What new can we say about e-books, besides that it’s like reading a hardback edition of a Mills & Boon title? Of course, nobody can disregard that thousands of books can be bundled into a device, which itself has been evolving slowly lately. But there’s hope in the form of Kobo Elipsa. There is the tablet, the iPad (no, Apple doesn’t call the iPad a “tablet”), Kindle and Kobo devices. They are all good (and bad) in some way or the other but hear us out about the new ebook reader.

Annotation- and note-friendly

Kobo has been around for over a decade. HQ-ed in Toronto, Japan’s e-commerce conglomerate Rakuten acquired it in 2011. The Kobo was an early entrant in the e-reader market but was soon overshadowed by Amazon’s Kindle as well as the ever-soaring popularity of the iPad.

Having presented a series of e-readers, this time they have done things differently with Elipsa, which brings back sizeable screen estate and also a lot of features. At a glance, it’s not very different from other e-ink tablets but with the Elipsa you get a stylus which is more than a value proposition; it changes the focus of the device. Once you have a stylus, there is always the option to take notes, making the Elipsa an e-book reader as well as an alternative to a paper notebook.

Using the stylus, you can jot down notes or add diagrams to e-books and PDFs. The handwritten notes and to-do lists get converted into typed text, which opens up a world of possibilities. At 10.3-inches, this can compete with the size of the iPad Pro or Samsung’s Tab S series but there’s no compromising on portability. Using the iPad or the Samsung Tab S, taking down notes is easy but what about making annotation while reading on an app like Kindle?

Reasons for (and against) upgrading

There’s always the advantage of screen, which is easy on the eye. The text is sharp and you change from cooler to warmer hues. The good news is that Kobo Elipsa supports the two most popular electronic book formats, PDF and EPUB. There is also support for graphic novels and comics that come in CBR and CBZ formats. Plus, PDF, MOBI, Jpeg, GIF and so on. But if you have been buying e-books from Amazon then you are in a spot.

Tablets or e-reader?

Obviously, e-readers can only do one or two things very well. Tablets are versatile but heavier and it doesn’t allow you to focus on a book like you can on an e-reader. Tablets, on the other hand, have a glossy screen, allows you to do everything and supports the Kindle app. And here’s something you need to remember. On the iPad you can use the Kindle app but you can’t purchase books via the app. Second, you can’t purchase an e-book from the Amazon app on your iOS device. So, simply use the Safari browser, visit the Amazon store, log in with the ID that’s associated with the Kindle app and make a purchase.

Coming back to Kobo Elipsa, in case you can pick up one or import a device, buy it if you are heavily into comic books in digital formats or prefer to purchase in the very common EPUB format.