Kobo Arc

By Eugene Kim

The Kobo Vox?was a thoroughly forgettable Android tablet. It aped the Kindle Fire in price and form factor, but was otherwise a subpar performer in nearly every respect. Kobo rightfully went back to the drawing board, bringing us its second effort a year later?the Kobo Arc ($199.99 list). Though still clearly aimed at Amazon's newest Fire HD, the Arc is a far more refined piece of equipment that has a fighting chance against the strong crop of small-screen tablet options available today. It's easily worth considering for its strong performance and access to the Google Play market, but it still comes up a bit short against our Editors' Choice, the Google Nexus 7.

Design and Features
The Arc shares many design cues with the Vox, with its unassuming matte black plastic body and the signature quilted diamond pattern around back. Instead of a flat glass front, like the Vox and the Kindle Fire HD, the Arc has a pronounced plastic bezel. Some will prefer this design for the added grip and smaller area for fingerprints and smudges, but it does take away from the sleekness factor you'll find with tablets like the Fire HD and Nexus 7. At 7.4 by 4.7 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and 12.8 ounces, the Arc is a hair thicker than the 0.4-inch Nexus 7 and Fire HD, but it's also a full ounce lighter and 0.7-inch narrower than the latter. The Arc feels sturdily built and Kobo claims it can withstand falls from about five feet. ?

There are Power and Volume buttons along the Arc's edges, with a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera embedded in the top bezel and two front-facing speaker grilles embedded in the bottom bezel. The camera supports 720p video chats, but shouldn't be counted on for anything else. The speaker placement is nice, as the sound is actually directed towards you. The Arc gets loud as far as tablets go, but don't expect anything beyond the tinny and distortion-prone audio found in most tablets?for better audio you'll want to use the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Centered on the bottom edge is a micro USB port, but there's no HDMI-out or microSD card slot like on the Acer Iconia Tab A110. The $199.99 Arc comes with 16GB; versions with 32GB and 64GB are available for $50 and $100 more, respectively. The Arc is available in white or black, with interchangeable SnapBacks for customizing the color further.?

The 1,280-by-800-pixel, 7-inch IPS display is pretty much standard fare at this point. It matches the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD in crispness, but the latter is the brightest of the bunch. Still, viewing angles are terrific and the high-gloss finish makes colors really pop. Unfortunately, that glossy finish is a fingerprint magnet and is too reflective in bright light, especially outdoors.

This is a Wi-Fi-only tablet that connects to 802.11b/g/n networks, but only on the 2.4GHz frequency. The Kindle Fire HD is able to connect to faster 5GHz networks. There's no Bluetooth or GPS.

(Next page: Performance, Android, and Conclusions)

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