E-reader maker Kobo's biggest, baddest model delivers a
stonkingly sharp screen and powerful quad-core processor. Who needs
a camera?
Design
The Kobo has quite a distinctive style with its matte black rubberised rear characterised by sharply tapering edges. It's a bit on the heavy side at 627g, certainly weighty enough to make it feel very different to Kobo's ebook reader line-up. Another distinctive feature is the red power slider on top and it's nice to see a micro HDMI output on the side so you can hook it up to your TV for those times when you just need a bigger screen.
The Kobo has quite a distinctive style with its matte black rubberised rear characterised by sharply tapering edges. It's a bit on the heavy side at 627g, certainly weighty enough to make it feel very different to Kobo's ebook reader line-up. Another distinctive feature is the red power slider on top and it's nice to see a micro HDMI output on the side so you can hook it up to your TV for those times when you just need a bigger screen.
Not that there's anything wrong with the Arc's 10.1 inch display
which delivers a terrifically sharp resolution of 2,560x1,600
pixels, which boils down to 300ppi -- just a little less than the
latest iPad mini's Retina display. Movies look great as do busy web
pages and they sound good too thanks to a decent pair of stereo
speakers on the back -- they're a little bass-lite compared to the
drivers on the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 (which is also considerably lighter) but
pretty good nonetheless.
Processor, Android and featuresThe quad-core processor is clocked at 1.8GHz and backed by a full 2GB Ram, which gives it plenty of poke. In our AnTuTu benchmark test it delivered a score of 29,300 making it one of the highest ranking tablets we've seen, losing out to Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 but ahead of the Google Nexus 10.
It's running a heavily customised version of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, only a little behind the very latest 4.4 KitKat. The customisation mostly affects display of Kobo's own content, of which there is much to choose from, including books (3.5 million apparently -- count 'em!), games, music, movies and magazines. There are a few samples already on board but you'll need to open an account and pay for most of what's available. Where the Arc scores over the Kindle HDX however is that you can access full Google Play and download whichever apps you fancy.
There's no main camera but there is a 1.3-megapixel shooter on the front. The colour balance seemed alarmingly off on our test model however, which could lead to some unusual video calls.
Unfortunately, there's only 16GB storage on board, which you'll soon dig into if you're downloading a lot of the HD content the display craves. It really is a shame that there's no option to expand the memory via microSD card.
Battery life proved to be capable rather than exceptional and we easily got a full day's use out of it, but not much more.
Conclusion
The Kobo Arc 10HD offers a wonderful screen and a searingly fast processor as well as easy access to a huge range of Barnes & Noble books, mags, music, films and games. But it's nearly twice as heavy as the slightly more expensive Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 which also has an 8 megapixel camera, though at least the Arc offers full Google Play. Otherwise this is a mid-price tablet (cheaper than the Nexus 10 and iPad Air) that ticks all the boxes.
The Kobo Arc 10HD offers a wonderful screen and a searingly fast processor as well as easy access to a huge range of Barnes & Noble books, mags, music, films and games. But it's nearly twice as heavy as the slightly more expensive Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 which also has an 8 megapixel camera, though at least the Arc offers full Google Play. Otherwise this is a mid-price tablet (cheaper than the Nexus 10 and iPad Air) that ticks all the boxes.
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