New Kobo e-readers are repairable

Kobo wants to extend the life of its latest generation of e-readers. The Clara BW, Clara Color and Libra Color will last a long time with a new initiative by Rakuten. Rakuten Kobo is partnering with iFixit, the leader in the technology repairability space, making it easy for customers to fix their e-readers and replace common components.

A series of repair kits will be available in the next month or two. Customers will be able to replace their batteries and other standard components. The company has just released a dedicated page for the repair kits, and more information will be available soon. I doubt they will offer SD cards, where internal storage is kept because Kobo has its file partition and needs to be formatted in a particular way.

I think it’s good that Kobo is leading the charge for being able to repair e-readers. There isn’t anything like this in the entire industry right now, and the average e-note or e-reader goes to landfills when it is out of date. Some companies like Amazon have a trade-in program but only accept modern devices, not old ones.

Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.