Gadgetory

sure we all love our 7-inch tablets but what's really appealing about them is that most cost only about two hundred dollars given that most 7-inch tablets are about the same price they each need something special in order to stand out the Kobo arc attempts to do this with a customized interface and enhance folder feature called tapestries and ever-present recommendations at the bottom of the home screen but that attempt unfortunately comes up short hi i'm eric franklin and today i'll take a first look at the Kobo arc the Kobo arc feels a little heavy for 7-inch tablet and features an unrefined design it's kind of blocky and the bezel isn't flush with the screen overall it feels a bit antiquated as the tablet market standard goes the ark includes a micro USB port for charging and file transfers a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera microphone ambient light sensor power / sleep button volume rocker headphone jack and two front facing speakers also the back cover can be removed they replaced with a different colored one at an additional cost the Ark ships with a custom version of ice cream sandwich and features something of an enhanced folder system that allows you to organize apps widgets pics and save articles you want to read later in a folder like place on the tablet Kobo calls these tapestries and while they're useful they don't offer any significant features beyond what folders do the other custom feature is the discover ribbon which is essentially an ever-present scroll of recommendations at the bottom of the home screen and by ever present I mean it never goes away and as far as I can tell there's no way to disable it apps loaded about the same speed as they do on the Nexus 7 which is quick enough but games run at a noticeably higher framerate on the ark thanks to as omap 4470 processor the kobo arc starts at two hundred dollars for 16 gigabytes of storage for more information check out my full review once again i'm eric franklin and this has been a first look at the cobo art