The last major component of the Kobo Touch is “Reading Life.” This is an application that got its start with the Apple iPad, where it became the best of the reading applications on the Apple Appstore. The free books section mainly contains public domain books, but there are some short stories as well. The store allows you to browse by bestsellers, categories, recommended reading, and free books. They currently have over 2.3 million titles, so everyone should find something they want to read. One of the most important aspects that differentiates Kobo from its competition is the store. This is a handy function to make your short term reading list a little bit more manageable. Finally, the Shortlist function allows you to basically create your own shelf. The previews menu gives you a short introduction to various bestselling books.

Since I purchased my device from Canada, most of my newspaper options are all of the major newspapers, and same with magazines. You can also access all of the newspapers and magazines you purchase via the Kobo store. It lists everything in alphabetical order and has arrows to go forward and backward. The Library is your main bookshelf where all of your ebooks are located. It is divided into various sub-menus such as Books, Newspapers and Magazines, Previews, and Shortlist. The Kobo Library is the source from which you can intuitively access your ebooks and other content. The first is Reading Life (a social media add-on), the Kobo Store, and your Book Library. There are 3 main components to the Kobo Touch that really make this e-reader shine. The new Kobo Desktop Manager actually updates your Touch with new firmware which solves many problems before the unit was officially released. You cannot setup your WIFI, Web browser, or anything else until you do this. The Kobo Desktop Manager is completely necessary in order to use your device at all. It seems that Kobo issued a new version of the Desktop manager that you will need to install in order to work your device. When I plugged the Kobo into the computer for the first time it kept prompting me to install the Kobo Desktop software, which I already had on my system. The Kobo Touch runs on a Linux based operating system which makes the unit very snappy. The Kobo Touch is designed very well and really brings the company into 2011 with a solid product. Battery life is solid thus far and is said to last around 2 full weeks. I would have liked the ability to listen to audio books. One of the drawbacks with the Kobo hardware is that there are no speakers, headphone jacks, or audio functions. This is how you charge your e-reader and facilitate a data connection to transfer ebooks. There is a single port for a Micro USB connection which allows you to connect it up to your computer. This new model is VERY intuitive and makes navigating a breeze. It also had buttons for shopping, menus, and various other functions. Previous models had a DPAD to navigate the menus and page turn buttons. There is a single home button and a power button, and that’s it. The Kobo Touch was designed very minimalistic in comparison to previous models. The alpha-numeric keys went very fast and I was happy with a show-password option to make sure you did not make any mistakes. My first experience with the keyboard was to setup the WIFI. There is little to no screen lag when you type in characters. I was pleasantly surprised with the virtual keyboard the Kobo Touch employs. Unlike the Kindle e-reader there is no QWERTY keyboard on the device, instead everything is touchscreen. Keep in mind the SD card slot does not have a flap or any kind of protection, so you might want to make sure water does not get into the device. If this is not enough for you, it can be enhanced via the MicroSD card up to 32 GB. You have by default 2 GB of internal storage, which should be enough for around 1000 ebooks. Part of the reason why the unit is so responsive is due to the Freescale 508 Processor. It features an Infrared Touch or IR touch that drastically enhances the touchscreen sensitivity and makes interacting with the screen a pure delight. The Kobo Touch has a full touchscreen e-ink Pearl display that has a full six inches of screen real estate. How does it stack up against the previous iterations of the Kobo e-Reader family? The Kobo Touch e-reader just came out today and we have been fiendishly playing around with the first touchscreen device from Kobo.

Kobo touch ereader