portability

50% of the reviews on Amazon.co.uk give this product a positive rating.

51% of the reviews on Amazon.com give this product a positive rating.

Reasonably priced eReader/tablet hybrid ; Excellent Kobo eBook store

Second rate display causes eye strain ; Underpowered hardware ; Poorly thought out build choices ; Woeful battery life

For anyone buying an eBook reader primarily for, well… reading this will be the end of the matter. That said is the dream alive for an occasional reader who wants a cheap Android tablet?

Bright 1,024-by-600-pixel display. Tracks reading progress and statistics.

Unresponsive screen. Sluggish performance. Unpolished OS. Poor battery life for an ebook reader.

Conclusions With the Vox, Kobo tries to mimic the Amazon Kindle Fire, and fails in pretty much every way. Kobo was able to hit that magic $199 price point, but at the cost of performance and polish. The Kindle Fire is a great product at a budget price....

Easy to sideload apps ; Looks decent from afar ; Good selection of books

Feels cheap ; Screen can be unresponsive ; Software is sluggish ; Much slower than the Fire or Nook Tablet

Reading-centric interface tweaks to stock Android ; Well-designed reading interface

Comparatively thick and chunky to hold

Kobo's Android 2.3-based tablet offers a social-reading-focused, value-priced alternative to the big guns.

Big colour screen ; Comfy quilted back ; 1 million free books

Screen strains eyes ; No Android Market ; No USB charging

Cheap, Kobo's modifications make itservices easy to get into

It's neither the best solution for reading, nor the best for a tablet, battery life is poor, lacks Google certification

The compromise you have to make with the Kobo Vox is clear: it is good value for money and you get a tablet that has been reasonably well built and offers a wide variety of features. But you get neither the best tablet experience nor the best reading...

Colour display Reading Life features are fun Audio support.

Cheap build No case included Can't remove pre-installed apps Slow No way to browse the content of your e-reader Full Android market unavailable Not compatible with Adobe Digital Editions Can only add books via the Kobo book store.

Even though we understand why the Vox hit the market when it did, it was in no way ready for release, and it suffers for it.

Given its compatibility with Android apps, the Kobo Vox makes for a solid, more open alternative to the Amazon Kindle Fire or the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. The Vox lacks the polish and finesse of those models, but its emphasis on reading is very useful.