Kobo Glo review

Kobo has done staggeringly well since it launched in 2010, providing the main competition to Amazon with its excellent hardware, store and smartphone apps. The great Kobo eReader Touch kept pace with the Amazon Kindle Touch last year, and Kobo has done the same this year with its Kobo Glo.

SCREEN

As the name suggests, this model has integrated LEDs (called the ComfortLight) to light up the screen in a similar way to the light used on the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. Not only that, but Kobo has also opted for the same touchscreen E Ink Pearl screen as Amazon with a 1,024×768 resolution, up from the 800×600 screen of last year’s models.

Spec-for-spec, then, the two devices seem pretty well matched. In isolation, the Kobo’s screen looks fantastic. The higher resolution makes text that little bit sharper than before, letting you use the smaller font sizes without straining your eyes. We really like the built-in light, too, which means that you can read under any lighting condition.

Compared side-by-side with the Kindle Paperwhite and we have to say that Amazon’s device is slightly better. We found the contrast better and the text that little bit darker. The lights may use similar technology but they don’t work the same way. While the Paperwhite’s light is always on (you can adjust the intensity but not turn it off) and helps boost contrast, by making the background look brighter; the Kobo Glo’s version is more of a traditional reading light, designed for when it’s too dark to read normally.

The Glo’s light is certainly bright

Next to the Paperwhite, the Glo’s light is definitely brighter, but it’s not as well distributed and there’s a clear strip of light at the top where the LEDs are. With the light turned on the Glo’s screen is easy to read, but the text looks a little more washed out.

You can turn the light off using the dedicated button on top, next to the power slider

Kobo has fitted a dedicated button to turn the ComfortLight on and off, and there’s an on-screen slider to change the brightness. There’s no information on-screen to show you the level that you’ve set it at, as with the Paperwhite, so you have to judge the setting by eye.