Kobo Review

 

Even if you’re an avid audiobook listener, you might not be too familiar with Kobo. Compared to other services, they’re one of the newest around and joined the industry at the end of 2017. However, they have a lot to offer, which we’ll be discussing below.

Kobo At A Glance

Although new to the audiobook industry, the company has been around for a while. They were created under the name ‘Shortcovers’, which was rebranded Kobo inc in 2009. As you can guess, the word ‘Kobo’ is an anagram of book.

In 2017, the brand took the leap and ventured into the audiobook subscription world, competing with major names like Audible and Audiobooks.com.

Kobo is based in Canada but is owned by the Japanese company, Rakuten which is extremely popular. Overtime, Rakuten bought over more audiobook sites, merging them to create Kobo, and making it a powerhouse of a platform.

The Pros

Now, we’ll be diving into the pros of Kobo, so keep reading.

Use Their Free Trial

Similar to its competitors, Kobo allows you to register for a free trial. The trial lasts 30 days and you have access to its complete library. What’s best about its free trial is that you’re notified when it is ending days in advance so you have ample time to decide if you want to stick with it or not.

Of course, the service doesn’t charge you if you ignore their messages, unlike Audible.

As mentioned, you will have complete access to Kobo’s library if you choose to go in for a free trial. Because of this, you can utilize the option of downloading a free book, and when you’re done with the trial you can still access the audiobook since it would be saved to your account.

Do You Want A Discounted Sign Up?

What’s best about Kobo is that you get a lot of discounts. As of late, if you register for a Kobo subscription, you can get 20% off if you do so with a MasterCard. Compared to its competitors, this gives you an edge, especially if you consider how cheap its basic plan is.

A Considerably Large Library

If you’re looking to get a Kobo membership, there are over 100,000 titles just for audiobooks. This is great considering that the basic plan is only $13, which is quite a steal.

Of course, it offers more than just audiobooks. Kobo is known to offer a pretty great e-book selection too. When you sign up, you will be able to pick any book of your choice through its free credit. This service is similar to major names like Audible and Audiobook.com.

You can access more books if you want, but you’d have to pay for them by purchasing credit from the store.

In terms of the types of books present, the audiobook selection is filled with over 100 genres of literature, ensuring you’re never bored.

You Get Free Points

Something Kobo does that many of its competitors do not do is offering free points. So, for every $1 spent, you get 10 free points. You can accumulate the points and purchase titles off the Kobo library whenever you want.

Do You Know Anyone That Uses Kobo?

If you’re not the only Kobo user you know, you’d be happy to know that the site allows you to purchase gift cards for other members. These gift cards can be given to friends, allowing them to redeem credits from the Kobo store.

The cards aren’t that expensive and come in a range of prices.

It’s Easy To Use

With a Kobo membership, you’ll have access to their app. Unfortunately, you can only access the service this way, but it is very easy to use and has a minimalistic design.

The app isn’t a web player and is designed specifically for IOS and Android devices. This makes it easy to listen to your favorite books while you’re on the go.

Similar to its competitors, you can synchronize your account on multiple devices. So, if you’ve logged onto Kobo on an IOS device, then log off and sign in through a friend’s. You’d find yourself exactly where you stopped.

The Cons

Now that we’ve gone through the many pros of having a Kobo account, let’s dive into some of the cons.

It Has Limited Availability

As mentioned, Kobo is an app that lets you use it on IOS and android devices. This means you can only access it through mobile devices and tablets.

This isn’t that great as some people don’t listen to audiobooks on their phones. Users might not be accustomed to listening to them through a handheld device, limiting its availability.

It Takes Up Space

Since you have to download the Kobo app from the app store, you might be taking up your phone’s storage space as the app is known to be quite large.

Your data would be taxed too since Kobo is known to run in the background. Because it’s such a large app to download, you might have to use considerable speed installing it on your device.

Limited Library

Compared to other major names in the audiobook industry, Kobo has a  limited library and you can only access 100,000 audiobooks titles.

Limited Features

Although easy to navigate, this also means many features have been scrapped, some of which are very useful. For example, you don’t have the ability to adjust the playback speed, nor can you take notes or adjust the sleep features.

Only 1 Free Book A Month

With a Kobo membership, you have access to 1 free book a month. However, you’ll have to buy access to other titles.

This is how Audible works as well. On Audible, however, if you were to purchase additional titles using your free credits, you’d get a 30-40% discount off the book’s original price. Unfortunately, you don’t have the same luxury with a Kobo account.

Conclusion

As you can see, Kobo is a reliable name that is great to use. It’s similar to how major names like Audible and Audiobooks.com work. However, the only difference is that Kobo is an App with fewer titles in its library.