CES's most interesting e-reader still needs a bit of work before it hits prime time

E-readers have grown leaps and bounds as a category over the last year, thanks to a ton of new players entering the market and significant advancements in E Ink technology. You may not have heard of DuRoBo before, but this new company's first device, Krono, is doing something unique that attempts to set it apart from the pack.

DuRoBo's first e-reader attaches a digital crown to the side and adds quick recording features for note-takers, plus it runs Android 15 in a light frame that's comfortable to hold for a long time. Plus, it packs nice haptics into a device that usually goes without such niceties, adding tactility to its digital facade.

I've been using the Krono since early December, and while most of that time was spent on a pre-launch firmware, I received the v1.0 update right around when CES kicked off. DuRoBo sells it for $279.99/ €279.99 on its website.

A solid start

If you compare the DuRoBo Krono to Bigme's E Ink phones or dedicated phone-sized e-readers like the popular Onyx Boox Palma, it's clear they all share similar DNA (and probably some similar parts). Most of them use E Ink Carta displays — this one packs a black-and-white Carta 1200 HD with 300 PPI-equivalent resolution — ensuring that regular tasks don't feel sluggish like an old Kindle. You can quickly adjust the quality or speed via presets found in the Control Center.

They've also all got similarly chunky bezels, which, on a device this size, get in the way more often than they help, unlike a tablet. But the Krono is designed more for simplicity than to replace your phone most of the time, and it features a thoughtful scroll wheel on the side for lazy scrolling days.

One of the nicest things about reading digital books is that it's more effortless to hold a digital reader than to fold back stacks of pages of a physical novel. Plus, the construction is not only nicely textured matte plastic, but it also weighs just 168g, making it lighter than some other comparably sized e-readers. I wish it weren't so wide, but this is a common issue among e-readers of this size.

But while this wheel works brilliantly in some apps — web browsing and reading vertically-scrolling books like the Bible app are two examples — the wheel isn't customizable and doesn't work for horizontally-scrolling apps. That means the Kindle app, Google Play Books app, and anything else that scrolls horizontally won't do anything when you turn the wheel.

That's annoying enough on its own, but it's made even worse by the fact that turning the wheel delivers such a nice haptic tactility that it just begs to be scrolled all the time. That's not to say the wheel is perfect, as it feels rougher to turn when using a single finger versus pinching and turning as you might a typical dial, but I still would like to be able to use it all the time.

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DuRuBo's default launcher is purposefully minimalistic, featuring letters for app icons instead of whatever visual design you might be used to. This makes you more thoughtfully pick out what you're launching rather than be driven by design or colors, the way an OLED-equipped smartphone might. But the launcher is also very basic and lacks customization options.

Since this runs Android, though, you can swap it out with anything you want to use — I personally prefer Niagara Launcher. But you can't swap out the built-in Spark or Libby AI functions, both of which are quickly activated by clicking in the scroll wheel on the side.

It's not that these functions are inherently bad, but Spark is rather simple (and the AI summary feature for voice notes is infuriatingly slow), and I don't feel like I need to add yet another AI assistant to my daily routine.

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Because of this, I feel like the DuRoBo Krono is best recommended as a minimalist phone-sized e-reader. The experience is far simpler than comparable products, which is good, but I'd also like to see some more options for the existing functions.

Paramount to this is the need for some actual customization of the scroll wheel, as that currently has no customization at all. Some way to change scrolling from vertical to horizontal on a per-app basis will be a huge step toward making it more useful.

DuRoBo has just delivered the 1.0 firmware update, so I'm sure lots of new things are cooking for the Krono in the future. Here's hoping, because this will be an excellent alternative to more complicated e-readers once a few options are added.