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Well it has been a couple of weeks now. It is time to update my impressions.
The back is not as grippy as the previous Kobo models, and I have a problem with sweat that I don't have with other ereaders (Kobo and Kindle).
For long periods of time it is not comfortable to hold the side edge bezel, and it is much easier to hold the bottom of the device. But if I hold the bottom it is harder to turn pages. That being said it is the lightest ereader that I've ever owned. I did not really appreciate how light it was for awhile. It is actually lighter than the basic Kindle 4!
The native contrast on the screen is great. I initially observed that it was better than the Aura Ed. 2 and H2O Ed. 2. But it is more than that it, it is the best I've seen on an ereader since the Voyage.
The page turns are very fast. Sometimes I can't even see it change, and I have to process for a moment to realize that I'm looking at the next page. This is a big win for Kobo.
I made a big deal about the lack of ghosting on my first impressions. I can now say that you can see the usual uneven boldness on fainter fonts like Georgia. It's not bulletproof but it is harder to see on bolder fonts like Malabar. I set it to do a full refresh every 5 pages instead of every chapter and with those two settings I don't see any ghosting. I definitely overhyped this in my initial impressions.
The light is both better and worse than I initially thought. It took me awhile to end up in conditions where I needed to use it. And then I saw it has a bit of bleed on the edges and doesn't seem as uniform as literally every other Kobo model that I've owned. If you use the light frequently and especially at a high setting I would just avoid this device. This has to be said it is a critical design flaw that should put some people off of buying the Clara HD.
The way in which the light is better than I thought is that I cranked up the natural light setting last night and discovered that instead of looking orange, it looks really good under the warm light of my lamp. It perfectly blended with it so that the screen looked like a warm white.
Every single ereader that I've owned has at least one critical failing. In the Clara HD it is the uniformity of the light. If that is important to you, don't buy it. Else I highly recommend it.
It complements the Aura H2O Ed. 2 because it has one critical failing of having poor native contrast. So if you use the light extensively the H2O provides the better reading experience, but if you don't the Clara HD provides the better reading experience.
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