[ProDigit]

Finally Black Friday brought me my Kobo to the front door, which I had ordered a week before.

Having owned a Sony PRS-505, a Kindle Paperwhite 1, an Ectaco Jetbook mini, and a Jetbook Color before, I can only compare my H2O to these, and my review might be 'colored'.
I'll try to keep my review to the things that stood out to me, and not the same repetitive info I've read elsewhere.


I went with the H2O, because I was not satisfied with the screen size of my paperwhite and Sony.
I always found that on a 6" screen, any paperback representation really looked too small.
Both in book format (Mobi/Epub), and especially PDF.
From the wide white borders, to the small columns of text, taking out valuable screen estate, forcing down the font size even further to fit the same amount of information per page as the real paperback.
And the problem wasn't the resolution!
Even with their 200 DPI resolution, 6" screens they were able to display text quite fine downto 8pt fontsize (which would be quite readable upto a few inches in front of the screen (or with magnifying glass).
The issue was my eyes, not comfortably able to see the letters at those small font sizes.

That was the cause of me going for the slightly larger (0.8" larger) H2O, instead of another Kindle.


Upon arrival of the package, and opening the box, it felt as if they had sent me an empty cardboard box. The weight of the device is about the same as the cardboard box that it came with; very lightweight; but still a bit uncomfortable to hold for long reads.
I'm not sure, but it feels a bit heavier than the Kindle Paperwhite 1.
I had wanted another 10-15% of weight reduction the least!

I can imagine why the Voyage gets so good reviews, as they're on the mark from weight perspective.


The 0.8" increase in size (diameter) of the H2O over the other devices out there, isn't large enough to be noticeable by itself, feels pretty much the same as the Kindle when by itself; but is noticeable when comparing side by side.

The extra screen SIZE (not resolution), helps me much more than just extra resolution; as it also fits my large hands better.

After looking at the screen, I believe I would have been comfortable if the screen was extended by another 0.5" to 1", and some of the bottom border removed.

My large hands where another cause of concern, as I didn't like to touch the screen every time I wanted a page turn. My thumbs would have to turn quite far from their comfort position to click on the right spot, however I found there's a setting that can make page turns easier on the hands (I tap, don't swipe, for pageturn).
I might have been more comfortable with hardware buttons on the device border/frames.


The battery with front LED off, stayed surprisingly long at 100%. After 2 hours of reading with wifi off, I still had 100%, and only after 3 hours did it go down to 96%


With LED off, the screen background was a bit more yellow than I had anticipated, reading from under incandescent light.
It's clearly not as white as printing paper, and from memory only marginally whiter than my almost 8 years old Sony PRS-505.
The darks aren't black, but rather dark grey; though clearly darker than the PRS-505, or even the Kindle Paperwhite 1.

The screen refresh happens a lot faster, partly due to it only fully flushing every 6 pageturns, instead of at every page turn.
The pageturns go fast, but the screen flush (completely going black and back), still are quite noticeable, though not too disturbing.
The Kindle Voyage has more of a 'rolling' refresh, where the black rolls like a wave over the screen, rather than a dark screen flash, and I would have preferred that instead...
But I can definitely live with the current screen flush, although I wished I could set it between 8 to 12 pageturns instead of 6.

The frame and border around the screen I liked less.
Though the border and screen have a "glare free" coating, there is a small part on the screen border (between screen and device border, part of the frame), which is reflective, and often distracting when reading.
Though it looks nice, I often find myself angling the device, to get the reflection from the lights off of it.

I also found the border attracting fingergrease very easily!


The flap on the bottom looks flimsy, and not 'confidence aspiring'-mounted to the device. I'm not fond of it.




I'm somewhat missing a nice pinch and zoom feature,
easier access to the web browser (from the homescreen),
and variety in the device's accessoires.


Lastly, both on the Kobo website, as well as on the device itself they mention ads to "Rakuten", a famous Asian sales website in electronics.
Funny enough, they don't sell any Kobo readers themselves, but you can find all kinds of accessories on there for any ebook Reader.