Kobo Elipsa Review | PCMag

Kobo goes big with the Elipsa ($399), a 10.3-inch ebook reader as devoted to note-taking and annotation as it is to reading books. The Onyx Boox Note Air ($479) remains our overall pick if you're looking for a large-screen E Ink device, thanks to thoughtful features such as layered color annotations and a color-shifting front-light, but the Elipsa is still excellent for perusing larger-format books, resting your tired eyes with large type, enjoying graphic novels, and annotating academic or legal PDFs.

The Amazon Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite dominate mainstream digital reading in the US. Over the years, though, Japanese-Canadian contender Kobo has delivered some impressive innovations. Kobo made a waterproof ebook reader before Amazon, its products have better integration with local libraries, and the Kobo Forma has a larger screen than any Amazon Kindle does. Now the Elipsa's extra-large size and stylus open up a whole new category for the company.

Over the years, a small number of stylus-equipped ebook readers have emerged. (LCD tablets also often have styli, and their screens are more responsive than e-ink, but e-ink's restful nature and long battery life have many fans.) Sony made several in its Digital Paper line but shut down that division in 2020. Now the most prominent large-format note-taking ebook readers are the Remarkable 2, which we haven't reviewed, and the Android-based Onyx Boox e-ink tablets, which we love.

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