Discover the Kobo Clara Colour: A Top Kindle Alternative That Saves You $90!

Tobias Nguyen

April 14, 2026

I tested the Kobo Clara Colour, and it’s the best Kindle Colorsoft alternative — for $90 less

By

Erin Bashford

published 13 April 26

Editor's Choice

The Kobo Clara Colour is the best Kindle alternative, with a paperlike display, night mode included, waterproofing, long battery life, and a full color screen.

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The Kobo Clara Colour emerges as a standout device, incorporating top functionalities from Amazon’s premier e-readers. This device boasts a colorful display, warm lighting for nighttime reading, a responsive touchscreen, an impressive 49-hour battery life, complete waterproofing, and built-in Libby e-book lending capabilities. What’s more, it’s priced $90 less than its Kindle counterpart, the Colorsoft.

So, does the Clara Colour rank as one of the top e-readers available? Absolutely! I adore my Clara Colour. It meets all my e-reader needs perfectly. The display mimics the quality of paper and remains clear even under direct sunlight. Additionally, its adjustable brightness is a boon for reading in dim settings like during nighttime travels, eliminating the need for an external light source.

However, it is worth noting that the Kobo library has fewer titles compared to the Kindle library. For me, this hasn’t been an issue as I have found every book I wanted on Kobo. Yet, for those who frequently delve into self-published titles via Kindle Unlimited, the larger library might be more appealing. Read on for a detailed look at Kobo Clara Colour.

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Who is it for? If you’re looking for an economically priced e-reader.

What does it do well? Offers all the essential features at $90 less than the Kindle Colorsoft.

What are its weaknesses? The Kobo library is less extensive, which might not affect everyone.

What should you use it for? Perfect for reigniting your passion for reading.

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Price	$159/£149
Display	6 inches
Dimensions	4.4 x 6.3 x 0.4 inches
Storage	16GB (12,000 books, 75 audiobooks)
Waterproofing	IPX8
Light	Electronic ink, no blue light
Battery life	49 hours
Connectivity	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-C
Bookstore	Kobo, Libby/Overdrive

Disclaimer

To respect copyright, all book text was blurred. The display quality of the Kobo Clara Colour is crisp and vivid in reality.

Interestingly, the name “Kobo Clara Colour” is spelled the same in both the U.K. and the U.S., despite “colour” being the British/Canadian/Australian spelling. In the U.S., the Clara Colour is available for $159 at Amazon, and it costs £149 in the U.K.

Indeed, the name says it all: the Clara Colour is the colorful iteration of the BW model, which retails at $139/£139. This is Kobo’s introductory model: if you’re looking for something comparable to the Kindle Scribe ($449), you might consider the Kobo Libra Colour ($229) or the Kobo Elipsa 2E ($399).

The Kobo Clara Colour is significantly less expensive than its Kindle counterpart — the Colorsoft is $249, making it $90 more expensive than the Clara Colour. Similarly, the BW Clara is $139, while the Kindle Paperwhite is $159. Notably, the basic Kindle, priced at just $109, lacks a warm light feature (unlike the Kobo Clara), so you can’t switch to a night-safe reading mode.

The Kobo Clara Colour has a lot to offer: night mode, clear display, vibrant color, IPX8 rating, lightweight design, an easily navigable library, and more.

Night mode!

Unlike the basic Kindle, which lacks a night mode/warm setting, the Kobo Clara Colour offers both daytime and nighttime display options. You can either set the night mode to activate automatically or adjust it manually.

When I first began using the Clara Colour, I scheduled my bedtime at 9:00PM (yes, I’m an early sleeper). You can choose between 9:00PM-3:00AM, which seems a bit extreme. Who stays up until 3:00AM? Ideally, I think it would make more sense for bedtime settings to align with local sunset and sunrise times — but this isn’t a major issue, as you can manually activate night mode whenever the sun sets in your area.

Moreover, if you find yourself reading at night in a dark setting — such as on a plane where you don’t want to disturb others by turning on the overhead light — you can simply increase the brightness while in night mode. Although it’s not completely free of blue light, reading on a frontlit e-reader with a warm filter is not significantly harmful to your melatonin levels.

Paperlike display

As previously mentioned, the Clara Colour employs a frontlit display rather than the LED, backlit displays common in smartphones and tablets, which emit blue light that can be hard to read in sunlight and may disrupt melatonin production.

The Clara Colour features a frontlit display, which uses small LEDs to illuminate the screen itself rather than shining light into your eyes. This also contributes to its paperlike appearance — I genuinely believe it looks 99% like real paper.

Check out the display in direct sunlight.

As you can see, the text is perfectly clear, even under strong, direct sunlight. I don’t think the screen appears grainy or suffers from residual shadows (also known as “ghosting”), unlike the Kindle Paperwhite, which is known for this issue.

Pool-safe, dunk-in-the-tub-surviving IPX8 rating

The Clara Colour is IPX8 rated, meaning it can withstand submersion in up to 2 meters of water for up to 60 minutes. The Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Paperwhite also have the same IPX8 rating, but the basic Kindle model offers no waterproofing.

In practical terms, this means you can accidentally drop your Clara Colour in the bathtub or relax beside the pool without worrying about it being damaged.

E-book renting — local library dependent, of course

If your local library utilizes Libby (Overdrive), you can rent e-books just as you would borrow physical books. Unfortunately, my local library uses BorrowBox, which isn’t available directly on the Kobo store. However, I can still download e-books from BorrowBox and manually transfer them to my Kobo using Adobe Digital Editions and a USB-C cable.

I hope to see Kobo introduce direct BorrowBox compatibility soon, as it’s much more commonly used than Libby in the U.K., where I reside.

If you’re in the U.S., though, you’re in luck. Libby is used by 22,000 libraries across