The Kobo Libra Colour is back to $229.99 at Kobo, Best Buy, and Target after a recent bump to $259.99, according to The Verge. That puts it $20 below Amazon's Kindle Colorsoft at $249.99, while matching the color-screen feature that drove Kindle's latest upgrade cycle.
E-readers have been a one-horse race for years. Amazon owns the habit, the store, and the default slot on most shopping carts. When a credible alternative undercuts Kindle's price while offering physical page buttons, waterproofing, note-taking support, and an open ecosystem, it stops being a niche play and becomes a real choice. That's the moment Amazon's moat shifts from loyalty to inertia.
This is what tech competition looks like when it finally reaches the stuff people actually buy. Not moonshots. A better screen, physical buttons, waterproofing, stylus support, and a price that lands below Amazon's closest match. If Kobo keeps showing up at retail with cleaner hardware choices and fewer ecosystem traps, Amazon's dominance starts to look less like preference and more like path dependency at $249.99.
Filed to the Technology desk · Jul 1