Aug 11, 2025
Kobo-pilled
About 6 months ago – right around the time that Amazon made it crystal clear that you do not own ebooks you purchase in any meaningful sense – I bought a Kobo Libra Color.
I don’t really do product reviews, and this isn’t really a product review. I’m writing about my switch because it’s the most refreshing technology experience I’ve had in years, and one that meaningfully changed my behavior for the better. Whew.
Prior to the aforementioned enshittification event, my Kindle experience was “fine”. I bought and read books for years; mostly on my phone (I know) instead of my ancient PaperWhite. I didn’t really think about it at all, in the way I don’t think about my internet provider. It was just the conduit for my reading habit. I probably would have kept muddling along that way for years if Amazon hadn’t decided to be… Amazon. But they did, and in retrospect I’m better off, so (grits teeth) thanks Amazon.
The device itself is nice, but that’s not really what this story is about, so here’s the hardware TL;DR. It feels like tech that’s intended to be used and abused. It’s solid, light, and decidedly un-precious. Case? Screen protector? LOL, no. Throw it around, get it wet, it’s fine. People have big feelings about color e-ink screens. I like it. The UI is snappy by e-ink standards. End hardware review.
The real star of the show is the Kobo software and ecosystem. I say this as a pure, unabashed compliment; the Kobo experience feels like a product of a past era. A few highlights:
- You can plug you Kobo into a computer and sync it up with the open source e-book swiss army knife, Calibre. To say it another way; you can completely ignore the Kobo store if you want. How many modern portable devices can you say that about?
- You have a ton of control over the reading experience, in a Win95 control panel kind of way. It’s a lot, but also empowering.
- The Kobo store is not filled with an endless sea of self-published platform exclusive drek. It’s filled with… exactly the same books you’d see at a good local bookstore. In other words, it seems like it’s run by people who actually read and like books.
There’s more, but all these things add up to a device that feels like tech from 20 years ago. And in the era of enshittification, I find that incredibly refreshing.
But the real killer feature is Kobo’s Overdrive integration. Prior to owning a Kobo, I couldn’t tell you the last time I checked a book out from the library. It just wasn’t part of my reading habit. But now I had this rectangle in my hand that could do all sorts of library things, so I was like hey, why not give this a shot.
The good times start with discovery. Overdrive is baked directly into the on-device storefront, so you can browse around and seamlessly place a hold. You get notified when holds become available, and can check out, read on device, return, the whole 9 yards. A whole library of books, stuffed into a 6" rectangle. It’s awesome. So awesome that I went from being a “I only buy books” guy to a certified Library Guy. I read daily, and I’ve done nothing but read e-books from the library for the past 6 months.
I struggle to think of another piece of technology that has had such an immediate and drastic impact on one of my core habits. In a way, it feels like I’ve discovered reading all over again. Every time a hold becomes available – particularly when it lands early – it feels like Christmas. I love it. Kobo (and library) pilled.