It really improves the sense of immersion in the text, and makes the Kobo feel slightly more like an actual book.īut what about eBook availability? This was our main concern with the Forma, and it remains so here. We also love the feature whereby the cover of the eBook you’re currently reading automatically becomes the screensaver when you go to sleep or power off. You can use a wide variety of touchscreen controls to navigate through your book library – although we find it far easier to use the hardware buttons since the E Ink display is quite slow to respond to taps, as is usual for displays of this kind. And we would recommend using sleep/wake rather than power off/on in any case, since it’s quicker and battery life probably won’t be a concern for you. That appears to have been a one-off, fortunately, and reading has otherwise been a pleasant and unobtrusive experience. On one occasion the Libra behaved oddly after powering on, displaying the syncing symbol (even though we didn’t have Wi-Fi at the time) and then refusing to respond to taps or button presses when it finally landed on the home page. This is a standard offering, in other words. But IPX8 is now offered by Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite and Oasis (although not its basic Kindle), and it’s also part of the Kobo Forma’s specs sheet. There was a time when water resistance was a killer selling point for an eReader, and it’s certainly handy for a device that by its nature tends to spend a lot of time next to swimming pools. The X part of the rating, in place of another number, indicates that it has not been rated for protection against dust and similar solid intrusions. (A score of 9 is theoretically available, and certifies resistance to pressurised or high-temperature liquid, but this generally applies only to road vehicles.) It has a rating of IPX8, which is the highest given to consumer devices for liquid protection and certifies that it can withstand up to 60 minutes of immersion in 2m of water. The Libra H20, as the second part of its name implies, is water-resistant. We would suggest that it’s really a two-handed device when encased in the sleep cover. With the cover on it still just about works in this way, but you do feel the extra weight: it would become tiring after a while, and you find yourself propping up the device with your little finger. It works well as a one-handed device, assuming you’re using it without the sleep cover, and you can apply enough pressure with the meat of your palm to hold it steady while using the buttons with the thumb of the same hand. And the fact that both Forma and Libra have 1200mAh batteries, yet the former has to power a larger screen, suggests that the latter will last a little longer between charges.Īt 192g the Libra is nice and light. It’s available in black and white finishes, whereas the Forma comes only in black (indeed, in our Forma review we commented that it would be nice to have some alternatives), and it offers 12 fonts, compared to the Forma’s 11. Curiously the difference in weight is tiny, at 192g vs 197g, but the dimensions of the Libra are far more pocketable, at 144 x 159mm, compared to the Forma’s 160 x 177.7mm it’s also a shade thinner.įunnily enough there are a couple of other differences that fall in favour of the Libra. Aside from being significantly cheaper, as outlined in the last section, the Libra is obviously more portable. It has a 7in screen, compared to the Forma’s 8in – which is a bit of a shame, since the unusually generous 8in display was one of the Forma’s selling points.īut by making this compromise you benefit in other ways. The Libra has essentially the same design as the Forma (thumbs up for that), only shrunk down a bit.

(That device is also available with 32GB, an option that isn’t offered with the Libra.) How does this compare with the Kobo Forma?

Kobo Forma, which costs £239.99/$279.99 with 8GB of storage. The Libra is also markedly cheaper, as previously mentioned, than the

Kobo h20 vs ipad