Hasta La Gadget!

Kobo has just revealed its new, limited-edition E Ink Reader that will be available for pre-order beginning tomorrow for the price of $169.99. The eReader is dubbed the Kobo Aura HD, and it will be available in 3 colors: Ivory, Espresso, and Onyx (White, Brown, and Black). This new eReader is what Wayne White, the EVP and GM of Devices for Kobo, calls, “The Porsche of eReaders”. He says that it pushes the boundaries of eReading, and is designed for those who are in the “driver’s seat of their eReading adventures.”

The Kobo Aura HD features a 6.8-inch Pearl E Ink 265dpi touchscreen display, a 1GHz processor, which Kobo says “makes it the fastest eReader on the market,” 4GB of storage (with a microSD card slot for expandable storage of up to 32GB), two months of usage on a single charge, and many software features. There are 10 fonts included in the Aura HD with 24 adjustable font sizes, “displaying each letter with perfection”.

Just last September, Kobo launched a new line-up of eReader devices, which included the Kobo Glo, Kobo Mini, and Kobo Arc. The Kobo Glo went on sale for $129.99 and featured a 6-inch E Ink screen with a backlight to improve reading in the dark. The Kobo Mini was a small, 5-inch E Ink display that retailed for $79.99, and was dubbed the world’s smallest and lightest eReader, and finally, the Kobo Arc was not exactly a eReader, but a $199.99 – $249.99 Android device, which operates on a dual-core 1.5GHz processor and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

If you want to pre-order the Kobo Aura HD, you can do it through Kobo itself, or through its various resellers. Kobo designed the Aura HD to thank its 13-million user base. Back in January, Kobo announced that its eReader sales had doubled, and that it gained over 4 million customers since last summer. Michael Serbinins, CEO of Kobo, stated,

“Kobo Aura HD is designed for the most passionate booklovers – those who devour hundreds of stories each year – who asked us to create the ultimate ereading experience. Kobo Aura HD is our way of celebrating these customers.”

Kobo unveils the limited edition Aura HD eReader is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

High-def finally has come to e-readers.

Strange, but until now, if you were aching for a Kobo reader, the company’s site would redirect you to a third-party like Best Buy or select independent booksellers. The tablet / e-reader maker has finally opened up direct sales of devices like the Kobo Glo, Mini and Arc directly through its site to interested parties in Canada and the US. Of course, if you’re so inclined, you can still buy those products and a number of accessories through the aforementioned partner sites. There’s a press release after the break to help you decide.

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If you’re an owner of the Kobo Arc tablet, the manufacturer has announced a new Android update is available. The new update promises to optimize the user experience of the tablet with faster performance, better search capability, increased touchscreen responsiveness, and additional features. The update also brings new notifications that the manufacturer describes as actionable.

Kobo says that the update should be offered to owners of the tablet when they next connect to Wi-Fi network. Kobo is mostly known for creating digital readers, but the Arc is more than a digital reader alone thanks to the Android operating system allowing access to books, video, and the web. The Android update that’s available now will bring the operating system to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Kobo says that the benefits of upgrading to the new version of the operating system include the addition of Google Now, which personalizes information available to the user based on their location, time of day, history, and calendar events. The upgrade brings richer notifications allowing users to receive action notifications directly within the notifications area.

The new notifications can also be expanded or collapsed to provide more or less detail. The search functionality of the Arc tablet is improved allowing the user to perform text or voice searches. The update also allows Google Search to be opened directly from the lock screen by swiping up with a finger. The update also brings optimized voice recognition and improved predictive typing. The Arc also gets a special Face Unlock tool that calibrates in different conditions and requires a blink to verify that a real person is unlocking device.

[via Kobo]

Kobo announces Android 4.1 update for the Arc tablet is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Kobo’s starting its post-CES 2013 (the year doesn’t really start until after the Consumer Electronic Show, right?) with a little bit of sales-inspired back patting. Apparently the company managed to bring 4 million folks on-board to its e-reading ways over the past six months, bumping up its registered user number to 12 million. Kobo’s also calling last month its largest yet, thanks in no small part to the release of a number of new devices, including the Mini, Glo and Arc. All of offer up a reminder that, while the company doesn’t have much of a foothold here in the States, it’s pushing for a much larger presence in places like its home country of Canada and Japan, where its owner Rakuten is a retail powerhouse.

Continue reading Kobo touts ‘millions’ of sales in 2012

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