Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsStylus 2 defective upon arrival, poor resolution for PDF reading
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2023
The device was shipped very fast it came from Amazon Warehouse and not directly from Kobo-Rakuten Canada. All good for 24 hours until the Stylus 2 stopped working. It's dead. Defective from the factory I presume. Also, the first Kobo I owned that is not made in Taiwan, it's made in China. Not trying to use "guilty by association" but just feel that there's always something wrong that is obvious and some not so much but will rear its ugly head soon enough. Anyway, though I'd like to just keep using it, I just don't feel comfortable as I am a bit nervous about what else will eventually fail prematurely.
Lastly, I have purchased the Elipsa to mainly leverage its large screen to read PDFs and annotate with its writing capabilities. However, there are two major flaws. First, although the PDF can be enlarged or shrunk to fit the entire screen, the letter contrast on the screen could be clearer and there's no way to customize it. I have no such issue with my Remarkable 2 with contrast - and it is sharper and has nearly unlimited levels of grayness which allows it to reproduce illustrations way better than the Kobo. Second, once I resize it on the screen, it's very easy to knock it off alignment then I need to re-adjust it again over and over, this is very annoying. I also noticed that it lacks the feature where if I want to change a page, it does not allow me to use either a "tap & swipe" or "swipe" but no "tap only" So back to my point, Remarkable 2 is hands down better for PDF but does not have backlighting and very limited features as a capable Reader.
Another handicap is its writing capability. It's not terrible but it's not great either. My benchmark is Remarkable 2. It does not come close. The writing capability of the Kobo Elipsa 2 feels ancient compares to the Remarkable 2. First, the marker needs to be charged before you can use it; RM2 does not. Second, when writing on the screen, RM2 feels like real paper; the Kobo Elipsa 2 feels like you're writing on the car's windshield. And the lag is quite noticeable as the pen is far ahead of where the actual line shows up. And there's no way to adjust the thickness of the lines. Lastly, the pen feels like it's hovering over the screen whereby the RM2, appears as the line and the market tip are touching each other as you write.
Elipsa 2E does have more features for reading eBooks but the display with its lower resolution and lack of finite shades of grades severely handicaps being a good PDF reader. Another issue is that I purchased the OEM sleep cover with the Elipsa 2E which is very expensive. I've had a good experience with Clara 2E's OEM sleepover so I took a chance. Other than its ability to provide that auto-sleeping capability, it lacks two major functions. Ability to use it as a stand such as the Clara 2E's sleep cover (origami folding stand) and provide protection for the back of the unit. It has neither. Not only that, the part that bends wobbles so when closed, the magnetic part pulls the bottom side down which misaligns where the top corner is exposed. You have to slide it down then it aligns. Poor Q/A in my opinion, and this is also another reason I try to stay away from products made in China. They always seem to have some issue in the beginning or eventually and you wind up hating it over time. I rarely had this issue with Kobos made in Taiwan.