Kobo, owned by Rakuten, is once again taking on Amazon with a new e Ink e-book reader and agenda, the Kobo Elipsa 2E.
Kobo’s alternative to Kindle Scribe or a Remarkable tablet will launch on April 19th and retail for $399. Is it worth the price tag? Check out the Kobo Elipsa 2E features and new specs, as well as the prices for Kobo Plus and the Kobo Plus trial.
The Kobo Elipsa 2E vs Kobo Elipsa the original
At first glance, not much has changed from the Kobo Elipsa to the Kobo Elipsa 2, not even the price tag, since they both retail for $399 including the stylus.
They both come with a 10.3-inch eInk display, 32GB of storage, Bluetooth support and the ability to export your notes via the cloud. Kobo Elipsa 2E supports formats including EPUB, EPUB3, FlePub, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, and CBR.
So, what’s the difference between Kobo Elipsa and Kobo Elipsa 2E?
First off, if you preorder the Kobo Elipsa 2 in the US, UK, Australia or Canada, you get a $25 Kobo e-gift card, so that’s a significant discount right there.
Then, the Kobo Elipsa 2E has a new Kobo Stylus. The Kobo Stylus 2 magnetically attaches to the Kobo Elipsa 2 and has the eraser moved to the back, as you’d expect from a traditional pencil, not near the tip.
Most significantly, the Kobo Stylus 2 is rechargeable, so you don’t have to keep replacing batteries.
And lastly, the new e-book reader comes with a new Kobo Elipsa 2E SleepCover, which, as the name suggests, puts the e-reader to sleep when you close the cover.
As part of Kobo’s eco-friendly approach, the Kobo Elipsa 2E is made out of 85 percent recycled plastic, while the cover is made from more than 97% recycled plastic.
Still, the most exciting news coming from Rakuten’s Kobo is the announcement of its own subscription service – the Kobo Plus, which is an interesting alternative to Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited.
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The Kobo Plus prices and services – an alternative to Kindle Unlimited
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Right now, owners of e-book readers and lovers of audiobooks were pretty much stuck with Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited subscription if they wanted to read a lot without breaking the bank.
Now, Kobo is debuting Kobo Plus in the US as well. This is a subscription for readers that starts at just $7.99 per month.
The Kobo Plus service will be available in three subscription tiers. It lets you access 1.3 million ebooks and 100,000 audiobooks, with the catalog growing monthly.
What are the Kobo Plus subscription prices?
You have Kobo Plus Read for e-books at $7.99 per month, which only lets you access the ebooks sold by the company.
You have Kobo Plus Listen for audiobooks at $7.99 per month, the same price as the Kobo Plus ebook subscription, which obviously gets you access to the audiobooks.
And then you have the full Kobo Plus subscription at $9.99, the obviously much better deal, since it includes access to both Kobo Plus Read and Listen Plans.
If the audiobook you want isn’t available in the Kobo Plus subscription catalog, which includes 100,000 titles, you can also subscribe to the extra Kobo Audiobooks credit, which is $9.99 per month.
The Kobo Audiobooks credit system works pretty much like Amazon’s Audible. In exchange for the subscription, you get 1 monthly credit you can exchange for an audiobook of your choice, no matter its retail price. Under this program, Kobo offers more than 350,000 audiobooks.
Kobo Plus free trial
Notably, there is also a free trial for Kobo Plus that lasts for 30 days. That’s plenty of time to see which option makes more sense to you and if the books you want are available in Kobo Plus.
The Kobo Plus subscription also doesn’t tie you into a single device like the Kobo Elipsa 2E. Instead, you can also read the books you download on the Kobo Android, iOS or desktop app.
How many Kobo Plus books can you download for offline reading? According to the service FAQ, you can read a maximum of 15 Kobo Plus books while offline, over a 30-day period.
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