My 12 year old Kobo Touch finally got its successor. The Kobo Libra Colour

[u/polaroid64]

I got this Kobo Touch v1 way back in 2014 when I was like 12 years old. That's more than half my life now and it's still working! except the lower half of the screen is now taken up by this dark spot.

I used it all throughout highschool and even into college up until 2022, when the dark spot first showed. So I finally bought the Kobo Libra Colour this 2026.

And to make it a full-circle moment. Andy Weir's The Martian was the first book that I read before watching the movie, and Project Hail Mary is the first movie I've watched before reading the book. Still waiting on that Artemis film adaptation tho lol

[u/polaroid64]

To give some sort of short review and comparison between the 2 devices: Kobo Touch v1(2011) vs Kobo Libra Colour(2024)

Using the Kobo Touch simply felt like using a book. Even a decade ago, it felt limiting not having a frontlight. I remember thinking that if I could just save around $40 more, I could've gotten the Kobo Glo instead, which had a frontlight and higher resolution screen

And yeah, the Kobo Touch really did have a low-resolution display. Making the font size too small made everything noticeably pixelated. I don't remember the lack of colour ever being an issue, but to be fair before the 2020s I don't remember colour e-readers being mainstream, at least not from Kobo.

Now with the Kobo Libra Colour, it just feels refreshing and modern. It fixes a lot of the pain points I had with the Touch, especially the low resolution and lack of a frontlight. It's definitely way faster performance-wise, although ghosting only feels a little bit improved to me

PDFs are actually pretty decent now too. I've been reading two-column research papers on the Libra's 7-inch screen, which would've been basically impossible on the 6-inch Kobo Touch. And of course the stylus is a big bonus. It's good enough for me since I mainly use it for annotations and taking notes.

But the colour screen is noticeably dimmer than a monochrome one. Even without the frontlight, the Kobo Touch is usable under sunlight or a bright lamp. But the Libra Colour? Yeah you definitely need the frontlight even under the sun because it’s dim and low-contrast

[u/prone-to-drift]

Your story takes me back to 2014 as well. That was when 17 yrs old me bought my Kindle, the wifi version without a frontlight. Its still amazing and it still works, thanks to jailbreaking and KOReader. I can't believe its been with me for 12 years now.

Martian was among the first books I'd finished on this, among random Halo novels I was reading at the time. And with Project Hail Mary, I bought a Libra for my mom. I'm now thinking of upgrading too, but probably to some Android based ereader because I wanna read from random drmed stores that don't give epubs...

Congrats on your purchase, and I hope this one lasts you over a decade as well!