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From a quick scan of the reviews, most of them seem to be broken substrates. The substrate is a VERY thin piece of glass that makes up part of the e-ink screen. It is susceptible to breakage from direct impacts as well as from any twisting or bending of the device. Virtually ALL e-ink screens have this piece of glass and are susceptible to this. Lots of people that aren't aware of this put their reader in their purse/bag etc not realizing how fragile it is and when over time it stresses the screen and suddenly a temperature change (or just time) breaks it while it sits on the table overnight and they claim a defective product. Kindle may cover this as a good will gesture even though it is NOT covered under their warranty. Kobo doesn't have nearly as deep of pockets and therefore usually don't cover it. There have been a few cases I've seen here with screen problems that were not substrate breakage that Kobo has covered under warranty.
Long story short - treat your e-ink device reasonably and you shouldn't have a problem. I've owned a number of Kobo's since the original non-wifi version and never had a screen break, but I keep it in a hard wood/plexiglass case if I'm throwing in my luggage or something.
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