Kobo Clara HD | eReader | 6" Glare Free Touchscreen | Adjustable Brightness & Colour Temperature | WiFi | 8GB of Storage | Carta E Ink Technology (Clara HD)

If you want an ereader that's cheap, good, and moddable, this is the one. There's a lot of software mods out there, but I find the default UI is totally fine. I don't want a device that can do everything, I want one that's comfortable and easy to use, and the vanilla UI is perfectly fine. However, if you like reading manga like I do, that 8gb of storage is gonna fill up fast. Luckily, the device is easy to open, and uses a regular SD card for storage. You just need to make an image of the drive it came with, flash it to a bigger SD card (I believe it has been tested to support up to 128gb), and use a tool to expand the storage partition of the card to fill the rest of the card. It uses a FAT32 filesystem, and the only one I could find that could do that for free was gparted. I used my linux laptop to do that, but I think there's a windows port and you could also always boot up a VM if needed. Just make sure you use a fast SD card. Don't cheap out on that.I've also had a few issues with managing books through Calibre even before doing the mod, but for the most part it's been easy to fix. One time I had an error where the database got borked, and had to factory reset it and reupload all my books. However I suspect that was a user error or something because I've had no issues like that since. The only problem I consistently have is that the metadata on new books are incorrect even if I manually update the metadata before ejecting, but the solution to that is just plugging it back in, updating metadata again, and then ejecting it. That always fixes it.I don't know why Kobo doesn't include a higher storage size by default, or even as an option. The mod is so easy and 8gb is really not enough for a system that supports cbr/cbz files.My only guess is that the extra storage space slows it down a bit when opening books, and it does- only a little bit, and only when opening a book- but that slowdown is probaby only present on big cards. My pick of 128gb is way overkill, but I wanted to be able to store everything on one device, including manga. OH yeah, one other little issue with big files- it can't load anything over 2gb. It appears in the filesystem when looking at the drive, but the device doesn't see it and it doesn't show up in Calibre. Luckily, for books that's a total non-issue, but for long comics like many popular manga, you'll have to split it up into multiple chunks. Personally, I wound up dividing long runs into multi-volume files, like "Jojolion Vol. 01-14" and Jojolion Vol. 15-27". Pretty easy workaround, and since cbz files are just zip files with a different extension, it's pretty easy to do.Overall, a great device, at a great price. The Android to Kindle's iPhone.

The Kobo is sort of the Linux of e-readers to the Paperwhite's MS Windows. If you want an easy-to-use, robust store and having all your books in the Amazon cloud then the Paperwhite is for you. However if you don't want your e-readers confined to the Amazon eco-space and desire to be able to easily add many different formats the Clara HD is the easy choice.First of all, forget any sort of competent software from Rakuten/Kobo to install on your PC to transfer books. Seriously, you'll hate yourself if you manage to locate and install their app. Just do what everyone does and download the free Calibre software (google it). And pass them a few bucks while you're at it. Calibre provides the ability to organize your ebook library as well as transfer to your Clara. It's a wonderful program I've been using for years and is actively updated. The Kobo connects to Walmarts ebook store and its perfectly fine to use for easy purchases.I do feel that much of what is said about the touchscreen not being quite as sensitive as the Paperwhite is true. It just misses the occasional swipe which can be annoying. However the excellent backlighting and color variations makes up for it. Very comfortable to hold and lightweight. Battery is very good but not amazing. I'd give it a 4.5 if I could but I round up to 5 and I'm thankful that at least one manufacturer has the ability to keep Amazon on their toes.

Pros: Fantastic display, good backlight, relatively intuitive controls.Cons: Touchscreen response is not perfect. Micro USB instead of USB C.Overall for the price I'm really liking it. It's been a long time since I had an ereader and clearly large strides have been made over the last decade on the hardware side. I've got very good vision and the display is really sharp with only occasional ghosting. Lots of typeface options make it customizable for any preference I can possibly imagine.I've only been playing with it for a few hours and I'm sure there's plenty more to discover both good and bad, but I'm really only interested in using it for its primary purpose - as an electronic book reader.I like that you can just drop EPUB files over USB. It's quick and it just works.Can't speak on the battery life since it's my first day messing around with it. I've got the brightness at 10% in my dimly lit apartment and it's both clear and easy on the eyes. The matte screen does a good job diffusing glare from overhead lights.Build quality and heft are both great. This thing is sturdy, though I'll probably get a case for it anyway just to keep it from getting beat up.One last thing: It tells you that you can adjust the brightness by gesturing up and down at the left edge. If you really hug the edge, it doesn't work well. If you move about a half inch in, it works almost every time.Even though it has some minor imperfections, nothing has been annoying enough to turn me off of it.