I have a 6" inch Kobo touch, which is about a 10 year old model. My partner has a kobo Clara - main advantage with his is he has backlighting and overdrive integration, which works with libraries here in Canada.
Pros of Kobo
- less of a walled garden. Kobo read pdfs, CBR, CBZ, epubs without needing to convert.
- easily hackable if that’s your jam. I have koreader installed on mine to read PDFs (the in-built pdf Reader is bad for text - but strangely good for manga?? Has to do with lack of margin cropping). It literally took me less than 5 minutes to install - and I can switch between koreader and in-built OS
- pocket integration (easily saves web articles)
- comes with Japanese dictionary
- You’re not supporting Amazon
Cons
- it is possible to buy Japanese books without switching between account but it’s a bit of hassle (I did it by creating a Rakuten ID, and then linking it to my Kobo account. Once I made a purchase I unlink the account and switch back to Cdn address. It works, but have to re enter address every time you do it)
- 6" is small for manga, but doable with double tap for zoom. If you mostly want it for manga, look into forma
- You can download custom dictionary (like if you want eng-jap), but they tend to overwrite when updating… But maybe this is a pro because it encourages you to user a jp-jp dictionary??