A few people, (including myself), have posted in various threads requesting people who have an Aura to measure the available screen real estate when inside a book. To my knowledge nobody has replied with this information, so today I went to a WH Smith branch with the Aura on display, armed with a ruler, SD card with sideloaded ePub and my Paperwhite.
My impressions of the Aura, in this very limited setting, are that the screen is lovely and noticeably sharper than the PW, the light a vast improvement on the Glo as it appears to dim just as much as the PW, (as far as I could see under store lighting conditions), and a far better Home page than the PW (IMHO). I should mention that my PW is not registered with Amazon, I don't use wifi and sideload all my liberated books.
Unfortunately, because of all the security devices in place, I wasn't able to properly compare the weight and balance of the Aura when reading one handed.
The screen availability for text when inside a book:
- Aura kePub: height 11.2cm, width 9cm, diagonal 14.4cm
- Aura ePub: height 11.7cm, width 9cm, diagonal 14.8cm
- Paperwhite: height 11cm, width 7.9cm, diagonal 13.5cm
Obviously the width will depend on the margins set, these measurements were taken using the same margins so they may be compared with each other.
It looks as though if you read ePubs you will have an extra 1cm width and 0.7cm height available using the Aura instead of the PW. Obviously how much extra text this gives you will depend on the font, font size and line height used.
For myself, I am very tempted - has anyone had any experience of buying online and returning the Aura, within say 7 days from receipt, if you don't like it?
I hope this answers some questions.