Introduction
It’s a brand better known for producing budget alternatives to original E-Ink-based Kindle et al, but can the all-new Arc tablet take the fight higher to the Kindle Fire HD and even the Nexus 7 and iPad Mini?
If you’ve seen Kobo’s previous tablets, it’s likely you were in WHSmiths, which actively promotes and sells all Kobo tablets and eReader in its high street shops – including the Arc.
The headline feature on this 7-inch, 1280×800 pixel tablet is a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, though just a standout when compared to eReader-style tablets (principally the Nook HD and the Kindle Fire HD) is the Arc’s open Android experience.
Sure, it’s augmented rather nicely by the double-act of both Tapestries (a noticeboard-style interface that permits extensive customisation) and a Discovery ‘web concierge’ feature that recommends websites as well as e-books, but it’s the Arc’s ability to download any app from Google Play that most appeals.
And, yes, that does mean a whole host of games as well as apps for Kindle and Nook, its two main rivals. That completely open attitude does suggest that if the Arc’s performance matches-up to its specs it could render its rivals’ locked-in experiences rather pointless, especially as it’s identically priced.
Although a 64GB version is manufactured by Kobo – and we’ve seen a price of £230 for that – WHSmiths is currently selling 16GB (£159.99) and 32GB (£189.99) models in both black and white versions. At present there is no 3G option, though that could change.
We’re guessing that Kobo is gunning for a quasi-academic status with this 7-inch tablet; its relatively thick (10mm wide at the sides, and 13mm/19mm at the top/bottom) matte black plastic bezel gives the 189x120x115mm, 364g Arc a rather industrial look to it.
Furthermore, the opportunity to swap-out the back cover (though only to blue or purple) creates an impression that the Kobo Arc is a tablet for kids.
The 1,280×800 pixel screen (that’s 215 PPI) has an unusually wide viewing angle, so much so that it’s almost impossible to detect any draining of colour or contrast when viewed from odd angles.
That’s thanks to an IPS (In-Place Switching) panel, which is fast becoming standard in tablets.
An unbeatably powerful 1.5GHz dual core processor and 1GB RAM are standout specs meaning the Arc rarely misses a beat when swiping or loading apps, and never freezes-up.
However, there are weaknesses. There’s no Bluetooth, which could have turned the Arc into a fully fledged productivity tablet by adding a Bluetooth keyboard or wireless headphones.
Nor is there a micro SD card slot for expanding the storage, so you’ll have to choose wisely from the off.
Physical buttons are few, with a standby switch on the top, and a volume rocker on the upper right-hand side below a headphones slot.
Front-facing speakers adorn the lower bezel, while between them on the undercarriage is a micro USB slot for recharging and transferring files via an included micro USB cable.
All models of the Arc have WiFi only – and all lack an HDMI output slot.
Interface
The Arc boasts the most open Android (4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich) experience of any eReader tablet, yet also adds its own layer called Tapestries that’s mostly concerned with Pinterest-style noticeboard organisation, and learning your preferences.
It’s organised around dynamically changing carousel tabs, the default being Reading, Entertainment and Social, though you can create your own. Select Social and you’ll see Tweets and Facebook status updates.
Press Entertainment from the home screen and a carousel of videos is enlarged, and added to by shortcuts to YouTube, 7digital, CinemaNow, Gallery, Rdio and Play Music.
Meanwhile, the Reading tapestry displays book covers with ‘Reading Life’ statistics (time read, remaining time, percentage complete) and a link to your Library, the Kobo Store, and Taste Profile, which shows you book covers; drag them into the yes/no pile and the Arc will learn your preferences.
However, the key point of Tapestries is that any picture, web page, chunk of text, widget or app can be ‘pinned’ to any of your Tapestry folders.
Down the bottom of all Tapestries pages is Discover, a timeline of thumbnail icons of news stories, books and YouTube videos Kobo thinks you might like.
We’re not hugely keen on this idea of ‘web concierge’, but in practice it works pretty well – and if nothing else this makes sure you don’t miss the top news stories from around the world. It only does this from Kobo’s own cache of the web – it’s not based on your search history.
A shortcut from the home page leads to the usual Android grid of apps, but also includes a tab of widgets such as a clock, bookmarks and any open apps you might have running.
From here it’s a cinch to drag them into any Tapestry; as you touch a widget and move it, the home page reappears, ready to accept ‘pins’. The result is that, within Tapestries, the Kobo Arc is totally customisable in terms of content and apps.
Gliding between pages, apps, the web browser and books is always fast, as is the virtual keyboard, though the latter’s buttons are rather too small in portrait mode (we frequently made mistakes while typing).
It boots-up very quickly though when titling the device the Arc is slow to re-orientate between landscape and portrait. We also noticed that the screen isn’t quite as responsive as it should do; tapping the tiny ‘x’ to kill unwanted adverts on games, for instance, proved tricky, as did some drag ‘n’ dropping of apps, though the Arc is mostly capable with both the basic Android elements and its own architecture.
Internet
The vanilla Android browser is one of the few areas where the Arc disappoints, with an overall slow experience.
Flash isn’t supported natively, and our efforts to address that using this workaround initially both failed and crashed the browser. Upon re-boot it worked fine with some Flash-based websites though not with most others.
The Flash issue can’t be solved by opting for Chrome, but doing so does increase browsing speed.
Zooming-in and out of pages while using either browser is excellent, with plenty of sharp detail amid a fluid experience that never stalls.
Opt for Chrome and you’ll have to use bookmarks since only the native browser includes the ‘Pin Image To Tapestry’ and ‘Set As Wallpaper’ options for images.
Sadly we weren’t able to successfully download open source EPUB ebooks from sites like Project Gutenberg, having to rely instead on reading the text files online.
Media
The Arc can play movies and music, but it’s books that it’s most concerned with. We’ve got no arguments with the way it presents its three million title+ Kobo Store library, with useful collections (such as Best of 2012: Fiction, Non-fiction Bestsellers & endless genres) provided alongside a simple title search option.
Reading Life, which collects data on your reading speed and progress through the books on your own device, is an acquired taste, though personally we found the ‘time remaining’ calculation for each book useful (if occasionally underlining just how time-consuming reading really is; Last Of The Mohicans apparently takes 41 hours, 25 minutes to read. Blimey).
SimpleTurn – page turns – is smooth, while there are myriad tweaks to fonts and spacing, while PDFs can be zoomed-in and out of dynamically.
While reading it’s also possible to read comments left by others about particular passages or pages, though the feeling of community is slight indeed.
What the Arc doesn’t do, when compared with the various Kindles, is enable the emailing of PDFs or e-books and kick-start a cloud sync.
Instead, all files have to be manually transferred using the micro USB cable. However, the fact that the Kindle app can be downloaded and used freely on the Arc technically makes Amazon’s tablet redundant.
Although the Arc does support EPUB books from any source (and it’s possible to download then from Kobo’s Store), the process is rather manual.
Not only is it necessary to hook-up the Arc to a PC or Mac, but from within the Library app it’s then crucial to choose Import Content. The Arc then scans its own storage for files it can render, imports them, then deletes the originals.
As well as ePUB books, the Arc supports a fine collection of audio files, including lossless FLAC, OGG and WAV formats as well as the more common MP3, M4A and WMA. Video-wise the Arc copes with just MP4 and AVI files. Sadly it’s not possible to play music while reading.
Apps and Games
Unlike Kobo’s debut tablet, the Vox, the Arc can also host any app from Google Play through its Gets Apps shortcut stored on the home page.
Accessible in a grid from the home page, the transition between pages of apps and widgets (clocks, bookmarks and links to apps you’ve left open) is smooth, while the likes of Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps are there by default, as is the excellent PressReader for newspaper and magazine subscriptions.
Apps for Kindle and Nook can be downloaded and easily pinned to the home page; it’s even possible to replace, or relegate, the Kobo Store app.
The Arc also makes a good gaming platform. We downloaded the Angry Birds Star Wars app and found the Arc to be quick enough, while Drop proved the speed and accuracy of its accelerometer.
We were shown the ‘Google Play Store has stopped’ message a few too many times, usually when we were quickly downloading, opening and closing different games from Google Play.
Camera
Further proof that the Arc – while offering an open Android experience – us centered on reading rather than all-round entertainment is its lack of a rear-facing camera.
It does, however, have front-facing optics. Achieving a mere 1.3 megapixels, it sits at the top of the device in portrait mode alongside a microphone and a small flash.
It’s clearly provided for Skype voice and/or video calling, which it’s absolutely fine for.
Although video calls are theoretically performed in 720p HD quality, this is a classic case of specs over real life since the results are grainy and best described as rudimentary.
Though Skype-centric, the Arc’s optics can be accessed via the native Camera app; some basic face recogntion tech, colour options.
White balance/exposure tweaks and a movie mode are simply executed, though aside from Skype it’s fit only for briefly amusing children.
Battery life and benchmarks
Battery life is average for a tablet of this size; that is, it’s limited and a great argument for the ‘old’ E-Ink displays.
Though the manufacturer quotes 10 hours of reading or video, we managed around six hours of mixed use, with the device losing around a fifth of its battery even on days when it wasn’t used at all.
Perhaps most irritatingly of all, when it’s run-down 70% of its battery an LED light starts flashing, which isn’t appropriate for a device likely to be used to read books and hence left in sleeping areas. In a dark room it’s infuriatingly bright.
We ran the Nyan cat test video for 90 minutes and found that the fully-charged Arc at full screen brightness dropped to 82% battery level, which is about the same as the Kindle Fire HD.
Sound quality, meanwhile, is pretty poor despite emanating from front-facing speakers; it’s flat and lifeless, but OK for using on a desk.
Through headphones sound quality is acceptable, though lacks mid-range aid a treble-heavy vocal.
And now the benchmark tests: the AnTuTu app test produced an average score of 11,230 for the Arc (4.5/5 stars, and well above average for a tablet).
Accessed through the Arc’s browser, the SunSpider Javascript benchmark test produced an average score of 1469ms, while PeaceKeeper browser speed test saw the Arc achieve an average of 637 – which is equal to the Samsung Galaxy S III, and more impressive than the Apple iPad mini (at 515), Google Nexus 7 (at 489) and Microsoft Surface (a paltry 348).
Hands on gallery
Press gallery
Verdict
Forget the eReader market – the 7" Kobo Arc might have a literary bent, but this open Android 4.0 experience is at least the equal of the Google Nexus 7 and iPad Mini in terms of core performance and value.
However, it lacks a few features that restrict it to battling with the other ebook tablets, the Nook HD and Kindle Fire HD.
We liked
A fast processor, a nicely open Android experience and a clever layer of the Tapestries interface make using the Arc a pleasant experience and, app-wise, incredibly versatile.
The web concierge-style Discover feature won’t be everyone’s taste, but works well if trained using the Taste app.
Reading is smooth, comfortable and highly customisable, with an auto sensor keeping brightness just about right, while the Arc even makes a play as an excellent tablet for games.
We disliked
The native Android browser is poo, which is a shame since jumping ship to Chrome means losing the option to ‘pin’ content to Tapestries, and the touchscreen isn’t always as sensitive as it should be.
Our biggest criticism of the Arc is that it lacks the kind of hardware that would make it a truly serious contender in the tablet market; the no-show of Bluetooth, HDMI out and a microSD expansion slot takes away the kind of versatility all tablets need.
Verdict
If you accept that Android tablets are more or less the same, it seems almost illogical to buy into a ‘locked’ ecosystem like the Kindle Fire or Nook when open platform tablets like the Arc exist.
Add to that a fast, fluid operation and some innovative ‘Tapestry’ tweaks to the Android GUI and we’ve got a great value 7" tablet, though the lack of Bluetooth, storage expansion and a HDMI output do limit it appeal as a do-it-all tablet.
The iPad Mini doesn’t have much to worry about, but the Google Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD and Nook HD should take note.
Overall, if those ‘missing’ hardware options are irrelevant to you, we’d recommend the Kobo Arc as an impressive ‘my first tablet’. However, overall the Kobo Arc is probably happiest being the fastest eReader-tablet around that offers by far the most freedom.