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Okay, some impressions:
Love it. The "brushed" pattern on the top of the screen is present but only annoying when looking at the screen at odd angles.
I find the contrast more or less the same as my old, and now dead, Glo. The screen doesn't look as "printed on" as the Glo. There is a sense of depth to the screen (you can even see the bezel's shadow at the edges) but you get used to it quickly and since it's still e-ink it is a thousand or more times better than any LCD screen for reading black and white or grayscale text/images.
The screen is plastic which makes it more susceptible to scratches. Mine is already presenting some (I carry it with me all around the city, on the bus, street, cabs, in bed, etc. so it's has major exposure) so I have to be more careful with it. I have bought a case online now I hope it gets here quickly and fits well.
The new screen refresh tech is funky. It doesn't do the whole refresh thing but it does refresh like every other pixel. The transition makes it look like a ben day image for a second and is very reminiscent of cloth. I have gotten used to it now and like it but at first it made it seem "softer" somehow.
It is MUCH faster than the Glo (I think mine was on 2.8.x when it died but can't remember with any certainty) despite the same processor (incl. speed). I assume this has something to do with the 1GB of RAM. They never said how much RAM the Glo had but as they did highlight the amount on the Aura I am assuming it is more. Books load faster, pages turn faster, I can go back to home faster, the dictionary works faster, everything is faster. Well, maybe the connect to WiFi isn't but I think that's more of an energy saving feature.
Highlighting works better as does text selection. Still not perfect by any means but definitely better.
The screen is also much more precise thanks to the capacitive tech.
The illumination on mine is almost perfect. My only complaint is that the lowest setting can flicker, pulsing between two intensities. If I turn up the brightness and then lower it to the minimum again it can fix this but doesn't always. I don't mind because I get the impression that to truly avoid this they would have to make the minimum brightness setting higher and I don't want that. The truly lowest setting is perfect for reading in bed in total darkness while on the Glo it was a bit too bright to be truly comfortable. That of course means that the lowest setting is not good enough for reading on the street at night since you hold it farther from your face and have a bit more ambient light, enough to "diffuse" that coming from the reader. But this is why you can turn up the brightness and then read perfectly comfortably on the street at night (as long as you're in a safe neighborhood).
The new edges do remind me of holding a paperback book (the ones that I didn't care about or were old and worn and so I curved the cover back) but only if I hold it so my fingertips rest along the edge. I normally don't hold it that way... :/
I like the new power button. I originally thought I wouldn't because of how the red breaks up the black and how it looked in pictures but in person it's nice, it's easy to hold and move and has an organge semi-metallic sheen when the light hits it just right. The LED to show the device is turning on is now located beneath the powerbutton, lighting up the depressed rhombus that allows it to slide. This makes it easy to see when looking at it without the "harshness" of an LED when it shines directly in your eye. Personally I wish the light button were closer to the power button but that's because of how my fingers naturally rest when holding it in one hand (it would make it easier to press for me).
As the screen is plastic it feels good ("papery") and looks good with comparable glare to other ereaders but as I mentioned before is susceptible to scratches especially if anything lays on top of it or is placed face down there's a good chance it's making contact with the screen (the casing is higher than the screen, technically providing protection, but it's higher by but a fraction of a millimetre). The scratches, based on your usage, could vary between fine lines barely visible at the right angle to gouges. I definitely recommend some sort of protection (I have bought one from AliExpress, mentioned in the case threads, since buying the Kobo one would require too many hoops and would be too costly due to my location).
But in summary, I LOVE having an ereader again and I love the Aura in and of itself despite its shortcomings.
P.S. I had the same problem as Canuck100 but I didn't need to reset to fix that problem. I just erased the WiFi access point from memory and then added it again and then it seemed to work. Although I did do a factory reset but I honestly can't remember why.
One more note of a bug. On the epub I am currently reading (converted from Kindle format) if I highlight incorrectly and then try repeatedly to "fix" the highlight it will sometimes glitch still selecting text despite the selected text menus disappearing. Apparently as a result the bottom part of the text is cut off and requires a reset (soft, as in turn off and then turn on) to work properly again. It's a small glitch and easy to live with as it has a relatively painless workaround (thanks to faster boot and load times.)
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