Readers, when they are truly immersed in a book, can’t help but annotate what they are reading, filling in the spaces around the words with their own experiences and understandings. People also can’t help but be shaped by those same books, and jotting down notes is a great way to make sense of that writing.

A recent Rakuten Kobo survey revealed that more than 80% of people said they frequently want to reference something they read but were either unable to remember the specific passage or were unable to find it in their books or notes. (It makes sense: If our memories were that good, we probably wouldn’t have started writing things down in the first place.)

Kobo Elipsa: A bookstore, book and notebook combined in one

This is where Rakuten Kobo’s newest eReader, Kobo Elipsa, can help — it’s a bookstore, book and notebook combined in one easy-to-carry device. The device boasts a 10.3 inch E Ink display — the company’s largest yet — with key features such as the built-in ComfortLight for easy nighttime reading, 24/7 access to the Kobo.com bookstore, and the all-new Kobo Stylus, which promises to change how people interact with eReaders. Built to mimic a pen, it’s pressure-sensitive and customizable as a ballpoint, fountain or calligraphy pen, allowing people to write directly on the page in a way that suits them. Notebooks can be catalogued and transferred or shared via the device’s simple Dropbox integration, keeping all readers’ notes at their fingertips.

“With Kobo Elipsa, we meet the needs of people who don’t just want to read a book; they want to engage with it — mark it up, highlight, write in the margins, or in a notebook of their own, because that is how they get the most out of the books, articles and documents they read”

Michael Tamblyn, CEO, Rakuten Kobo

Rakuten Kobo makes a point of listening to what readers want before embarking on a new project. The company learned that booklovers want tangible ways to incorporate the active, creative roles that reading plays into their lives.

The same Rakuten Kobo survey revealed that more than half of readers actively keep track of their favorite passages or make notes about the things they’re reading; half the people who take notes wish there was a better way to organize and search through what they’ve jotted down. The Kobo Elipsa helps keep track of those precious notes by archiving them within the book for easy look-up later.

A new hands-on way to engage with eBooks

Rakuten Kobo aims to transform reading by removing the barriers that separate readers and their favorite content by giving them another way to engage with books — adding their own interpretations and inferences about what they read, and by enabling them to create their own stories and journals within the same device.   

“Readers are thoughtful people, so we want to make devices that encourage thoughtfulness.”

Michael Tamblyn, CEO, Rakuten Kobo

“With Kobo Elipsa, we meet the needs of people who don’t just want to read a book; they want to engage with it — mark it up, highlight, write in the margins, or in a notebook of their own, because that is how they get the most out of the books, articles and documents they read,” said Michael Tamblyn, CEO, Rakuten Kobo. “With this new eReader, we merged the bookstore, book and notebook together so people can capture all the ideas that spring from books and writing.”

Tamblyn continued: “When looking at the eReaders currently on the market on one hand, and the E Ink writing tablets on the other, we saw an opportunity to not just replace a pad of paper or words on a page, but to create a better way to find, capture and create ideas that spring from books. Readers are thoughtful people, so we want to make devices that encourage thoughtfulness.”

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More about Kobo Elipsa

The Kobo Elipsa Pack, complete with Kobo Elipsa eReader, Kobo Stylus and Kobo Elipsa SleepCover, will retail for $499.99 CAD/$399.99 USD at www.kobo.com and select retailers. Pre-orders are available now and the device will be available in stores and online as of June 24 in Canada, the U.S., the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Turkey.