Kobo Glo HD E-Reader Offers Resolution On Par With Kindle Voyage For $70 Less

Kobo’s new Glo HD e-reader will boast the claim of highest resolution for the lowest price when it hits the market on May 1 for $129.99. The newest piece of hardware from Rakuten-owned Kobo offers 300 ppi pixel density on a 6-inch display, which matches the screen on the $199.99 Kindle Voyage in terms of resolution, and which should mean extremely crisp, pixel-free rendering of text.

In fact, both the Kobo Glo HD and the Kindle Voyage use e-ink’s Carta screen tech, which means text rendering similar to what you’d get with a super high resolution e-ink screen like those found in iPhones and modern Android devices, albeit using the low-power e-paper tech that displays in black and white and is better suited to a dedicated text reading device.

The Glo HD also features Kobo’s ComfortLight tech, which provides built-in lighting for reading in the dark. Other tech specs include a 1GHz processor (again, like the Voyage) and it has 4GB of on-board storage for your library (again, like the Voyage), which is plenty for most. It weighs just 180 grams (again, like the Voyage) and measures 157 x 115 x 9.2 mm (slightly shorter, but slightly thicker than the Voyage).

The main things the Voyage has that the Glo HD doesn’t is automatic lighting adjustment based on ambient lighting conditions, and page turn pressure buttons on the bezel. Kobo’s options also only has Wi-Fi connectivity, without a cellular option. All are nice-to-have features, but the resolution is honestly the Voyage’s greatest strength, so the Kobo offering the same screen type with a significant price savings could help it find a faithful audience – provided customers are willing to go with Kobo’s content ecosystem over Amazon’s.