TL;DR
- The DuRoBo Krono is now available commercially in the US for $279.
- It comes with a smart dial to turn pages, and it can record and transcribe voice notes.
- It runs Android 15, has Play Store support, built-in speakers, and Bluetooth.
When DuRoBo showed off its ambitious new Krono e-reader at IFA in Berlin last year, it was only available on pre-sale from Kickstarter. Now, the company is actually opening regular retail sales of the device, and it’s received some useful new updates, as well.
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The specs remain pretty much the same as they were last year. The Krono features a 6.13-inch Carta 1200 ePaper display with a 300ppi resolution. It’s got an octa-core processor doing the heavy lifting, paired with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage — which are not numbers you usually see on e-readers. It’s powered by a 3,950mAh battery.
However, in the months that have passed since it was first unveiled, the Krono has received plenty of updates. For one, the software has been upgraded from Android 13 to Android 15. It’s not the latest, but it’s considerably fresher.
It now also comes with a native browser app, the ability to pin apps to the home screen, and support for the Korean language. More importantly, the unusual smart dial control knob now has a smoother page turning experience in third-party apps like Kindle. Users can also invert the scrolling direction of the smart dial — something DuRoBo says a lot of users wanted.
You still get all the other features that were shown off at IFA, including the “Spark” AI-powered note taking tool that lets you record voice notes and automatically transcribes them. It offers adjustable front lighting, and features a minimalist UI. Krono’s equipped with built-in speakers and provides Bluetooth support for audiobooks, podcasts, and music.
On paper, at least, it sure sounds like Krono has many of the right ingredients to be pretty capable e-reader. It’s available today from DuRoBo’s website and Amazon, and is priced at $279.
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