”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I have a Kobo Clara Colour (picked up on a good offer) and a PW… I always gravitate towards the PW. My wife now uses the Clara. It didn’t add much apart from a brief novelty of having colour cover art.”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I got a Kobo Clara Colour about a month ago absolutely entirely only for colour book covers after having been a Kindle user for over a decade. I love it. It's not that much more than the BW, and the colour book covers give me a little bit of joy every time I see them. Good enough reason for me!”
Reddit— neutral
“I don't notice any difference in sharpness between the two and my kobo is actually a bit faster than Kindle but not by much. But it does ghost quicker.”
Reddit▼ don’t recommend
“I tried following that post when I got my Kobo Clara Colour and couldn’t get it to work. How are you connecting your library cards to your overdrive account?”
Reddit▲ recommend
“I switched from a Kindle Paperwhite (10th generation) to a Kobo Clara Colour and I love it. The slightly smaller form factor is great, and I really like the textured back of the Kobo.”
Reddit— neutral
“So I've just migrated from Kindle to Kobo Clara Colour.
Is it me, or is the store a bit of a wasteland in comparison to Kindle?”
