![]() There's no question the frontlight is nice addition to the Kobo ereader. It could stand to have a slightly lower minimum brightness setting, though. The lighting appears mostly white in tone and is noticeably brighter than the Kindle Paperwhite and Nook Glow at the highest and lowest brightness settings. The brightness of the light is adjustable with an on-screen slider bar, and unlike the Kindle Paperwhite, the frontlight can be turned off completely by pressing a button along the top edge of the device. Kobo tries to hide the shadows with a black bar on screen, but there's an option in settings to turn the black bar off and I think it looks better without it because the shadows are hardly noticeable. The screen is a tad brighter at the top and there's a subtle line of shadows at the bottom of the screen. It doesn't have the large shadowy areas like the Nook Glow and there's no weird discolorations like with the Kindle Paperwhite. But it is the most evenly lit frontlight ebook reader I've seen. Like other frontlight E Ink ebook readers, the Kobo Glo's lighting isn't perfectly uniform over the entire screen, especially when compared to something like a tablet. The Kobo Glo uses the same technology as the Kindle Paperwhite and GlowLight Nook Touch with small LED lights built into the frame and a light layer over the screen to distribute the light. The FrontlightĢ012 is the year of the frontlight ereader so it's not surprising to see Kobo release a frontlight-equipped ebook reader of their own. It's not like it's as fast as a tablet of anything, but when you are used to the slower 800 MHz processor it's a noticeable improvement. Kobo decided to use a faster 1Ghz processor with the Kobo Glo and that was a good choice because it provides a noticeable speed boost over the Kobo Touch and Kobo Mini. It must have something to do with the layer used for the frontlight. Head-on you can't really notice it, but side-by-side the Kindle's screen is sharper and clearer. Speaking of dingy, the screen has sort of a rough and dirty appearance when viewed at an angle, whereas the Kindle Paperwhite looks really clear. And instead easily wiping away with a cloth they mostly just spread around and make it look dingy. The only problem with it is it shows smudges. Like Kobo's other ereaders, the Kobo Glo is covered in a soft texture front and back that feels rather pleasant to the touch. If anything the text looks a little darker without the frontlight layer. For instance, the Sony PRS-T2 with the standard E Ink screen is just as easy to read. Text is a little sharper and clearer, especially smaller text, but the high resolution screen certainly doesn't give enough of a reason to be a deciding factor over another device. The high resolution screen is a nice upgrade, but in all honesty the difference is hardly noticeable in real life. The memory is still the same too at 2GB, and there's a microSD card slot for cards up to 32GB. It still uses an infrared touchscreen and doesn't have any physical page turning buttons. The Kobo Glo brings some upgrades over the Touch, including the frontlight, a new higher resolution 1024 x 758 E Ink Pearl screen, and a faster processor. Price: $129 at Powell's Books, Indigo, WHSmith Kobo Glo Video Review Overall, the Kobo Glo has some annoying quirks and a few deficiencies, but it's still one of the better choices for a dedicated ebook reader. The high-resolution screen and better frontlight beats out the GlowLight Nook Touch too. It doesn't have quite the ease of use as the Kindle Paperwhite, nor some of the advanced features, but it has a lot more font settings, a more uniform frontlight, no annoying advertisements, and it supports Adobe ePub for ebooks from a variety of sources, making it a solid alternative to the Kindle. The Kobo Glo is the sleeper pick of the year. ![]() ![]() Frontlit ereaders tend to have slightly grayer text than non-frontlight ebook readers and subtle shadows near the LED lights-the Kobo Glo is no exception.No landscape mode for ebooks (PDFs have it).Lots of wasted space when reading, needs option for fullscreen mode and removal of spaces between paragraphs.Kobo's overall approach still isn't nearly as polished and streamlined as Amazon with the Kindle Kobo isn't as easy to deal with and learn for newbies and non-techies.Noticeable speed boost with the 1 GHz processor.It feels well-built and comfortable to hold.
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