Kobo Arc 10HD: Perfect For Mom & The Whole Family #HolidayGiftGuide

Moms are constantly busy. We work, take care of our children and manage the household each day. Needless to say, at the end of the day we need to take some time to ourselves. From taking a hot bath with a glass of wine to sitting down to read a book we all have an outlet where we forget about the responsibilities of everyday life.  

I love to read books and when it comes to unwinding I enjoy fluffy romance books. I go through two to three books a week, so I obviously don’t want to be heading bookstore all the time. That’s why I love reading on a tablet that is especially designed with readers in mind. That way I get a perfect reading experience at night and I’m also able to use the tablet during the day while I work. The Arc 10HD is perfect for just that. It’s the latest tablet by Kobo boasting an impressive array of features. It was designed to provide the best reading experience on an Android tablet.

About design

First things first, the Arc 10HD is a sleek-looking tablet. Very business-like in black, it contains a slightly smooth finish on its backside as well as no overgrown edges on its front. Whereas the back has a slightly smooth finish this does in no way mean that it feels cheap or non sturdy. Quite the contrary in fact, and as you turn it in your hand and try to peel off the edges – a technique I employ whenever testing new electronics to see how tightly the joints are kept in place – you get the feel that this tablet could withstand a not-so-healthy amount of punishment if it ever came in contact with that necessity.

The 720p 1.3 MP front camera is placed on the right-hand side if you’re holding the Arc vertically which obviously means that it’s supposed to be enjoyed on its horizontal side, something that’s pretty standard these days for tablets the same size. The speakers, located behind the front camera, maintain the artistic coherence (not built on the bottom vertical side like some other HD widescreen tablets, hmm…) and help make this the one-stop multimedia device that’s also built as such. However, the speakers are not as loud as they could be in my experience, though loud enough.

If you don’t like superfluous buttons on your tablet you will most definitely love the Arc 10HD. There are only two buttons, both located on the upper right-hand corner when in horizontal position: The lock-screen/power snap button and the volume button – which looks like one button but is actually two. It actually took me a while (Yeah I know, I don’t get around tablets enough) to figure out that the volume button controlled the volume and wasn’t the power button. I must have held it for over 60 seconds without anything happening at one point before accidentally realizing that you have to push the edges to get any action from it. Returning to the design, the ArcHD features 3 ports all located on its upper left-hand side: Charging/micro USB port, a micro HDMI port, as well as headphone-jack in port.

About functionality

The Arc 10HD comes pre-loaded with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and is Google Play Certified. That means that you get to enjoy two different stores on one tablet; The Google Play store as well as the Kobo store. Yes it’s true that you could always get the Kobo app on a non-kobo tablet but the actual “Kobo” experience is integrated into Android and makes for a much better reading experience overall with the Kobo screen appearing with a mere right swap from the main screen.

The Kobo app itself is great at what it does. It has smooth page turns, allows you to control font style, font size, as well as page layout. You can chose between 3 reading themes: Classic, Night, or Sepia. The progress bar is accessible by the pressing of a button but hidden by default, I’ve always hated the fact that it couldn’t be hidden on my old Kindle (I was forced to sticker-it off). The app also does estimations based on your reading habits and thereby comes up with an approximated number of hours left to read on the books already undertaken, a feature I find pretty neat honestly. Obviously you can highlight-save passages from your books as well share whatever it is that you want shared through social media.

Back to the Android experience, the Arc 10HD runs as smooth and seamless an Android as I’ve seen. The only hiccup seems to be right after startup when it seems to need a bit of time to get things running smoothly, but as with all tablets these days they are all meant to be kept on at all times so you won’t or should’t be doing too much powering on and off.

The feature aspect of the Arc 10HD has to be it’s gorgeous 10.1” 2560 x 1600 HD+ Display (300 ppi) with up to 1080p video playback. My quadruply-priced laptop features only 1920 x 1080 max resolution by comparison and I paid extra for the screen. Warm colors are definitely emphasized and the screen does a masterful job of portraying them, everything looks stunning on the Arc 10HD.

Another important aspect for me as a parent is the relocation of the Android 3-buttons to the lower left-hand corner. It’s important because on my old Samsung Tab 3 they were smack-tab in the middle and my 3-year old daughter always seemed to press them by accident thereby interrupting whatever show she was watching. She’s had many fits because of the placement of the buttons and so far on the Arc 10HD it hasn’t been a problem at all.

My Verdict

The Kobo Arc 10HD has all the features that someone could want in a tablet and is underpriced compared to similarly-stacked competitors. It boasts an incredible with a focus on warm colors that will impress at first sight while being focused on reading through its Kobo integration in Android. All in all, I’m hard-pressed to find another one-stop entertainment machine that is better looking or has more features and that’s without even talking about the Arc 10HD’s very affordable price. I definitely recommend the Kobo Arc 10HD this holiday season. Not only is it a perfect gift for a mom who wants to unwind at the end of the day, but the whole family. 

To learn more about the Kobo Arc 10HD visit the Kobo website. Be sure to follow Kobo on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest to keep up-to-date with new releases. 

Disclaimer: Celeb Baby Laundry has not received any payment as a result of this feature. We were sent the product for the purposes of review.  All products featured must meet Celeb Baby Laundry’s Holiday Gift Guide standards. All opinions are our own.