Aura H2O H2O Owners. Sell to me why I want one

[dillsandwitch]

Seriously considering upgrading from my Sony PRS-T1 to the Aura H2O.

What do you love? What do you hate? What features do you wish it did or didn't have?

TIA
Dill

[khalleron]

I moved from a T1 to an H2O a couple of months ago, so here are the Pros and Cons:

Pros:

MUCH nicer screen. Really really nice, big and clear and high res. Even my coworkers ooh and ah over it.

Easier to customize.

Frontlight. I didn't think I wanted this until I had it. Now I wonder why I didn't want it. It's great!

Bigger storage for more books.

Collections work much like they do on the Sony, except you'll have to consult the forums here how to set it up (it's not quite as straightforward).

I find it's a lot easier to operate one-handed, but YMMV.

Cons:

It's a lot heavier. Not just the screen is bigger, it's also thicker. That takes some getting used to.

No direct library connection (the only thing I really miss).

It doesn't come in pretty colors (I broke down and bought a Decal Girl skin)

If anything goes wrong, you'll have to deal with Kobo CS, which sucks big rocks.


Overall, I'm very happy with it. I do consider it an upgrade over the T1, which I loved.

[JSWolf]

I switched from a T1 for a number of reasons.

larger screen
higher resolution
better contrast
front light
better font support
better support for text sizes, line space, and margins
very customizable via the patches
more internal memory
sleep cover
better support for sleep timeout
newer version of RMDSK (ADE) with hyphenation
font adjustments

Some might find the following cons
no Evernote support
No Overdrive support direct on the Reader (the H2O does work with Overdrive ePub)
T1 is lighter

[PeterT]

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[bartveld]

Ontopic again: I too consider the purchase of an H2O, coming from an Aura, mostly for the bigger screen. One question: is the screen of the H2O flush? I really like that about the Aura.

Edit: Never mind. Should've googled a picture. It evidently isn't flush.

[tigerinexile]

I love the simplicity of its design.

That was forced by its need to have all the ports covered to be waterproof, but it's really nice having nothing showing on any edges except for the power/wake button.

Just got a synthetic leather sleep cover ($11 on Ebay), and that fits it nicely too.

Can't help re whether it's sufficiently better than other e-readers to warrant an upgrade -- this is my first Eink reader, brought on by frustration with tired eyes and 10-hour tablet battery life. I wouldn't have bought it without the water resistance and the ability of Calibre to pull together my library which is from all sorts of different sources. (On my IPad was just using lots of different apps.)

[cybmole]

i went from sony T2/T3 models to Aura HD and screen quality wise it was well worth it.
t3 to t3 was an uplift anyway but Kobo beats both IMHO,as that was withou the new carta acreen

but you also have to be OK with the different form factor.

& once i'd tried reading on Kindle fire HDX 8.9 , the retina display screen quality blew away the Kobo, so my reader of choice is now a tablet.

[Dr. Drib]

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[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by cybmole

i went from sony T2/T3 models to Aura HD and screen quality wise it was well worth it.
t3 to t3 was an uplift anyway but Kobo beats both IMHO,as that was withou the new carta acreen

but you also have to be OK with the different form factor.

& once i'd tried reading on Kindle fire HDX 8.9 , the retina display screen quality blew away the Kobo, so my reader of choice is now a tablet.

Retina resolution, as defined by Apple is 264 ppi, which is what the Kobo H2O sports. I find no difference resolution wise in text comparing my iPad 4 and the H2O.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

Retina resolution, as defined by Apple is 264 ppi, which is what the Kobo H2O sports. I find no difference resolution wise in text comparing my iPad 4 and the H2O.

maybe i shoudl have said screen resolution, not retina display then, anyway KF HDX > kobo / ipad on both counts
KF Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" has the highest resolution (2560x1600) and the best pixel density (339 ppi)

[arspr]

I came from PRS-650 but I can say:

H2O pros:

• The screen, the screen, the screen AND the screen. Carta e-ink (deeper blacks), bigger size, much more resolution and front light. It's just AGES better.
• It has some more dictionaries.
• PDF reader. It's not without faults, but at least it's usable.
• It supports CBZ/CBR comics.
• A stupid thing like sleepcover which is really useful.

Sony pros:

• IR Touchscreen sensitiveness and precision. As I've said in other threads, the PRS-650 stylus is just not seen by H2O (as example).
• Software, interface in general. I really think Sony got it quite right. The best example is ToC handling which is a full nightmare in Kobo (all the nested levels are flattened).
• Oxford dictionary quality is much better than Kobo whichever brand ones.
• No landscape mode in Kobos but in pdf reading.
• The stupid big header (only kepubs) and footer you get in Kobos which waste a lot of gorgeous screen space. Although this is becoming a non-issue with the FullScreenReading=true hidden setting.

(OTOH I don't care about internal/external memory. Any eReader with its basic memory size is capable of holding more epub books than you are probably going to read in your whole life. What's the point of saying "I've got 1.000.000 books in my device"?).

As a summary, GET the H2O without any kind of doubt. I mean, the more important think in an eReader is just how the book is rendered. And you are not going to be disappointed. The rest is just a matter of "yes, it could have been better handled but it's not so critical at the end".

[filmo]

PDF reading on my Sony T1 has text reflow which is fantastic feading some books. Other books it does not make reading better but does not make reading worse.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by filmo

PDF reading on my Sony T1 has text reflow which is fantastic feading some books. Other books it does not make reading better but does not make reading worse.

I have to disagree. If the PDF is graphic heavy, reflow can make reading worse.

[ryuji35]

Actualy, I don't know how to answer this one. Of course, in the web, this device is always compared to VOYAGE and the latter always wins due to the "Amazon Kindle Store.."

But what if we factor out the stores. Let's say all of our books are sideloaded and we are more on the device only, why should we get the H20?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ryuji35

Actualy, I don't know how to answer this one. Of course, in the web, this device is always compared to VOYAGE and the latter always wins due to the "Amazon Kindle Store.."

But what if we factor out the stores. Let's say all of our books are sideloaded and we are more on the device only, why should we get the H20?

ePub, bigger screen, more even screen (from what I've read), fully customizable (see the thread in the Kobo Developers forum on patching the H2O), more options, no need to jailbreak, can use side loaded fonts from the font menu, much more choices of font sizes, a lot less fixed then the Kindle. You can have eBooks look how you want and not how Amazon wants.