Video: CEO Mike Serbinis launches Kobo Vox

 By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

The Kobo Vox, an Android powered colored eReader with huge tablet aspirations, was officially launched elast night. The device is the first colored offering from Toronto-based Kobo (which recently got acquired for a cool $315 million by Japanese web retailer Rakuten) is geared to compete against the Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook Colour which are similar eReader Android tablet hybrid devices.

Currently available at Future Shop for $199, the Kobo Vox  eReader brings the best features of a standalone eReader and 7-inch Android tablet. In terms of look and feel, it is very similar to the BlackBerry PlayBook although substantially lighter.

As an Android tablet running Gingerbread (Android 2.3), many of the more important apps are present so browser, mail and multimedia (RDIO streaming music) as well as games and other social media apps. During the event we tried to acquaint ourselves with the device but the WiFi signal was weak and since many apps had been open on the demo units, they felt somewhat laggy.

The launch event featured some of the actual developers for Kobo like Zinio who reformats popular magazines makes magazines and makes them tablet ready. The developers demoed the device and explained its capabilites to throngs of curious guests.

We hope to review the Kobo Vox soon and see firsthand how it enhances the solid eReader experience provided by the previous Kobo products.