It’s been almost two years since the original Kobo Elipsa was released, beating Amazon’s Kindle Scribe to the E Ink tablet chase by some 18 months. Now its major rival has its stake in the game though, the company has decided it’s time for an upgrade on its biggest ereader, to ensure its staying competitive.

This time round, it offers a more eco-friendly design, a faster processer, new upgraded note-taking experience and a much-improved stylus. We’ve taken a first look at it ahead of our full review, to see how it shapes up against the competition.

Design

• 193 x 227 x 7.5mm, 390g
• 10.3-inch E Ink touch screen
• Made from 85 per cent recycled materials

The Kobo Elipsa 2E doesn’t look hugely different to its original model, and in fact, its dimensions are almost identical. Its weight is too, give or take a couple of grams, but there is still plenty to talk about here.

Similar to its Clara 2E ereader, Kobo has made this second generation of Elipsa all about eco-conscious materials and sustainability. The result is an exterior is made from 85 per cent recycled materials, including 10 per cent ocean-bound plastic.

Its plastic body might not feel quite as premium as the Kindle Scribe’s aluminium exterior, but at least you’re doing your bit for the environment – plus it’s lighter too, at 390g compared with the Scribe’s 433g.

It has a newly textured back panel for an easy and more comfortable grip and a thicker edge on one side of the display, so you can hold it without blocking the screen. This section is also now magnetic too, so you can store the stylus here while you read, or alternatively in the designated slot in the Sleep Cover (available separately for $69.99/£69.99/€69.99).

That Sleep Cover comes in black, and is also made from the same recycled plastic as the Elipsa itself. With a magnetic snap closure, it will automatically put the Elipsa 2E into a sleep mode when the cover is pulled over then top, and then wake it up again when the cover is peeled back.

There are no buttons on the display for helping you navigate or turn pages – this is a fully touchscreen device, with just one textured button on the bottom right hand side for locking, unlocking and power.

Display

• 10.3-inch display
• 1404 x 1872, 227ppi
• ComfortLight Pro for adjustable brightness and temperature control

The Elipsa 2E has a 10.3-inch E Ink screen with 227ppi. That means it’s ever so slightly bigger, but less crisp than the Kindle Scribe (300ppi). We certainly don’t feel like the Elipsa 2E is dragging its feet on that front though – text is perfectly crisp and clear, with no complaints from us in our brief time with it so far.

The ComfortLight adjustable backlight has had an upgrade to Kobo’s ComfortLight Pro this time round, and can now adjust its temperature automatically, depending on the time of day. You are also able to set a bedtime, so the display will eke out as much blue light from the display well in advance, and then switch to full orange candlelight once you get there.

From a reading perspective, there is pinch to zoom on text size and a choice of 12 reading fonts to choose from, plus all the usual options to decide how you’d like to turn a page, plus opt-ins for dark mode and auto orientation.

Kobo Stylus 2

• 25 per cent lighter
• Rechargeable via USB-C
• Improved writing feel

The new and improved Kobo Stylus 2 comes in the box with the Elipsa 2E, and is now rechargeable via USB-C – a big improvement on the physical AAA battery requirements of last generation. It’s also 25 per cent lighter, with a more ergonomic shape, and you get two replacement tips for the stylus in the box.

Certainly, it feels really comfortable in the hand, and making notes with it has a pretty authentic writing feel that’s been improved since the last generation too.

You are able to annotate books as you read, highlight sections by holding down the stylus’ button, and then delete anything you’ve done by turning the stylus upside down to use the “eraser” at the stylus’ other end.

There is also a note-taking section where you can start a Basic notebook for simple scribbles or an Advanced notebook that converts your handwriting into type, and supports the addition of things like diagrams and free-form sections.

We need to spend more time with this to evaluate just how well it performs here, but first impressions are positive. The feedback you get from writing on the matte display is very satisfying, though it’s fair to say it works best, and your writing will look neatest, with some pressure behind it – probably more than you’d tend to use with a regular pen. If you write lightly and quickly, your writing has something of a ‘GP-writing-a-prescription’ about it.

Still – even with our less-decipherable scribbles, the Advanced notebook picked them up just fine and changed it to the correct text without issue.

It’s great to see Dropbox support here, so you can export your notes and notebooks directly to your Dropbox account, and Kobo say Google Drive support is coming soon too.

Hardware and battery life

• Dual 2GHz CPU
• 2,400mAh battery life
• 32GB storage

The Kobo Elipsa 2E has a new dual 2GHz CPU, meaning page turns should be faster here, as well as faster pan and zoom for images, comics and PDFs.

For storage, there’s 32GB on board, with no options to go bigger or smaller, or the ability to expand via microSD. The reality is, it should be plenty for most people, but anyone with a particularly big ebook library may be better considering the 64GB offering from Amazon.

Battery life has been extended here from the first generation, with a 2,400mAh battery this time round. Kobo hasn’t stated exactly how long that should last but has said it should be good for “weeks” on a single charge. We’ll have to see how it fares in our full review.

Content

• Kobo eBookstore
• Audiobooks via Bluetooth
• OverDrive library books
• Kobo Plus – from £8.99 per month for unlimited books/audiobooks

Kobo’s eBookstore is built into the Elipsa 2E as usual, and while it sometimes offers a more US lean in the content it surfaces for recommendations, we managed to find some very UK-focused titles in the library without issue. No matter where in the world you’re reading from, we can’t imagine you’ll come up short.

The Elipsa 2E has Bluetooth built in for listening to audiobooks through a pair of Bluetooth headphones, while OverDrive integration allows you to borrow eBooks remotely from your public library for free. You just need an active library card to log in and you can then choose to borrow or buy.

Finally, Kobo is launching a new service, called Kobo Plus. This gives you access to over 1.3 million eBooks and 100,000 audiobooks from as little as £8.99 a month. You get a choice to either listen or read for that, or you can pay £11.99 to get unlimited access to all the Kobo Plus content.

This sort of goes head-to-head with Amazon Kindle Unlimited, which sits in the middle of these two pricing options at a cost of £9.49/$9.99 a month. For that, you don’t get audiobook access but you do get free rein on up to two million books – so a fair few more.

The service hadn’t launched when we were getting these first impressions, so we’re looking forward to trying it out for our full review and letting you know if it’s worth the investment.

First impressions

There’s a lot to love about the Kobo Elipsa 2E, thanks to a number of updated features that make it a compelling proposition in a growing market. At $399.99/£349.99/€399.99, it’s cheaper than the Kindle Scribe, but whether the content side of things can compete with the Amazon experience may well be the thing that swings it for people. We’ll bring you our full review on this very soon.