[the.Mtn.Man]

I recently received my Kobo Aura in the mail. I've been using the Kobo Touch for the past few years but really wanted a lighted ereader. As I've been generally happy with Kobo and wanted to stick with the brand, I first considered the Glo but was put off by reports of an overly bright low setting, and so I looked at the Aura. Everything I read from reviewers and users was mostly positive, and so I decided that it would be my next ereader.

I have to say I am very happy with my choice. The Aura is a little smaller and weighs a little less than the Touch, which is nice, although the Touch itself isn't exactly a boat anchor. I really like the bevel-free design and clean lines of the Aura, and the capacitative touchscreen is extremely responsive, requiring only a light touch. In fact, it doesn't feel much different than the infrared screen on the Touch, and the Aura in general seems to be very fast and responsive. The text to my eye looks as dark and crisp as the Touch even though the grey background appears slightly darker on the Aura, at least under indoor lighting (probably because less light is getting to the e-ink surface due to the extra layers of material), but you could always use the Kindle Paperwhite trick of leaving the frontlight on all the time to lighten it up. There is a good selection of fonts, but it seems that Kobo replaced Rockwell, which I really liked, with Kobo Nickel which I find to be an inferior substitute (and unfortunately, Rockwell is a proprietary font and can't be acquired for free, at least not legally). So I've started using Caecilia, which seems decent enough, and I was able to thicken it up a bit by adjusting the weighting.

Page turns without a full refresh seems to work as advertised without introducing distracting artifacts, although it doesn't seem to refresh at every chapter break like I was expecting (a shortcoming of the Aura's interaction with epubs, perhaps?). I've looked at the display under bright lighting and haven't noticed any of the diamond patterning or "scratches" that people mentioned earlier in the thread, although I haven't had a chance to view it in direct sunlight. [Edit: And now that I have had the opportunity to look at the screen in direct sunlight, I see no evidence of blemishes whatsoever. It's just as clear and bright as the Touch, so the Aura is truly an e-ink reader for any lighting conditions.] The frontlighting is great, mostly even with no "pin pricks" or other blemishes, and very easy on the eyes even in a completely darkened room. I especially like the two-finger swipe to change brightness levels, although it seems a bit tricky to make fine adjustments. The internal lighting does seem to reduce the contrast of the text slightly, but it is still very readable, and I read several chapters last night without experiencing any eyestrain or fatigue.

I also bought the Kobo Sleepcover. At first I was worried about the design because the Aura is held at two points on the sides rather than at the corners like other covers, but the Sleepcover holds the Aura like a vise with absolutely no danger of the reader slipping out, and I really like the convenience of being able to power the device on and off simply by opening and closing the cover.

Setup was quick and easy, and props to Kobo for allowing us to do it over WiFi instead of having to use their desktop software (great for people like me who use Linux). I have around 650 books in my collection, and they transferred very quickly using Calibre, although it took about two-hours for the Aura to process them all.