WHSmith Kobo Vox e-reader

Can’t wait for the Kindle Fire?

Library music

You can also press the Read Now icon near the bottom of the display which opens the last book you were reading at your last-read page, of course. Need more variety? The next icon along is the Library shortcut which opens a bookshelf designed like glossy white wood with your tomes in order. All very straightforward. And the books look good, the colours subtle rather than bright, but making photographs shine.

 

Menu and apps browser

Of course, you’re reading a backlit screen which is less restful on the eyes than e-ink or, you know, paper. Page turns lack the artful animation of the iPad’s iBooks, for instance, either sliding the previous page or just replacing it instantly. Still, at least it lacks the intrusive flashing which e-ink displays require.

Bookshelf

The bookstore, called Shop Kobo, is another icon on the home page’s bottom shelf and guides you to the Kobo book store. It has over 2 million titles, including a million free ones. Some of these are poorly laid out – the epic poem Paradise Lost is presented as continuous text which is really not what Milton intended, given his obsession with which lines fell at the beginning, middle and end of each stanza.

 

Sharing options and reading history

Storage is excellent, with 8GB on board. This is the same as the fire but the Vox also has a memory card slot so you can add an extra 32GB so the reader can hold around 40,000 books (are you really that indecisive about what you might want to read?) at a time.