E-Readers · owner-verdict comparison

Kobo Clara BW vs Kobo Clara Colour: what real owners say

Real owners lean toward the Kobo Clara BW: 81% of 458 owners recommend it, vs 60% of 321 for the Kobo Clara Colour.

Verdicts aggregated from Reddit, enthusiast forums, and YouTube owner comments — affiliate reviews excluded. Sample sizes differ; judge accordingly. How we score

Kobo Clara BW

81%of 458 owners recommend

81% recommend · 11% neutral · 8% don't

Owners praise

Crisp, sharp, high-contrast screen
Compact, light and pocketable
Easy sideloading and library support

Owners complain about

Build feels cheap and plasticky
Uneven lighting or yellow tinge
Ghosting on page turns

Full owner report →

Kobo Clara Colour

60%of 321 owners recommend

60% recommend · 15% neutral · 25% don't

Owners praise

Color covers, comics and highlighting
Compact, light and portable
Easy sideloading and library support

Owners complain about

Grainy texture, lower B&W contrast
Freezing, crashing and bugs
Dark screen needs backlight on

Full owner report →

What Kobo Clara BW owners say

“I have to say 6" is the way to go. Most comfortable for reading”
— @moltenbullet on YouTube

“Kobo it is then , i will not fed these greedy leeches from amazon”
— @devilhaque on YouTube

“the screen lighting is too uneven to work for me when in any kind of the night mode warm color. I am loving going back to such a smaller size device though.”
— PixelSquish on Reddit

What Kobo Clara Colour owners say

“Thank you kobo for the ease of use for someone with thousands of ebooks already in a (non-amazon) library.”
— @ljroberts83 on YouTube

“I have the same one and I’m so in love with it!! everyone hates the screen but for me I can read perfectly and the colour is huge for me”
— @log81427 on YouTube

“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.”
— davyyd on Reddit