Dr Screenlove: Or how I learned to stop worrying and love my Aura 6in

[ppulle]

Hi,
I've had my Aura6 for about a month now and thought I'd write a mini review.

Buying it retail (Australia)
kinda tricky. For some reason jbhifi only sells pink ones. Officeworks doesn't stock it. Eventually I got one from BigW after getting the sales assistant to search in the basement.

History
I've had a kobo wifi which served me well. Then I got a mini, which is great when traveling on planes and trains, less so for automobiles. I upgraded to a touch which really increased my reading time. Only problem with it was the lack of a light, a clip on helped but was quite clunky.

So I decided to get a front lit kobo, which to choose, Glo,hd,aura?

HD a little expensive, Glo too much like the Touch , I went for the Aura.

Unboxing it
First impressions, the screen had less contrast than the touch and I was a little disappointed.
Firmware and responsiveness was great, nice and snappy.
Its light and easy to hold one handed.

Capacitive control
The flat screen page turning was actually better than the touch for me. More touchy than the touch(which was a little feely with the bevel)

The screen
I couldn't see any difference in the resolution to the touch. I'm sure there are differences, but they didn't stand out.
I had no defects in the screen or backlight.
Like I mentioned the screen had lower contrast and that slight yellow cast.

The solution was simple, I just jiggered around with font sizes and weights till I was happy. The contrast issue only comes into play when reading in dim, not dark light. The solution there was also simple, just put on the light a little bit, the two finger brightness control made adjustment easy. Problem solved.

So all in all I'm happy now. Just for fun I decided to go back to the Touch for a week before writing this review to get some...contrast. I lasted two days....

Summary, you may need to customize your reading settings to get comfortable, but that's no great drama with kobo.

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by ppulle

The solution was simple, I just jiggered around with font sizes and weights till I was happy. The contrast issue only comes into play when reading in dim, not dark light. The solution there was also simple, just put on the light a little bit, the two finger brightness control made adjustment easy. Problem solved.

Exactly, and the ability to gradually adjust font weight for the Kobo fonts makes it really easy to choose the contrast you want. I wish this could be done on user-added fonts without hacking/patching.

[TechniSol]

Well considering the post title and my Avatar, I suppose posting in this thread was inevitable. :-)

At any rate, I'll say thanks for the review. I'd read a few other posts where people had mentioned a yellowish tint and/or lower contrast and put it down to the capacitive layer on the new Aura. Sounds like it's not that much of a big deal as long as you're willing to use the unit as designed and employ the front lighting as needed.

Frankly, I think the Glo has the same need for the lighting as it seems to me the combination of front lighting layer and e-ink seems to render just a shade less contrast compared to the Touch when the Glo is not lit. I think it must just be the nature of the beast. That said, I'm still happier with the overall very smooth and glare free internal lighting on the Glo.

[jackastor]

Very well said!

regards

jack